Education and empowerment at the WiN conference

Women in Nautica sees technical developments as chance to achieve more diversity

“I picture the future of the leisure marine industry in five years with more female leadership, women in management positions,” says Ana Čalić. She is the founder of Women in Nautica, marketing director at yachting equipment distributor Navela in Croatia and founder of Nautical marketing agency WinDS. “And I expect to see much more mentorship programmes,” she continues. “Succesful women would be among the mentors and train younger women to achieve great things in their careers.”

Expansion

Čalić is the organiser of the Women in Nautica (WiN) conference at Metstrade 2025 in November. Nine speakers will share their visions on the industry. Trends and developments will be discussed. Female industry leaders shall give presentations about electrification of leisure boating and how this change from fossil fuel combustion engines towards electric propulsion can help in the process of diversification in the sector of leisure boating. A second presentation will show how establishing good relationships with all the stakeholders in and around the marine industry contributes to sustainable development. All the speakers are female industry executives to demonstrate and accelerate empowerment.

“During the conference, we will have an announcement of three new project segments, which we're developing for next year,” Ana adds. “So, we will announce an expansion of the Women in Nautica network and activities. Next to that, we will also have a fresh edition of our Women in Nautica magazine, which is basically an educational takeaway of the conference.” Apart from the half-day conference that WiN is organising, there is also a podcast and a YouTube channel, where nine editions are online and a new edition is published every month.  

Educational

Čalić shares her expectations for the WiN conference: “The conference doesn't have only a networking background, it also has an educational and promotional effect. We want to make it not only a safe space for women and other attendees to exchange experiences, but additionally to be educational in the sense we're really looking at the latest trends in the industry. What's new in terms of sustainable development, maybe a bit of the state of the industry as currently the boating industry is facing a setback.

We're trying to put all of the current developments into different topics, either through a presentation or a panel discussion. And we want to make it a really focused event, which is not only contributing to inclusivity, but also has like a high educational and professional note. We are focussing on electrification and topics related to sustainability. There will be panel discussions, which will feature how female empowerment is contributing to global business development. Here, we have panellists from different segments of the industry. They will give fresh insights on how business development can occur in each of their sectors.”

Human Intelligence

In a previous interview with Metstrade News, Čalić expressed her expectations of increasing automation in the marine industry. Today, she urges that the use of apps and artificial intelligence remains a tool. “Automatisation and the use of AI can help humankind, no matter the inclusivity background of it. It can increase efficiency, it can definitely help with some resources and some projects. I think that in the long run, all of these things need to stay as tools to be used by humans, because otherwise we will be overrun in one way or another. Artificial intelligence is great to use when it's used and controlled by human intelligence.”

Highlight strengths

Iniially, the young female manager in the boating business started what is now WiN as a network organisation for young people in the marine industry, “When I joined the business, I experienced a bit of a hurdle in joining the industry. Then my initiative was first a community of young people in the boating industry. This community attracted mostly women who were seeking tto share experiences and inspire one another. That's how we started Women in Nautica.

It's not a feminist initiative, it's an inclusivity initiative. We are welcoming everyone. Anyone can come to the conference. Anyone can join the podcast. We also had male panellists last year. WiN is an inclusivity initiative, which is not focussing on the problems but rather on the positives. We highlight the experience and the strengths of women in the boating industry.”

Join forces

Čalić sees WiN as complementary to other programmes like the Magenta Project, that is empowering people from diverse backgrounds to develop as sailing athletes and promote diversity throughout the industry, and the WISTA network in the maritime industry. “We are focussing on the recreational segment of the boating industry. The participants and panellists, which we had on the first edition were boat dealers, boat builders, charter companies, boating media, boating insurances, al of them in the recreational segment. We do not specifically target the luxury yachting segment with vessels over 25 metres of length.

We are reaching out to all the other initiatives in the marine sector and seeing how we can collaborate because we believe we can be complementary to each other. In this day and age, it doesn't make sense to be competitive. The point is that we're all trying to reach a common goal together. If we merge forces, I think a really positive impact can be made.”

The conference at Mets is called the ‘MiniWiN’, as it is only half a day. However, there will be three presentations and several panel discussions. The addition ‘mini’ does not reflect on the quality of the information shared. There will be a bigger WiN conference in December or early 2026, Čalić announces.

https://womeninnautica.com
https://www.metstrade.com/news/humans-of-metstrade/humans-of-metstrade-with-ana-calic