January 27, 2008 5:03PM

Women in Davos Tackle Maternal Mortality

By Alexis Glick

It’s Saturday morning and I’m almost home.! Yeah!! Just about two hours until we arrive and I can’t wait to see my boys! All four of them:). I’m one of “those.” You know, the ones who LOVE to travel but love coming home to their family even more! Anyhow there is so much that I have to tell you about my last 12 hours in Davos. Strap yourself in because this is going to be an unusually long blog!

On Thursday afternoon, amidst all of the craziness, interviews, press conferences, private dinners and parties I received several messages from Rupert Murdoch’s office. He was in Davos like many other of the other executives to discuss many of the global issues facing the planet and in particular spoke on a panel about Rebuilding Brand America (Five Suggestions for the Future President). I was hoping to see him there, either personally or professionally. We tried to set something up in advance while in New York but his schedule was so busy, and the thing about Davos is you are in one meeting after another from 7am to midnight, if not later. So we decided we would exchange contact numbers and emails once we got on the ground and play it by year.

So back to Thursday afternoon. After responding to Rupert’s office and contacts on the ground, I received an invite to dinner on Friday night from Wendi Murdoch, Rupert’s wife. Yes, I was so thrilled and excited!!! I’ve had many meetings and dealings with Rupert while launching and creating the FOX Business Network but have only been to several events with Wendi, and I was so incredibly touched that she invited me to dinner. So the message was a private dinner hosted by Wendi, Queen Rania of Jordan (Wow) and Indra Nooyi of Pepsi (you know, chairman and CEO). Three of the most powerful women in the world. You can imagine my excitement! What do I wear? How do I get there? Where is it?

My producer and photojournalist were heading back to Zurich on Friday at 5pm. I was planning on going with them but when I saw the invite I knew this was going to be special and I had to stay on my own. So I made arrangements to stay, I saved my prettier dress of the two that I brought with me, and I went to the dinner.

Imagine a log cabin in the middle of a golf course covered in snow in the middle of nowhere. The sky is clear, the stars look like crystals and the mountains surrounding you are glowing in the moonlight. It was like a Norman Rockwell painting Dreamy……beyond dreamy. Majestic!

Imagine you’re on your own, where everyone speaks German, your colleagues have left, you have to carry all of your luggage (I planned to return to Zurich after the dinner so that I would make my flight the next morning) and the taxi drops you off at the wrong place. Yes, it happened to me. It always happens to me! The problem is it always seems to happen when you’re most excited, nervous and cannot be late. I arrive at another stunning hotel lobby and ask for the hotel lobby to hold my luggage, take my boots off, put my heels on and no one knows where the dinner is. You could only imagine. What am I going to do? Luckily there was another wonderful local young man who had checked my luggage and who kindly reviewed the email invite and said I was in the wrong location. He quickly offered to drive me — for 20 swiss francs no less but I would have given him anything:). The good news is my parents taught me to be on time so I was about 15 minutes early to the other hotel and therefore I arrived perfectly on time at the Golf Club Davos Mattastrasse.

So I walk in and I am greeted by Indra and her colleague Julie Hamp. Wow!!! I look around the room and realize that it is a room full of women. As you can imagine I had no idea what to expect. I was told that it was an invite to a private dinner but I had no idea who would be attending. The women in the room make my heart skip a beat just telling you. Wendi Murdoch; Indra Nooyi; Queen Rani; the Saudi Arabian Royal Family’s Princess Loulwa Al-Fiasal (grandaughter of King Abdulaziz, the founder of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and a champion of women’s education and Vice Chairwoman of the Board and the General Supervisor of Effat College) and daughter (also a Princess); Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the former Finance and Foreign Minister of Nigeria (a role never occupied by a woman in history) and now a managing director of the World Bank, which makes her the second most powerful person at the World Bank behind President Robert Zoellick; Brenda Barnes, the president, chairman and CEO Sara Lee; Annie Lennox; Lucy Southworth (Larry Page’s better half :)…you know the Google guys); Sarah Brown, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s wife; former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s wife Cherie Booth; Joanne Lipman, Portfolio magazine’s editor, and so many others that would take your breath away. I’d say about 30 to 40 women in all arrived for a sitdown dinner. The purpose of the meeting? Maternal mortality. Are you still breathing? I’m not

So what is maternal mortality? It’s when a woman dies while giving birth to her baby. In the developing world, 1 in 7 women die from childbirth. In developed countries like the United States, that’s 1 in 48,000. Every minute across the world, one woman dies in childbirth due to pregnancy related complications. The child is orphaned and the family is devastated. If a woman dies during childbirth, 9 out of 10 times the newborn will die, too. To demonstrate how shocking and truly devastating it is, Indra posed for a picture with six other women. Why? Because one in seven of us would die in child birth, she said. Throughout the night I listened to women, many of whom had never met each other before, discuss ways to make a difference and change the health care, training and outlook for women everywhere. To say that I was touched and in awe would do it little justice. These women spoke with passion and commitment. They spoke from the heart. Many of them have their own children and couldn’t imagine losing their mother, sister, friend or co-worker to birth. Many of them have lived in places like Africa. They have seen firsthand how little is needed to change the circumstances. It disheartens every one of us and yet somehow we feel disconnected here in the United States. How can we reconnect? Reach out? Make a difference? Change one person’s life?

Indra told us a story about how each year her executive team gets a $200 gift card. This year, each executive received a child. For $22 a month for two years, Pepsi paid for each executive to in essence adopt a child by giving them the funds needed to change their life: receive health care, shelter, education and hope.

Annie Lennox talked about her cause called Sing. She has traveled throughout Africa and is very passionate about changing the life expectancy for young children infected with HIV Aids. She told us a story about one young girl with HIV that she met while traveling in Africa. The family had picked out a casket for her imminent death. Caskets are commonplace and parents and loved ones see no opportunity for hope because they have no way of fighting the inevitable. She brought us a photo of what she looked like when they first met and then a photo of her six months later. It took your breath away. The first photo was of a child malnourished and on the brink of death. She was a healthy, beautiful girl glowing with chubby cheeks. She talked about her hope and her plans and she said, “I found my calling. I use my voice and my music to spread a message and I will fight this cause until the day I die.”

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who just became a managing director several months ago at the World Bank and probably is one of the most inspirational speakers that I have ever heard and someone who grew up in Africa, told us the real truth, or as she said the “uncomfortable truth.” She talked about how so many of the continent’s best and youngest doctors are educated and then leave the continent to practice medicine elsewhere. She said this is our fault, we need to incentivize them to stay home and provide care. She talked about the men, the husbands who don’t want or allow their wives to receive health care. How they deny a birthing coach or doctor in their homes. How the supplies and medical training required are so minimal it would break your heart. She talked about organizations, foundations, NGO’s that speak about change and yet they don’t have local African women or men at the table to discuss that change.

As you can imagine, it was an evening I’ll never forget but there’s more. Wendi Murdoch — whom I fell in love with (I know that she is my boss’s wife but this has nothing to do with it…honestly) — grabbed me and introduced me to every woman in the room. She planned the event down to every detail. She was stunning, fun, genuine and treated me like I was her sister. She shepherded me through the entire night. She’s infectious! The kind of person you gravitate toward. The life of the party, and oh, by the way, she’s as tall and thin as Cameron Diaz. I’m jealous She sat me directly across from her at the table and next to the editor of The Sun in London Rebekah Wadw (the first female editor of the newspaper and also the first woman to edit a “red copy” daily owned by News Corp) and Larry Page’s wife. She also created this myspace page dedicated to the cause. I urge you to take a look: myspace.com/davosdinner

So you think the story ends here. Well it does not!!!! It gets even crazier. Strap in. This is a moment I’ll NEVER forget. In the middle of the dinner Wendi got up a couple times to sneak into the kitchen. I could tell she had something up her sleeve but I couldn’t tell what. Bono, in a chef jacket, walks out and serves us dinner. Are you freaking out? I was speechless. In his yellow shades no less. My favorite singer and band of ALL time and he serving us dinner. No music. No speech. Just helping out and making the women swoon. That’s not all! About a half hour later wine and water served by Sergey Brin, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt from Google. Are you dying? I am :). Then like any great gentleman, my boss and Wendi’s husband, Rupert, comes out serves us water and, here’s the real kicker, vodka shots! It was priceless and precisely why he is who he is. A media mogul, a risk taker, a visionary and a real human being just like everyone of us who likes to have some fun. You ask what was he wearing? A button down shirt, pants and sneakers

There have been moments in my life that I’ll never forget, like meeting my husband, marrying my husband, giving birth to my three sons, watching Cal Ripkin break the record for consecutive games played in Camden Yards, going to Super Bowl XXXII when Denver beat the Green Bay Packers, winning an award for alumni achievement from Columbia University and meeting a man who said Starbucks saved his life. This is one of those moments!

A little later I’ll bring you my recap of DAVOS 2008, including highlights and what you can expect next on this blog (hint…..it’s in Phoenix and it involves New York and New England:) !!!