In celebration of the International Women’s day, we are hosting a virtual panel to discuss Women’s Advancement in the Workplace.

Our panel features female business leaders in the Gulf region, who will discuss how their organisations have increased diversity representation and created an enabling environment to support women as they advance in their careers.

Specifically, our panelists will cover:

• Ranya Saadawi, Executive Director – Pearl Initiative

What we’ve learnt:

• The importance of leadership and their values to promote women in the workplace is essential. The success of emerging women leaders depends heavily on the mid-level and senior managers who are primarily responsible for their promotion. Thus, mid-level and senior leaders have an active role to play in ensuring that emerging women have the same opportunities for advancement, promotion, and career growth as their male co-workers.
• Establishing an enabling company culture that supports women’s workplace inclusion and provide opportunities for women to showcase their value to others. Organisations should design and implement solutions and initiatives such as mentorship programmes for women, study and training opportunities as well as integrating corporate responsibility throughout the organisation to address gender inequalities within an organisation.
• Gender equality and diversity policies demonstrate a workplace’s commitment to improving measurable gender equality outcomes with respect to employee representation, value, safety and recognition. Organisations should be placing focus on creating a space where women can celebrate a healthy work life balance, which is an important element for women’s retention within a company.
• Companies such as KPMG are leading the way for workplace diversity and inclusion by putting support into place for all female employees, such as extended and flexible maternity leave. In addition, they encourage innovative and forward-thinking women to share actively put forward their ideas, to support them in their upward mobility