Guinness Ghana, Ghana’s leading total beverage business, has been adjudged West Africa’s leading business with Women in Executive Committees at the just ended 10th Accenture Gender Mainstreaming Awards held in Accra.
The award is in recognition of the business’ exemplary and successful gender mainstreaming programme to shift statistics in terms of women representation on executive committees and embedding it as a core business practice.
The beverage company also emerged finalists in three other categories: Women on Boards, Women Empowerment in the Workplace, Investing in Young Women in the West Africa categories.
Commenting on this recognition, Corporate Relations Director, Sylvia Owusu-Ankomah indicated that this award is an indication of the company’s commitment to creating the most inclusive and diverse culture, as well as shaping market-leading policies and practices because it is both the right thing to do and helps our business to grow.
“We have consciously increased the current number of women in executive management. Four of the eight (8) members of the Executive Management Team currently are women. Currently two (2) of the four women on the Executive Management team serve on the company’s board”, she noted.
She noted that Guinness Ghana’s motivation to embed gender diversity across its value chain stems from its commitment to build a diverse and inclusive culture, which is ingrained in the company’s Society 2030: Spirit of Progress agenda.
“We have deployed policies and practices that are progressive and supporting our people to thrive because that the most inclusive and diverse culture makes for a better business and a better world. It is critical that people from different backgrounds and opinions especially women, can express themselves and thrive within our company”, she added.
She noted that to walk the talk on this gender parity ambition, the company has instituted policies that support flexible working hours, rolled out a six (6) month paid maternity leave, and championing gender diversity with an ambition to achieve 50% representation of women in leadership roles by 2030.
The Accenture Gender Mainstreaming award, organized under the aegis of Business Engage, seeks to encourage private sector and government to mainstream women representation in organisations, and to reward companies that have already understood the business case for gender diversity and started their programmes.
