UAE Gender Balance Council initiative aims to increase entry and retention of women in leadership positions to 30% by 2025
Emerson has joined a group of two dozen major multinational companies in signing a pledge to promote gender equality and increase leadership roles for women in the United Arab Emirates. The “Pledge to Accelerate Women’s Leadership in the UAE Private Sector” seeks to ensure equal pay and fair compensation practices, promote equitable recruitment and promotion, guarantee fairness in policies and encourage transparency about progress.
The public-private initiative was founded in 2019 by the Private Sector Advisory Council (PSAC) of the UAE’s National Committee on SDGs, the UAE Gender Balance Council (UAE GBC), and the Federal Competitiveness and Statistics Centre (FCSC) to meet the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5: Gender Equality, which prioritizes highlighting the importance of women’s participation at all levels of decision-making in business.
To achieve this, Emerson and 23 business leaders in strategic sectors including manufacturing, energy, finance, defense, aerospace, information technology and health care pledged to increase the entry and retention rates of women in leadership positions to 30% by 2025. Emerson is among 15 U.S. companies that have signed the pledge to date.
“As part of our efforts to build a dynamic work culture, we are committed to accelerating the role of women in our company’s leadership in the UAE,” said Vidya Ramnath, president of Emerson Middle East and Africa. “We are also honoured to be recognised as the ‘Oil and Gas Inclusion and Diversity Company of the Year’ at ADIPEC 2022 for our successful initiatives that positively impact the industry through diversity, equity and inclusion programs.”
Globally, Emerson aims to increase the representation of women in leadership from 20% in 2021 to 40% by 2030. Likewise, the UAE has prioritized the UN SDGs in its strategic plans and operations, strengthening Emerson’s commitment to promote diversity, equity and inclusion in its workplace.
The pledge is the latest of several important Emerson initiatives that aspire to improve gender parity, such as the Women’s Impact Network, an employee resource group (ERG) that offers support, mentoring and networking opportunities for its 6,000 members across the globe. Emerson also hosts other programs, including webinars and events with organizational partners like the Society of Women Engineers, to attract a new generation of women to its workforce. Learn more about the company’s efforts toward achieving the sustainability goals in the 2021 Environmental, Social and Governance Report.
