Jazz wins first place at the 2nd Gender Diversity Awards
August 8, 2023
It gives the team at Centre of Excellence in Responsible Business immense pleasure to announce the winners of the IFC-PBC “Employer of Choice” Gender Diversity Awards. It was a tough competition and many companies performed exceptionally well. Alas, only three could be awarded the gold, silver and bronze.
Jazz was the winner with PepsiCo and Engro Fertilizers Limited in second and third place. This was Engro Fertilizer’s second win. The ceremony was an auspicious occasion to mark these companies’ tireless dedication to gender diversity.
The honorable mentions in the top 10 were Bank Alfalah Limited, The Bank of Punjab, Daraz, K-Electric , Standard Chartered Bank and Syngenta.
To kick off the event, Naz Khan, Principal Country Office-Pakistan , IFC – International Finance Corporation shared statistics on Pakistan’s progress in gender equality. While we have a long way to go, she shared that she is hopeful that initiatives like the Awards remain a way to create a culture of disclosure and encouraging women to participate in the workforce.
Keynote speaker, Fauzai Viqar, Federal Ombdusperson for the Protection Against Harassment of Women in the Workplace, addressed the audience that all issues about women’s participation in the workforce should be viewed holistically and with a lens of gender. Awards like the “Employer of Choice” Awards ensure that corporations are doing their part to build inclusive workplaces.
In a panel discussion titled Business Imperative for Transparency and Reporting on Inclusion, Ehsan Saya (Daraz), Naz Khan, Fathema Zuberi (Unilever) and Zeelaf Munir (The Pakistan Business Council) shared their perspectives on why businesses should report their progress in the sphere of gender diversity. It helps in assessing a business’ own operations and the environment within which they operate.
Programme Manager, CERB Rajaa Bokhari, shared her findings from a preliminary analysis of the Scorecard with a sector-wide breakdown and the new trends that emerged with a very positive one being the level of disclosures increasing across the board.