CCI
Pledges to Increase the Number of Women Employees in Managerial Positions
Coca-Cola
İçecek (CCI) promised to increase the ratio of women in manager and senior
executive positions by five percent until 2025. With this pledge it made to the
LEAD Network –an international non-governmental organization that supports
woman leaders who work in the retail and consumer goods industries and aims to
increase the number of senior female executives and contribute in their
development– CCI took its place among the leading companies in the fast-moving
consumer goods industry.
Following the Roundtable
Meeting in September by the LEAD Network Turkey to discuss the issues of
diversity and inclusion with the participation of the CEOs of Turkey’s leading
companies, the international leg of the organization was held on 6 October.
After the meetings where the topics of diversity and inclusion and best
practices were discussed to plan the next steps based on experience, CCI set
out to consolidate their commitment in this field.
Burak Başarır, CEO,
Coca-Cola İçecek, James Quincey, Chairman and CEO, The Coca-Cola Company, and
Mick Broekhof, Co-founder, Lead Network, attended an online signing ceremony on
26 October 2020, where CCI commited to increase by five percent the ratio of
women working at manager and senior executive positions by 2025, taking its
place among the leading companies that made this pledge in the fast-moving
consumer goods industry. The CEO Pledge is given as part of plans structured to
institute gender equality in companies and positioned as a promise underlining
a determination to demonstrate a pro-gender equality attitude and increase the
ratio of women in the world of finance-business.
“We
aim to advance this sense of equity across all our areas of operation”
Underlining their goal to
extend their understanding of offering equal opportunity regardless of
religion, language, race or gender to all areas, Coca-Cola İçecek CEO Burak Başarır
said they aimed to act as a driver to this end through sectoral collaboration.
Emphasizing on how they
looked out to advance this sense of equity across all areas of operation, Burak
Başarır said they had encouraged their business partners on the matter. Başarır
said: “In our policies that started with the Workplace Rights we published in
2013 before transforming into Human Rights in 2019, we both determine the
framework and renew our pledge on this subject. Principles of the Policy
including Diversity and Inclusion, Arbitrary Discrimination, Safe and Healthy
Workplace clearly demonstrate our distinct point of view on the matter. Again,
within this framework, we use the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles (WEPs), to
which we have been a signatory since 2015, to guide our efforts aimed at
supporting and developing our woman employees and we believe we still have a
lot more to do on this matter. We firmly believe in all our employees and
intend to make sure that all of our employees will take the responsibility to
realize our goal.”
About Coca-Cola İçecek
CCI is a multinational
beverage company which operates in Turkey, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan,
Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Jordan, Iraq, Syria and Tajikistan. As one of the key
bottlers of the Coca-Cola system, CCI produces, distributes and sells sparkling
and still beverages of The Coca-Cola Company.
CCI employs close to 8,500
people and has a total of 26 plants in 10 countries, offering a wide range of
beverages to a consumer base of 400 million people. In addition to sparkling beverages, the product portfolio includes
juices, waters, sports and energy drinks, and iced
teas.
CCI's shares are traded on
the Istanbul Stock Exchange (BIST) under the symbol "CCOLA.IS", and
Eurobond is traded in the Irish Stock Exchange, under the symbol
"CCOLAT".
About the LEAD Network
With the belief that
organizations could generate more sustainable value, the LEAD Network has been
allowing both men and women to achieve their full potential and lead their
respective organizations into the next level of value creation since 2014. Based
in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, with regional setups in Germany, Spain, United
Kingdom, the Netherlands, France, and Switzerland as well as Turkey, the LEAD
Network has more than 5,000 members across Europe. In Turkey, the organization
operates with nearly 300 members.