EGA to add more women in supervisory positions

Dubai - Women currently hold 18 per cent of supervisory positions at EGA in the UAE.

Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA), the largest industrial company in the UAE outside oil and gas, today marked Emirati Women’s Day by publicly announcing a target to increase the proportion of women in supervisory positions at EGA in the UAE to 25 per cent by 2025.

Women currently hold 18 per cent of supervisory positions at EGA in the UAE, working at all levels in the company’s Operations and corporate functions. Two members of EGA’s Executive Committee are women. EGA employs more than 400 women around the world.

Abdulnasser bin Kalban, chief executive officer, EGA, said: “Improving diversity enhances business performance. Although we have made considerable progress at EGA, we recognise that we need to do more. We want the best people to join EGA irrespective of their gender, and to progress based on their ability and commitment to succeed. We recognise that setting a target is just the beginning. To achieve it, we will develop further our inclusive leadership and culture, and focus on developing and progressing our high performing female employees.”

EGA’s achievement of its target will contribute to the UAE’s long-standing national objectives to increase the participation of women in the economy and society.

Iman Al Qasim, executive vice-president of Human Capital, EGA said: “The UAE is one of only a few countries in the world where more women than men graduate with degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. It is important to our future success that EGA recruits and retains the most able people from this talent pool and focuses on embedding gender diversity goals in our long-term human capital vision.”

EGA tracks gender balance in recruitment, retention and succession planning. The company is currently rolling out a mentoring programme for women, led by the most senior executives in the company, focused on personal development and career growth.

Last year the company launched the EGA Women’s Network, a forum for women at all levels of the company to share their achievements and challenges, and to develop and grow.

The EGA Women’s Network launched a bi-weekly series of webinars on business and operational topics, as well as virtual panel discussions featuring successful women talking about how they reached the pinnacle of their chosen fields.

EGA is a partner of Aurora50, a UAE initiative to build the pipeline of women with the required experience for board-level positions. Six positions on subsidiary boards within EGA have been taken by women since the start of 2021.

Chairwoman of the Women’s Network and EGA General Counsel, Head of Compliance, & Company Secretary, Katherine Hahm, said: “It is fantastic to be working for a company like EGA that values diversity and recognises its importance by placing metrics behind it. The 25 per cent target is a great step in the right direction and I am confident that we will be able to further build on this with the initiatives that EGA is putting in place to support and develop women.” — business@khaleejtimes.com