Initiatives from The Coca-Cola Company, Alcoa Inc., and Unilever are the recipients of the 2013 Catalyst Award, the prestigious annual award honoring exceptional initiatives that expand opportunities for women and business.
“This year’s Catalyst Award-winning initiatives demonstrate that global gender diversity strategies at multinational corporations can be designed and implemented in ways that successfully meet the needs of local regions and businesses,” said Ilene H. Lang, President & CEO, Catalyst. “And they are all championed by male CEOs who understand the strong business case for including women in top leadership and have made women’s advancement an organization-wide priority from day one.”
Since 1987, Catalyst has recognized exceptional business initiatives that advance women in the workplace with the Catalyst Award, which embodies Catalyst’s vision of “Changing workplaces, Changing lives.” This year’s Award-winning global initiatives include:
• Alcoa Inc.’s Building Opportunities for Women in a “Hard Hat” Company breaks down barriers in a male-dominated industry and achieves greater gender representation through an aggressive diversity agenda, with accountability tied to executive compensation and innovative talent management programs that Alcoa’s business units can customize to develop women supervisors and leaders in Alcoa’s refineries, smelters, and factories worldwide.
• The Coca-Cola Company’s Global Women’s Initiative: Women as the Real Drivers of the 21st Century is a strategic, internal and external initiative focused on fueling the advancement of women into leadership roles across the company’s organization, and on economically empowering women entrepreneurs throughout the system value chain—accelerating women as dynamic leaders within the business and within communities across the globe.
• Unilever’s Global Reach With Local Roots: Creating a Gender-Balanced Workforce in Different Cultural Contexts accelerates the advancement of high-potential women across different regions by leveraging the company’s strong foundation of cultural diversity and multinational expertise to promote a culture of inclusion and by creating flexible “anytime, anywhere” work-life programs.
Alcoa Inc., The Coca-Cola Company, and Unilever will present in-depth discussions on their initiatives at the 2013 Catalyst Awards Conference at The Waldorf=Astoria in New York on March 19, 2013. The Conference, which is sponsored by Wal-Mart, will feature keynote speaker Ursula Burns, Chairman and CEO, Xerox Corporation.
In the evening, the 2013 Catalyst Awards Dinner, sponsored by RBC and Shell Oil Company, will be chaired by Denise Morrison, President and Chief Executive Officer of Campbell Soup Company. Close to 100 CEOs of major multinational corporations and firms are expected to attend, along with nearly 1,600 guests, including leaders of major corporations, firms, academic institutions, and nonprofit organizations.
