“Women’s Leadership in Decision-Making: Breaking Through the Glass Ceiling in Europe” live from UN Global Leaders Summit floor.

Featuring Tatiana Espinosa De Los Monteros, Global Labour Relations Director, Telefónica; Nino Kvernadze, Executive Director, Adjara Group Hotels; Marguerite Soeteman-Reijnen, Chairman of the Executive Board, Aon Holdings B.V. and Aon Group International N.V.; Eira Thomas, President & CEO, Lucara Diamond; Ioulia Tseti, President and CEO, Tsetis Pharmaceutical Group.

• As more and more women enter leadership positions in business and government, women pave the path for others to follow.
• Marguerite Soeteman-Reijnen leads a panel discussion on how each of the leaders addresses inequality in their industry and their country.

By empowering women internally and throughout the supply chain, these women leaders walk the talk as they share their experiences with building gender equality in their industry and in their country. In this new post pandemic reality, more and more customers, clients, and stakeholders want companies with values. Strong bias against women, however, still exist in the business world. A common thread emerged: when you partner and collaborate with local businesses and local entrepreneurs, you empower women in turn. Another impactful tactic is implementing polices and procedures that address gender equality. Management and Directors should also follow up with check in reports on those policies and procedures. There’s still a lot of work to do but the data we’re seeing is positive as we progress to a more equitable world.

From the panel

Tatiana Espinosa De Los Monteros (Global Labour Relations Director, Telefónica)

• Spain is slowly increasing their percentage of women in leadership positions. In 2018, we had 23.5% women in leadership positions. By the end of 2021, we have 30.4%. We’ve defined a target of 33% by 2024.
• “We are paying special attention to gender based violence.”
• There are significant barriers to gender equality in Spain: structural and bias.
• There’s a strong prejudice and bias on the skills women have. We try to neutralize those prejudices.
• “We have a lot of initiatives in the schools because we want more women in the schools.”
• “We need flexible ways of working.”

Nino Kvernadze (Executive Director, Adjara Group Hotels)

• There’s one thing to implement with your team and company that you have immediate impact on: inclusivity in our supply chain. It insures our products are unique and in turn attracts similar minded people. Partnerships happen naturally that way.
• We have in-house vertical farm that grows micro greens right in the city.
• Try to empower women within and with your external stakeholders.
• Partner with female companies and entrepreneurs.
• You need to represent the values of your customers and apply those values to all of your subsidiaries.

See Related Article: SDG Ambition: Mobilizing Ambitious Corporate Actions Towards the Global Goals – Leaders Summit Session 2022

Eira Thomas (President & CEO, Lucara Diamond)

• “You can’t be progressive in one area of your business and not in the other.”
• Review polices and procedures to address emerging issues.
• Implement anonymous employee satisfaction surveys.
• It’s important to set the tone and culture of your organization as well as listen to the surrounding community.
• Promote family values by creating paternity and maternity leave beyond the government requirement. We have 6 months of paid leave for new parents.

Ioulia Tseti (President and CEO, Tsetis Pharmaceutical Group)

• Equal pay has a positive impact on addressing sexual harrassment in the workplace.
• “We should embrace AI complimenting human decisions and human bias.”
• “You should now the salary of the job you’re applying.”
• Promote strict work hours to make certain that everybody is engaged in the same hours during the day. Everyone has the same time.

This article is part of a series covering the UN Global Compact Leaders Summit. The UN Global Compact (UNGC) Leaders Summit is an annual convening of global stakeholders from the UN, the public and private sectors, and civil society that takes stock of progress of the SDGs so far, and addresses the gaps in knowledge, resources, and funding. The 2022 Leaders Summit, like last year’s summit, will be a hybrid event of live and virtual speakers. Featured venues this year include an in-person event held in Bangkok, as well as virtual plenaries in Latin America, Australia, East Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, in addition to UN Headquarters in New York. This inclusive global event — which will run continuously for more than 24 hours — aims to empower business leaders at every level to take collective action and inspire future leaders to embed a sustainability mindset in their work. ESG News is the exclusive media partner of the event, and will cover all 26 panels. To read all of the articles in the series, visit here.

Event Details

Day/Time of Panel: Day 2; 5:30 am EST

Sequence of Panel: 5th panel of Day 2