Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA), the largest industrial company in the UAE has marked Emirati Women’s Day by officially announcing a goal of increasing the numbers of females in supervisory roles at EGA in the UAE to 25 percent by 2025.
Women represent only 18 percent of supervisory roles at EGA in the UAE and work at all levels of 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.
EGA keeps track of gender balance in terms of recruitment, retention, and succession planning. The company is currently launching a mentoring program for women, which will be guided by the company’s most senior executives and will focus on personal development and career growth.
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.
Abdulnasser bin Kalban CEO – EGA
“Although we have made considerable progress at EGA, we recognize 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 recognize 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.”
UAE is one among the few countries in the world where there are more women graduates than men with degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. EGA recruits and retains the most capable people from this talent pool and focuses on embedding gender diversity goals in its long-term human capital vision and for its future success.
Chairwoman of the Women’s Network and EGA General Counsel, Head of Compliance, & Company Secretary, Ms. Katherine Hahm said, “It is fantastic to be working for a company like EGA that values diversity and recognizes its importance by placing metrics behind it. 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.”
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 Network began hosting bi-weekly webinars on business and operational topics, as well as virtual panel discussions with successful women discussing how they got to the top in their fields.
