Procter and Gamble (P&G) recently hosted the first #WeSeeEqual Summit for the IMEA (India, Middle East and Africa) region in Mumbai.
“The IMEA #WeSeeEqual Summit is just one step that we are taking as an organization to move toward a gender-equal world. It is important to invest the time to engage in meaningful dialogue with decision-makers and opinion leaders to create the societal shift in creating impact across IMEA,” said Magesvaran Suranjan, president, P&G APAC and president, P&G IMEA.
He said the highlight of the summit was that it was able to gather so many cultures and viewpoints on one platform.
“The entire summit and day was memorable, however the one key takeaway from the summit was the fact that there were so many cultures and viewpoints in one room. It was truly a multicultural and diverse gathering, all of whom attended for a singular and common purpose, which is to create meaningful discourse to collectively identify solutions that address an ongoing challenge of gender equality in the world.”
P&G is a founding member of the UN Women-led Unstereotype Alliance, which looks to proactively address and eliminate gender stereotypes in advertising globally.
“P&G has already been leading the way with progressive portrayals of women and girls in advertising campaigns and demonstrating the importance of men and their role in promoting gender equality. In this region, our Always programs #GirlsCan, #SaudiGenerationofFirsts and Ariel’s #SharetheLoad are great examples,” said the P&G chief.
“We have been working to create an inclusive, gender-equal environment with 50-50 representation of men and women at all levels of the company. In fact, more than 46 percent of our managers globally are women.
“P&G is committed to achieving equal representation at all levels of our company, and this is consistent with our history in IMEA and also reflective in the Gulf. Our company hires an equal ratio of women and men in Dubai, for its operations at its regional headquarters. We were the first FMCG company in Saudi Arabia to obtain a license to employ women, with 20 percent of its leadership team comprising Saudi female nationals,” Suranjan said.
Revealing his company’s plans, he said: “Over the next three years, P&G aims to spend $100 million on deliberately working with women-owned businesses in IMEA, educate more than 23 million adolescent girls on puberty and hygiene across IMEA and continue to leverage its voice in advertising and media to tackle gender bias.”
