Raising Heroines at Work

The excitement of women joining the boardroom table is always celebrated especially in the month of March where the world commemorates women in all occupations. The theme for this year’s International Women’s is #EachforEqual recognizing all actions we can take as individuals to challenge stereotypes, fight prejudice and celebrate women’s achievements.

The gender balance agenda in workplaces started out as a recommended best practice with the objective of women’s emancipation and equal rights for equal opportunities. However, this has fast
grown into a requirement for any reputable company and a key component of diversity and inclusiveness culture.

Many CEOs pride in achieving the recommendation of the Sustainable Development Goals in closing the gender gap by employing more women within their organization. Unilever recently shared how they had achieved their 10year target of having 50-50 gender balance in managerial roles across its global business.

Leena Nair the Chief HR Officer at Unilever said: “Today we have succeeded in reaching the gender balance at management level, but our work doesn’t stop there, and we will continue to be a driving force in closing the gender gap everywhere.”

This Gender diversity agenda is also driven in our political environments with the Parliament of
Uganda dedicating 112 number of slots to women leaders, representing 26% of the entire Parliament. The previous Vice President of Uganda Hon. Dr. Specioza Kazibwe and the current
Speaker of Parliament Hon. Alitwala Rebecca Kadagga is one of the Heroines of the women in
leadership in Uganda.

Women have begun to emerge from different principles and professions, and mentoring others into leadership. They have become undeniably talented and bringing to boardrooms their nurturing nature, creativity, and commitment to succeed. We now have female welders, female truck drivers, female bus conductors, female pilots, female plumbers and now female CEOs MDs and CFOs. The most recent CEO announcement Ms. Anne Juuko, the new CEO of Stanbic Bank Uganda. Source – Human Resource Managers’ of Association Uganda.