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Diageo embraces diversity through female leadership
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Inclusivity and diversity in the workplace has the positive effect of supporting sustainable business growth.
Diageo, a trusted and respected global alcohol beverage company, has wholly embraced the values of inclusivity and diversity to reflect social diversity driven by global interconnectedness.
Diageo reinforced its commitment to inclusivity and diversity through its 10-year strategic plan, “Society of 2030: Spirit of Progress”, recently unveiled in Jakarta.
To ensure balanced male-female representation in the workplace up to the management level, especially in the male-dominated alcohol industry in which it operates, Diageo has set a target to reach 50 percent female representation in its leadership by 2030.
According to Diageo, balanced representation of males and females and diversity not only brings strength as it allows employees and leadership team to expand their horizon, but also supports them in the decision making process.
Diageo Southeast Asia managing director Preeti Razdan and Diageo Indonesia president director Alefiyah Sarma shared their views about the importance of fostering female leadership in the company.
The two executives, who are both female, were of the view that opening more leadership roles for women not only contributed to the company’s growth but also its sustainability, as well as had a positive impact on the local community and broader society.
For example, putting more females in leadership roles expanded perspectives. “The more diversity of thought, the better solutions you will have,” said Alefiyah, who was appointed as president director of Diageo Indonesia several months ago.
“Besides having passion in the work that I do, I think the alcohol beverage industry will continue to thrive and expand. It allows me to gain a wide range of skills, including logical thinking, good communication, creativity, teamwork and leadership,” she said, speaking of what drove her to pursue a career in the alcohol industry.
“Especially in Diageo, our mission is to drive positive change in our business and society. This is where I feel that I can play an important part in contributing positive change,” Alefiyah added.
According to her, part of the joy she experienced as a leader was the opportunity to meet and work with many people who shared the same vision and mission. These encounters also led her to motivate and inspire them to do their best in pursuing projects and goals that allowed them to grow.
Ensuring balanced representation in the workplace was part of Diageo’s strategy to realize its ambition to achieve its best performance.
“From the sales point of view, of course, we will optimize our product distribution and sales with various innovations that can fulfill consumers’ needs,” Alefiyah said.
“While optimizing product sales, we also want to be the most trusted and respected consumer product company, and at the same time, we want to create a positive impact on our company, within our communities and for society.
“We are really proud of what we do to move forward. One of the key things that drives us is how we do [this] in a sustainable way. Sustainability is the heart of everything that we do,” she underlined.
Alefiyah said that five of the nine people on Diageo Indonesia’s leadership team were women, or above Diageo’s global diversity target of 50 percent. Meanwhile, 70 percent of the communities that Diageo Indonesia supported through its community initiatives were women.
“They are engaged in our business operation as employees, suppliers, distributors and [others]. They are on our inclusivity and diversity agenda,” she added.
“So we continue to focus on upskilling and reskilling women as [part of] our concrete actions. The key here is to represent the population. That’s what we want the company to be.”
Continuing, Alefiyah said Diageo’s inclusivity and diversity values also informed “how we interact with our suppliers and our partners”.
“We are part of them and again, at the end of the day, we have a conversation and take actions behind the conversation,” she said.
“That’s our guiding light. Doing [business] in a sustainable way is really very important for us. So for us, as we go into the future, we really want to do things in a very respectful and sustainable way while adhering to the policy of the country.”
In this vein, Diageo Indonesia had developed educational programs that promote positive and responsible drinking, such as DRINKiQ and SMASHED.
SMASHED, Diageo's flagship global program, aims to develop soft skills and break the culture of bullying, peer pressure and underage drinking while reducing alcohol-related harm around the world.
DRINKiQ is an online platform dedicated to responsible drinking that provides facts about alcohol, its effects on the body and mind, and the impact of harmful drinking on individuals and society.
“This is our journey that we are constantly improving,” Alefiyah said.
Inclusion and Diversity
Diageo implements a comprehensive inclusivity and diversity policy, starting from recruiting female employees and developing them to a leadership role.
Razdan said female employees had equal opportunity to build their skills and manage assignments. “You have to know how to groom them, how to train them and how to make them confident,” she added.
Globally, Diageo has achieved female leadership representation of almost 40 percent, while the figure in Southeast Asia has reached 44 percent. According to Razdan, the company expected to reach 50 percent female representation in 2030.
“I think female leaders is the whole delivery of that you bring in,” Razdan said.
“When you look at sustainability, it is not just [about] environmental sustainability,” said Razdan. “We also talk about sustainability in society and community, and this really represents the right way that a community should build.
“How we empower women is really an equally important part of our thinking in the company. That’s why we do that [both] internally and externally.”
Diageo’s 50 percent target extends beyond the company as a means to drive sustainability, and this goal applies equally to its suppliers, partners and the communities in which it works.
In particular, Razdan said, the company’s inclusivity and diversity pillar informs “how we support [communities] and bring them that whole gender balance”.
The company’s policies are subject to periodical review to ensure that they align with its female leadership agenda and to develop new policies oriented toward supporting female employees, such as maternity leave and a WFH policy for female workers.
“Recently, we’ve just launched a regulation on menopause, domestic violence and others,” said Razdan. “Again, we should not stop there.”
She added that inclusivity and diversity were central to Diageo’s business: “Long-term compensation is not only linked to financial delivery, but is equally linked to the delivery of the ‘Spirit of Progress’ [strategy], the metrics of which inclusion and diversity are a big part.
“I think very few companies in the world has put [the gender agenda] as high as as Diageo has. That’s why, as we look at our progressive policy, we see the progress [made] because we are thinking of it every day,” said Razdan.
“Diageo takes a big step every year and moves ahead further and further, and makes sure that women are in their role and have a job.”
Alefiyah, meanwhile, shared her hope that Diageo could inspire others to do the same: not only focus on business but also empower and make a good impact on society and communities to develop a better industry.
