Stanbic Celebrates Over 30,000 Women Within Its Fold

Stanbic Bank Kenya today commemorated International Women’s Day at an event held at the Villa Rosa Kempinski Hotel, Nairobi.

The event hosted by DADA; Stanbic Bank’s Women Banking Proposition, was graced by women who came together to celebrate each other and discuss the challenges women face and ways to break gender biases that plague our society.

In line with this year’s theme, ‘Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow’, under the campaign hashtag #BreakTheBias, the conversations at the event focused on raising awareness on the hurdles women face that prevent them from achieving their goals. The speakers also called upon people to create a gender-equal world, free from biases, stereotypes, and discrimination.

Statistics show that globally, we have a long way to go to attain gender parity. According to a report released by the World Economic Forum, Global Gender Gap Report 2021, it will now take over a century, 135.6 years to close the gender gap worldwide, which means that a whole generation of women will have to wait before gender parity is attained.

Speaking during the panel discussion, the key guest of honor, Director General United Nations Office Nairobi, Dr. Zainab Hawa Bangura encouraged women to go for what they want and avoid shying away from claiming a seat at the table. She said, “As women, we need to know what we want in life because if we don’t, other people will give us what they think we want. We must walk into a room with confidence and with no apology.”

The discussions during the panel also highlighted some of the steps the bank has taken to support and empower women. Under the DADA proposition, the bank’s total market share currently stands at over 30,000 of women who are a part of DADA with over 10,000 having been successfully trained on how to scale their businesses.

Stanbic Bank is committed to closing gender gaps in sourcing and has joined the Sourcing2Equal Kenya (S2E), a private sector two-year peer learning platform to increase women’s participation in corporate procurement opportunities.

The bank is also a part of the HeForShe movement and rallies staff within the bank to become agents of gender equality. The bank also signed the Women Empowerment Principles (WEP) under the United Nations, being the 50th organization to join this initiative. Under the agreement, the bank has adopted five of the seven principles which include Principle 1 – High-level Corporate Leadership, Principle 2 – Treat all Women and Men Fairly at Work without Discrimination, Principle 5 – Enterprise Development, Supply Chain and Marketing Practices, Principle 6 – Community Initiatives and Advocacy, and Principle 7- Measurement and Reporting.

Speaking during the panel discussion, the Chief Executive for Stanbic Bank Kenya, Mr. Charles Mudiwa said, “As a bank, we are proud to have a leadership team that is 60 percent women. Through our policies, we have ensured that women’s voices are heard. We are also looking at making our procurement more inclusive and target to have at least 30 percent of our suppliers as women.”

The bank has made strides in supporting women through their journey and is continuously looking for ways to empower women and help them achieve their goals.

Also speaking during the panel was the Board Chair, Stanbic Kenya Foundation Ory Okolloh, who said, “Women must perform themselves to leverage. Work hard to build trust that earns them leverage to access more opportunities.”