PBC joins hand with IFC

KARACHI: The Pakistan Business Council (PBC) is in partnership with International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, to enhance women’s employment opportunities in Pakistan.

In furtherance of this, PBC and IFC, in collaboration with the Pakistan Institute of Corporate Governance (PICG), jointly hosted training sessions from September 24 to 26.

The sessions were well attended by CEOs, board directors, and C-suite executives of listed companies and banks, as well as regulatory agencies.

Participants were trained on the business case for gender diversity in leadership, navigating biases that women face in the workforce and strategies for implementing change.

Commenting, Khawar Ansari, IFC’s MENA Regional Program Manager for Corporate

Governance lauded the initiative, saying that the programme was the first of its kind in Pakistan which aimed at developing skills of men as well as women leaders for the latter to add greater value to business.

Ehsan Malik, CEO of PBC said that the event was timely as a director of one of PBC’s member companies had just been included in the Financial Times 2018 ranking of the top 50 global male champions of women in business – the first leader of a Pakistani company to receive this recognition. Feroz Rizvi, President & CEO of PICG further stated that gender diversity was not just to redress composition of company boards, but that there was a definite business case for it

Concluding the sessions, Fuad Hashimi, Executive Director of the Centre of Excellence in Responsible Business at PBC, said that it was envisaged to hold such training sessions at least twice a year with a view to improve gender diversity at all levels in business.—PR