Bacardi’s impactful and considered approach to improving female representation has seen it win the Most Improved Gender Equity Award.
The business received the award at the Australian Drinks Awards held in Sydney on Thursday night.
This year saw four finalists contend for the award, each determined by data derived from the Embrace Difference Council’s Scorecard which showed that Campari, Taylors Wines, Moët Hennessy and Bacardi made the most substantial gains in gender equity this past year.
But it was the Bacardi submission that got it over the line.
Bacardi’s Kelly Eastwell collected the award and said, “We are so proud and really honoured to receive this award on behalf of the whole Bacardi team - as a collective team we live a culture of belonging and inclusion and through our continued efforts have created the opportunities for greater gender equity across the business.
“We’d also like to congratulate our fellow finalists as we’re all working toward celebrating a more diverse and equitable drinks industry.”
Brown Forman’s Sales Director Ilknur Tukelija was on the panel of judges and presented the award. She said, “This company has placed a significant effort with a clear strategic approach and commitment to delivering targeted initiatives to drive more female recruitment coupled with leveraging drinks industry and councils to actively partner with talent scouts….
“As a result of these holistic and comprehensive initiatives, this company has further improved their workplace composition across males and females on an already well-balanced base.”
Some of the initiatives implemented by Bacardi include:
- Bespoke education programs and professional development opportunities for its people
- Tailored mentoring and recognition programs underpinned with workplace flexibility
- An overhaul of its recruitment processes in order to enhance female representation.
Additionally, paid parental leave is now referred to in gender neutral terms, there is continued support towards adoption leave, miscarriage, domestic violence, and mental health, all supported by a wellbeing allowance.
In its submission, Bacardi said: “We have kept focused on our strategic commitment to create and enable a more diverse and inclusive work environment and overall culture. The focus on Gender equality, equity and parity within leadership roles and more so female representation on the ANZ executive team (where we achieved and have maintained 50:50 representation in 2020) has been targeted, focused and yielding the momentum desired. We commit to continuing the steps to further evolve, working collaboratively, focused strategically and executing with excellence.”
This is the second year at the Australian Drinks Awards that the Most Improved Gender Equity Award has been presented to the company showing the most improvements in gender equity. Prior to 2021, the award was known simply as the Gender Equity Award.
Drinks Association CEO Georgia Lennon said: “The finalists’ submissions for the Most Improved Gender Equity Award demonstrate how well we are progressing as an industry. All finalists are to be congratulated in their pursuit of actively creating workplaces that work well for everyone, no matter their gender.”
The Drinks Association congratulates Bacardi and the finalists in the Most Improved Gender Equity Award.
All the winners from the Australian Drinks Awards are available here:
Photo by Belinda Rolland