The Overseas Investors Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OICCI) has launched the "Heroes Leadership Lounge" as part of its celebrations for International Women's Day. The initiative was announced at a ceremony organized at a local hotel on Thursday. The "Heroes Leadership Lounge" is a mentoring platform that will provide online resources and active counselling for women as a means of empowering them in the work environment. The Lounge will enable women to engage directly with business leaders in Pakistan as well as take ownership of their personal capacity building. The platform will also actively work on research and advocacy for the government and business sector to advance the business case for gender inclusiveness and diversity in the workplace.
The Heroes platform has been developed by Unilever Pakistan as part of OICCI's effort for a national dialog on providing equal opportunity for women in the workplace. The Heroes Leadership Lounge is a continuation of the commitment made by OICCI in November 2017 to help its members focus on establishing a conducive environment for gender equality and empowerment so as to develop women for high level corporate leadership.
M Abdul Aleem, General Secretary OICCI said, "In 2017, the OICCI and its members had made the commitment to empower women in Pakistan's corporate sector, as we see ourselves as agents of change. The Heroes Leadership Lounge is the enabler for our ambition to build a more gender balanced work environment that makes women equal contributors in Pakistan's socio-economic growth."
Bruno Olierhoek, President OICCI added, "It is great to see new initiatives being developed and added to our 5 steps best practices toward a women friendly workplace roadmap. Women mentoring and counselling will contribute to bringing out the brilliance of the women already in our organizations, making them role models and attracting more women to join the workforce."
Shazia Syed, Vice President OICCI added, "The Heroes Leadership Lounge aims to be the collective voice of corporate women in Pakistan. It will provide mentoring and counselling for women to succeed as professionals, and will also provide a roadmap to the government and business sector of Pakistan to ensure gender equality in the workforce."
The day also included a workshop conducted by Circle Pakistan that gathered insight from industry participants on the measures necessary for ensuring equal representation for women in the workforce. The workshop highlighted best practices within companies in Pakistan that help them retain female talent and emphasized on the importance for promoting this information amongst the public and private sector to enable gender-equality. The workshop was participated by over 200 executives from the OICCI member companies.
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