‘First-ever’ woman CEO of tobacco company prime example in Pakistan: experts

ISLAMABAD: A woman chief executive officer (CEO) of a tobacco company has set an example in Pakistan by competing with international and multinational companies through her innovative ideas and policies.

Experts told Business Recorder that the corporate regulators need to remain geared toward promoting women’s inclusion in the corporate sector as well as facilitating easier access to finance and investment opportunities for women. This requires digitization reforms and measures to improve the ease of doing business to facilitate women by removing mobility hindrances and offering better control over businesses.

Out of 22 million children, who are not going to schools in Pakistan, the figure of girls stood at around 12 million.

The women constitute around 50 percent of the total population. Moreover, Pakistan has one of the lowest female labor force participation rates (22 percent) in South Asia and those are mostly being engaged in unregulated employment.

Under the said business environment for women, Khyber Tobacco Company announced the first-ever woman CEO in the tobacco industry, who is successfully running the business of the largest national tobacco company in the country. The story of Samera Irfan, the CEO of Khyber Tobacco Company, exemplifies this phenomenon in more ways than one.

Khyber Tobacco Company has extended its operations worldwide with an established distribution network in different parts of the world. Despite outstanding torchbearers of women empowerment like Samera, girls still have the highest school dropout rates in the country.

In such circumstances, reaching a top corporate position was an uphill

task. Samera Irfan’s journey to the zenith of Pakistan’s tobacco industry makes her a truly inspirational figure.

To flourish, women need a level playing field, the women must be given platforms to reach their maximum potential, they added.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023