Vodafone New Zealand is thrilled to announce a new partnership with Global Women, a non-profit membership organisation driving diversity in leadership in Aotearoa New Zealand.

This sees Vodafone join Global Women alongside an array of high-profile organisations which share a vision of creating a prosperous and equitable Aotearoa New Zealand.

Jason Paris, Vodafone New Zealand CEO and newest member of Global Women’s Champions for Change, is committed to ensuring equitable opportunities exist within the business. “At Vodafone, we’re deeply committed to enabling a supportive and inclusive working environment and fostering a culture where everyone has the freedom to be themselves, which will in turn mean we can better support our customers. We believe New Zealand thrives when all New Zealanders thrive and reflecting the diversity of our customers within our business is important to us.

“While I’m pleased that women comprise 48% of our senior leadership group, when you look across the whole business, women make up 35% of our workforce. So we are committed to increasing this, by making hiring decisions that better reflect the diverse make-up of our country, using the 40:40:20 principle to help hold us to account. We offer a flexible working environment to support our people to thrive and know we need to keep innovating to ensure we attract and retain remarkable people.

“Global Women not only supports and encourages diversity in terms of women, but also helps promote other types of diversity as well, which aligns with the D&I initiatives Vodafone already has in place.

“Our Mana Wahine employee network is designed to help inspire and encourage female employees. We are proud to maintain our Rainbow Tick accreditation, which we first received in 2018, and via our Rainbow Whānau employee group.

“We are also continuing to invest in building our knowledge of te ao Māori through our cultural competency programmes including growing future leaders through Kāwai (in partnership with Indigenous Growth Ltd.) and our recently launched Tuakana Teina mentoring programme. I personally completed the Te Kaa cultural competency program last year and really enjoyed learning more about te ao Māori and how to integrate the philosophy and practices into our workplace,” Jason adds.

Agnes Naera, Kaiwhakahaere Matua / Chief Executive, Global Women, says: “We are very pleased to welcome Vodafone New Zealand as a partner and look forward to working with them and our other partners and members to build a more equitable Aotearoa New Zealand.”

Global Women is a membership organisation of over 400 global women, recognised for their ability to influence and impact, advocate for diversity, equality and leadership. Global Women established Champions for Change - a coalition of New Zealand’s top CEOs and Chairs who are committed to championing diversity and inclusion in their organisations.

For more information please visit: www.globalwomen.org.nz