KARACHI: Pakistan Stock Exchange on Wednesday gave the floor to the country’s leading women corporate leaders to perform the ‘opening bell ringing ceremony’.
This ‘Gong Ceremony’ was held by PSX to express solidarity with the cause of promoting women’s inclusiveness and mainstreaming on top corporate leadership positions-an agenda being advanced by Women on Board (WOB) Pakistan.
The Gong ceremony was performed by WOB Pakistan Chairperson and PSX board member Rahat Kaunain Hassan, Uniliver Pakistan Chairperson Shazia Syed and United Bank Limited CEO-Designate Sima Kamil.
It may be mentioned that this year more than 43 stock exchanges in the world have already dedicated a day for such events during the month of March to mark their support for the cause of greater gender inclusiveness in the listed sector. The tradition of holding of opening bell ringing ceremonies at the global stock exchanges by the women activists started about three years ago to coincide with the International Women’s Day, and to highlight the business case for enhanced economic opportunities for women.
With the holding of the opening bell ceremony for the Women on Board advocates, PSX joined the rank of the global stock exchanges showing solidarity with the cause of gender mainstreaming in Pakistan’s corporate sector.
Addressing the ceremony, PSX MD/CEO Nadeem Naqvi said that leadership vision and action have no gender. At the same time, he added, women’s influence on the lives of every child makes it clear that women have a lasting impact in the emergence of leaders. He supported the agenda of women mainstreaming and said that the ceremony was to recognise the progress made by our women corporate professionals in Pakistan.
Rahat Kaunain Hassan, the chief guest of the occasion, stated, “WOB aims at affording the corporate world the opportunity to benefit from the experience of those who have demonstrated the resolve and commitment to progress against odds. The WOB agenda is the empowerment of the corporate sector in national economy, not women alone.”
She highlighted that WOB’s objective is to have at least 25% gender parity on corporate boards and senior management of listed companies in Pakistan by 2025.
Shazia Syed of Uniliver Pakistan stated that earlier when she was asked to attend corporate events in her capacity as the only woman CEO of a Multi-national corporation, she used to think that why such a focus was being given to her position. “But now she thinks that it’s necessary for her to participate in such events as younger female workforce may get an inspiration from such appearances, she added.
Sima Kamil of UBL emphasised the need of developing a pipeline of good female corporate executives so that the women are able to command a better proportion of board and top leadership positions.
During the ceremony, PSX Chairman Muneer Kamal also presented the “W-Corporate Enlistment Award” on behalf of WOB Pakistan to such corporates which have appointed at -least one independent woman director on their boards.
It may be mentioned that WOB-Pakistan has been established to serve as a campaign to promote mainstreaming of able-minded and qualified women professionals at all levels of business and corporate leaderships. WOB-Pakistan raises awareness about the need for immediate corporate action to improve gender balance and make gender diversity targets as part of the corporate laws as well as the code of corporate governance in Pakistan. South Asian Federation of Exchanges (SAFE) if which PSX is also a founding member, is also a strong supporter of WOB-Pakistan and one of its sponsors.
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