07.03.2017

Ömer M. Koç Joins The Global Leaders Of The Heforshe Movement

6 min

Ömer M. Koç, Chairman of Koç Holding, joins the global leaders of UN Women’s HeForShe movement. Highlighting gender equality as a prerequisite of social and economic progress, Ömer M. Koç says, “Guided by my late brother Mustafa Koç in 2015, we made a serious commitment to gender equality as part of the HeForShe movement and put our own plan into action. With 95,000 colleagues, nearly 10,000 distributors, subsidiary industries and suppliers, we represent an enormous family. The magnitude of our impact is a measure of the size of our responsibility. We stand by our public call, ‘A society without women has no tomorrow,’ as we continue to focus on the mental and social transformation essential to gender equality.”
Ömer M. Koç, Chairman of Koç Holding, joins the global leaders of the HeForShe movement launched by UN Women in September 2014. In March 2015, Koç Holding had become the main Turkish supporter of the movement that aims to establish a gender equal world by 2030. IMPACT 10x10x10 was created to accelerate progress towards this goal; as one of its 10 global corporate leaders, Ömer M. Koç will also be the spokesperson for the key Koç Group commitments to the programme. In addition to raising gender equality awareness in 100,000 people by 2020, they include rolling out gender sensitisation initiatives at the workplace.
Ömer M. Koç: “We must aim for equal representation at every level and every business category in the struggle for gender equality.”
Underlining the crucial nature of gender equality, Ömer M. Koç, who has joined the global leaders of the HeForShe movement, continues: “Gender equality is a vital factor in the progress of countries, human advancement and creation of fairer societies. Supporting gender equality in our work environment will also open the doors to a much stronger Turkey on all counts. We must aim for equal representation at every level and every business category in the struggle for gender equality. The Koç Group has undertaken a significant effort this struggle, and we focus on the area where our impact will be felt most: creating gender sensitive workplaces through a corporate culture transformation. We are working to recruit and retain women in the workforce and to include them in the decision making process. We are delighted to note that our Supporting Gender Equality For My Country project has been so successful in raising awareness. We enjoy a considerable reach in Turkey through the Koç Group range of sectors and employee figures; consequently, any transformation that takes place in our Group will also be a vanguard of overall progress in the land.”
The Koç Group Gender Equality Initiatives
A comprehensive range of Koç Holding gender equality projects comes into the scope of IMPACT 10x10x10 champions; furthermore, as a signatory to the Women’s Empowerment Principles - a joint UN Women and UN Global Compact initiative - the company had earlier announced its social responsibility project theme for the 2015 – 2017 period as Supporting Gender Equality For My Country. Employees and distributors of the Koç Group took active part in the project that witnessed cooperation between Koç Holding, the Mother and Child Education Foundation (AÇEV), the Turkish Family Health and Planning Foundation (TAP), the Koç University Gender Studies Centre (Koç-KAM) and UNESCO. Led by Koç Group distributors and regional managers who act as the voluntary representatives of 81 counties, a long-running programme of awareness-raising seminars has so far reached out to 70,000.
About The Heforshe Impact 10x10x10 Program
• The HeForShe movement for gender equality and women’s empowerment was launched by UN Women on 20 September 2014.
• HeForShe targets securing gender equality by 2030, and in order to accelerate progress, it has initiated the IMPACT 10x10x10 to engage ten heads of state, ten university heads and ten corporate leaders.
• These thirty IMPACT 10x10x10 champions serve at the forefront of gender equality as they implement essential structural and cultural transformation practices.
• These practices intended to stimulate change will form historic steps in ensuring gender equality.
• Please visit the heforshe.org/tr website to pledge your support for the movement.