In support of International Women’s Day on 8 March, our Head of Programme Delivery and founding member of BACB’s Women’s Network, Dolunay Grieve, was joined by the Chairman of the Libyan Foreign Bank (LFB), Mohammed Addarrat, to discuss the importance of women in leadership positions and explore the progress made as part of the Bank’s Diversity and Inclusion strategy.
As Environmental, Social and Governance factors have become increasingly important worldwide, diversity is one of the most salient issues that organisations seek to address, explains Mohammed Addarrat. For some organisations, diversity is understood through the lens of standards, corporate governance and best practice. As such, they therefore approach it through a set criteria that ought to be fulfilled by law, policy and strategy. For others, diversity is more about changing the culture and environment that allows all employees – regardless of gender, age and cultural background – to achieve their greatest potential. Whether it’s through governance or culture, says Addarrat, implementing diversity strategies can create challenges for any organisation – and these must be taken into consideration when it comes to transformation.
For LFB – as well as for BACB – the challenges for diversity can be cultural, legal or economic in nature. Addarrat says that ensuring diversity in organisations would therefore require that women have the same opportunities to enhance and showcase their skills across all spheres of society. This cannot be achieved solely by looking at the issue as a policy objective to meet numbers – but also by ensuring that when opportunities for advancement within organisations appear women can equally compete and participate.
Diversity should be a core practice that cuts across all operations within organisations, rather than a supplementary exercise. In particular, women’s professional development and career progression requires a cross-organisational commitment to the principles of diversity and inclusion. While a complex task, fostering an inclusive culture can provide future dividends that will enable organisations to thrive.
In this video interview, learn more about how LFB is addressing these challenges and what the organisation is doing to drive diversity and inclusion whilst enabling more women to progress towards leadership roles.
About the BACB Women’s Network
As part of BACB’s Culture and Conduct strategy and to promote Diversity and Inclusion, BACB’s Women’s Network was founded with the aim to increase the number of senior females within BACB.
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