Coca Cola European Partners : An International Women’s Day message from Véronique Vuillod, CCEP’s Chief People & Culture Officer

This International Women's Day seems an especially significant moment to pause and reflect on gender equity, and the progress we are seeking to make in our business.

2020 and the start to 2021 have been particularly challenging for women - caregivers, mothers, partners, daughters, leaders, colleagues. Right now we're seeing the global pandemic have a disproportionate impact on women around the world, from their employment, their health and wellbeing, and their commitments at home.

So now, more than ever, we all need to work together and support each other every day - both women and men - to break down barriers, challenge work-based gender stereotypes and biases, and create real change that sticks, when and where it matters most.

At Coca-Cola European Partners we believe it takes different thinking, experiences and backgrounds, and truly including them in all that we do, to represent and serve our society. Which is why we're seeking to foster a workplace culture where everyone - people of every gender, culture and heritage, ability, sexual orientation and age - is welcome and able to thrive.

This resonates with me, personally and professionally.

To strengthen our female leadership representation, we're well on our way to having at least 40% of senior management positions held by women by 2025. And we are making progress at all levels, in every corner of our company. I am proud of the commitment of our CEO and the Executive Leadership team on this objective.

In Iberia, the 'Gira Mujeres' programme is in its fifth edition, as part of The Coca-Cola Company 5by20® global initiative to enable the economic empowerment of 5 million women entrepreneurs across our value chain by 2020 and we exceeded this goal.

In France we continue to improve and excel on the national gender equality index, with our latest score of 99/100.

In Germany we are piloting a programme to support the recruitment of female graduates.

In Great Britain, we have more than halved our gender pay gap to 4.4% - well below the national average of 15.5%.

Most recently, CCEP took even stronger commitments and became members of the UN Women's Empowerment Principles and Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index. This strengthens our platform to accelerate gender equity and help create sustainable change, both inside our company and in our communities, in line with international labour and human rights standards.

There is always more to do. So let's all #ChooseToChallenge - today and every single day.