Diageo : recognised in the 2021 Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index

Diageo was included in this year's index for scoring at or above a global threshold established by Bloomberg to reflect a high level of disclosure and overall performance across the framework's five pillars. This year's improved index score highlights our high level of disclosure and overall performance across the framework's five pillars with particular recognition in:

Female Representation across Senior Leadership

We continue to be recognised as a leading FTSE 100 business for females at Board and Executive level. Today, 60% of Diageo's Board and 38% of Diageo's Executive Committee are women. As part of our recently announced Society 2030 Targets our ambitions include stretching goals across a number of areas of inclusion and diversity. Diageo's commitment to gender equality is championed by Ivan Menezes, CEO and Mairéad Nayager, Chief Human Resources Officer who were both recently recognised in the Yahoo Finance and HERoes Women Role Model Lists 2020.

Leading Parental Leave Policy

Following the launch of our global maternity and paternity leave policy in which female employees in all markets receive a minimum of 26 weeks of fully paid maternity leave coupled with a global minimum standard of four weeks paternity leave on full rate of pay in all markets, with a significant number of Diageo's businesses moving to 26 weeks fully paid paternity leave, we received the maximum score within this area. Since we launched our Family Leave policy in 2019, our employees' use of parental leave has increased significantly. From July 2019 to June 2020, our people took over 163,000 days of parental leave - with the average number of days taken by men increasing from 23 to 105.

Commitment to Increasing Females in Under-Represented Areas

We are working to increase the number of women in STEM roles both at Diageo and in the broader industry through apprenticeships and scholarships. We have recently introduced the Diageo Craftswomen Programme and today, 50% of our Johnnie Walker blenders are female. The GEI also recognised our commitment to promoting women returning to work following career breaks through our partnership with Creative Equals as well as our commitment and progress made through our Supplier Diversity Programme in North America in which in we have tripled the amount we spend with woman-owned suppliers in the first five years.