Malala Yousafzai's keynote address at Coca-Cola Summit empowers diversity

By: WE Staff | Friday, 18 August 2023

The Coca-Cola Company is taking a daring step towards promoting growth for women and underrepresented groups in business, sports, and society with its one-day "Level the Playing Field" conference, which will be held on August 18, 2023, in Sydney. A few of the notable speakers invited to the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Summit include the Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, the Saudi activist for women's rights Manal Al Sharif, the Australian paralympian Dylan Alcott AO, and Elizabeth Broderick, the founder of the Champions of Change Coalition.

In conjunction with the FIFA Women's World Cup finals, the biggest female sporting event in the world, Claudia Lorenzo, President of Coca-Cola ASEAN & South Pacific, emphasised the company's commitment to fostering equitable opportunity both within its workforce and throughout the larger global society. According to Lorenzo, the FIFA Women's World Cup has set records and is a significant milestone in women's sports, symbolising the belief that every goal is possible.

She explained that the goal of the Level the Playing Field conference was to advance women and other underrepresented groups in society and the workforce by increasing their visibility.

Coca-Cola's philanthropic arm, The Coca-Cola Foundation, established a multi-year partnership with a financial access NGO before to the summit. "Change Make Her," a five-year initiative with the international microloan marketplace Kiva, will be the fruit of this collaboration. The project will provide assistance to up to 45,000 underrepresented business owners from Southeast Asia, the South Pacific, Latin America, and Africa.

Saadia Madsbjerg, president of The Coca-Cola Foundation, expressed her happiness for this novel partnership, which has been given a grant of USD 1.1 million by the foundation. With the aid of this prize, a five-year revolving loan fund will be established to assist aspiring female company entrepreneurs in poor countries. Access to economic resources, like as credit, financing, and business training, is one of the main barriers to equality, particularly for women, Madsbjerg stressed.

The Coca-Cola Foundation is pleased to announce its support for the Change Make Her programme by collaborating with the international microloan platform Kiva, she said in her statement.

The "Level the Playing Field" summit embodies Coca-Cola's ongoing commitment to advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion on a global scale, and its collaboration with Kiva's "Change Make Her" programme marks an important step towards enabling women and underrepresented groups to succeed in business and beyond.