Business Connexion has been named the 2015 Gender Mainstreaming Champion in this year’s Gender Mainstreaming Awards. The awards programme, aimed at encouraging private sector to buy into achieving more meaningful gender representation in mainstream business, gives public recognition for good practice and excellence in tacking gender mainstreaming.
Business Connexion also won the Women on Boards category and received recognition in the Women Empowerment in the Workplace (Large and JSE listed) category. This follows the company’s recent shortlisting in the Standard Bank Top Gender Empowered Company: Businesswoman of the Year Award.
“At Business Connexion, diversity and the empowerment of women has always been a top priority for us,” says Isaac Mophatlane, CEO of Business Connexion. “This award is a testament to the great strides we have made on our journey to transformation and in empowering the women within our organisation, in an industry that remains very male dominated.” The company runs various initiatives to ensure a diverse and empowered workforce through focused recruitment, leadership training as well as specific initiatives under Woman Connect program which includes the mentorship program have which have been instrumental in transforming the organisation. The Business Connexion internship programme which takes in over 100 interns a year also has a very strong gender focus with between 60%to 70% of the intern intake being female.
“This is an extremely proud moment for us as Business Connexion. Being recognised for the work we are doing in empowering women, setting the example in the ICT sector, means that we are the right track in supporting the country’s objective around more meaningful representation in business. Empowerment is an important part of our corporate DNA and we will continue to drive this as key strategic objective for our organisation,” he concludes.