Dive Brief:
- Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent is proud of his feminist beliefs and support of women working in leadership roles at the company.
- Under Kent's watch, the number of women on the beverage giant's board has doubled (from two to four out of 15), and the company has externally hired women to leadership roles at more than twice the percentage of nearly a decade ago, from 13% in 2007 to 28% in 2014. Coca-Cola also launched the 5by20 initiative, an entrepreneurial program that aims to economically empower 5 million women by 2020.
- "That’s all part of the CEO’s 'golden triangle' plan: getting more women on the board, aiming for gender parity in senior leadership, and doing something meaningful for women outside the company," TIME reported.
Dive Insight:
Part of Kent's dedication to feminism both within and outside of his company came when he took his place as CEO of Coca-Cola in 2009. He noticed that though 70% of consumers were female, only two women served on the board, and female leadership came in around the low teens, which he felt needed to change.
"In the second decade of the 21st century, unless you’re able to balance the social and economic values properly, you are not going to succeed economically," Kent said at the Women’s Forum of New York’s Breakfast of Corporate Champions. "Women have a better feeling, a better immersion, a better ideation on how to create positive balance between social and economic values."
According to a Catalyst Inc. study from October, women held 22, or 4.4%, of CEO titles at Standard & Poor’s 500 companies.