Swedfund and ​The Rezidor Hotel Group empower female employees in Women4Growth workshop

The Rezidor Hotel Group, one of the most dynamic hotel groups in the world, and Swedfund International AB, the Development Finance Institution of the Swedish state, have joined forces to host the Women4Growth workshop with the purpose of enabling more women to reach leadership positions in the hospitality sector.

The participants included 20 female employees from various departments and positions within Park Inn by Radisson Newlands and Radisson Blu Le Vendome, that have the potential to reach senior leadership positions within the organization. The workshops were created in an interactive, playful and visual format with a focus on creating a safe space where they could freely think about their own future and what role they could play within the company.

The program is structured in a way that leads to the participants creating proposals, suggesting ways in which the hotel could be developed to support, realize talent growth and achieve the objective of having more women in leading positions. The workshops then concluded with the participants handing over the proposals to the general management of the hotels. The vital next step is for the management to now provide support by creating the necessary infrastructure to implement these proposals.

“The workshop has been fantastic, the participants have really conceptualized great proposals which we could easily implement resulting in a great, positive impact within our hotels. I do hope that the workshop has helped them to realize that they have the potential to achieve their independence and break the stereotype created for women,” said Clinton Thom, Cluster General Manager of Radisson Blu Le Vendome and Park Inn by Radisson Newlands.

“Rezidor’s partnership with Swedfund directly links in with our diversity and inclusion pillar within The Rezidor Hotel Group. The Women4Growth initiative has given us an opportunity in Africa to create a platform for the female employees in our hotels to act as internal consultants to us, advising management of what we’re doing well and should continue to do as well as what we can improve on,” said Gyrieyah Slemming, Area HR Director, Africa & Indian Ocean at The Rezidor Hotel Group. “The consistent feedback received in the three Women4Growth workshops held in Africa thus far, including Addis Ababa, Nairobi and most recently in Cape Town, has been that we provide quite a few platforms to our female staff to grow and develop themselves. There is however an opportunity for us to consider the social circumstances they find themselves in, that may be creating a barrier for their advancement and with our reach in Africa, we as an organization can play a more active role in this.”

It is Swedfund’s goal to eliminate poverty by creating sustainable business in some of the world’s toughest and most promising growth markets. In 2014, Swedfund decided to actively engage with its portfolio companies in Sub-Sahara to enable more women to reach management positions. In 2015, its talent program Women4Growth was launched, with the belief that when women are empowered and become a part of creating and driving private businesses, economies grow, families do better and societies prosper.

At the same time in 2014, Women in Leadership became a key focus area at The Rezidor Hotel Group after its previous CEO, Wolfgang M. Neumann, challenged the Business Leadership Team to find ways to increase the percentage of women in leadership positions within the group from 16% in 2014 to 30% by the end of 2016.

Following Neumann’s statement, the internal initiative, Women in Leadership, was created to build on its heritage of growing talent from within the organization and bringing a positive change to the groups culture by overcoming barriers preventing women from developing into senior leadership positions. The initiative seeks to harness the individual strengths of female leaders and actively encourage their collective participation at every level of the business which is evident in the subject matter covered in the Women4Growth workshop.

"Through the Women4Growth program we wish to empower female employees so that they can become future leaders in our portfolio companies. The business case for gender equality is clear. More women means more profits. Investing in women give ripple effects for families and whole societies", said Karin Askelöf, Senior Manager Strategy & Impact at Swedfund

“We’d want to be able to take what has been created through this Women4Growth initiative, the confidence provided to the females to find their voice and leverage this in our hotels across Africa. Most importantly for us, we are actively trying to increase the number of female operational leaders in our business, such as more general managers heading up our hotels in the African markets and Women4Growth is one of many initiatives we have in place to achieve this objective.” Further commenting on her key outtake from Women4Growth Slemming commented, “We as females, often place barriers and glass ceilings on ourselves and our capabilities. However, the rest of the world is starting to listen more to the female voices and has therefore enabled us to be the catalysts of change, so we should learn to use our voices more often and more loudly going forward.”

About The Rezidor Hotel Group

The Rezidor Hotel Group is one of the most dynamic hotel companies in the world and a member of the Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group. The group features a portfolio of 484 hotels with over 105,000 rooms in operation or under development in 82 countries.

Rezidor operates the core brands Radisson Blu® and Park Inn® by Radisson in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), along with the Club CarlsonSM loyalty program for frequent hotel guests. In early 2014 and together with Carlson, Rezidor launched the new brands Radisson RED (lifestyle select) and Quorvus Collection (luxury). In 2016, Rezidor acquired 49% of prizeotel. Rezidor has an industry-leading Responsible Business Program and was named one the World's Most Ethical Companies by the US think-tank Ethisphere.

In November 2006, Rezidor was listed on the Nasdaq Stockholm, Sweden. HNA Tourism Group Co., Ltd., a division of HNA Group Co., Ltd.—a Fortune Global 500 company with operations across aviation, tourism, hospitality, finance and online services among other sectors—became the majority shareholder in December 2016.

The Rezidor Hotel Group and its brands employ 43,700 people in EMEA and is headquartered in Brussels, Belgium.

For more information, visit www.rezidor.com, Twitter @carlsonrezidor, LinkedIn www.linkedin.com/company/2364 Instagram www.instagram.com/rezidor_ourpromise

About Swedfund

Swedfund, owned by the Swedish state, provides risk capital, expertise and financial support for investments in local companies in the developing markets of Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe. Our mission is poverty reduction through sustainable business, contributing to economic and environmental development as well as a positive impact to society. Swedfund's investment strategy rests on three main pillars: impact on society, sustainability and financial viability. Since 1979 Swedfund has been engaged as an active, responsible and long-term investor in more than 260 companies worldwide. www.swedfund.se/en