EGA to raise proportion of women in supervisory positions to 25%

Emirates Global Aluminium, the largest industrial company in the United Arab Emirates outside oil and gas, on Thursday marked Emirati Women’s Day by publicly announcing a target to increase the proportion of women in supervisory positions at EGA in the UAE to 25% by 2025.

Women currently hold 18% of supervisory positions at EGA in the UAE, working at all levels in the company’s Operations and corporate functions. Two members of EGA’s Executive Committee are women. EGA employs more than 400 women around the world.

EGA’s achievement of its target will contribute to the UAE’s long-standing national objectives to increase the participation of women in the economy and society.

EGA’s Chief Executive Officer, Abdulnasser Bin Kalban, said: “Improving diversity enhances business performance. Although we have made considerable progress at EGA, we recognise that we need to do more. We want the best people to join EGA irrespective of their gender, and to progress based on their ability and commitment to succeed. We recognise that setting a target is just the beginning. To achieve it, we will develop further our inclusive leadership and culture, and focus on developing and progressing our high performing female employees.” EGA’s Executive Vice President of Human Capital, Iman Al Qasim, said: “The UAE is one of only a few countries in the world where more women than men graduate with degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. It is important to our future success that EGA recruits and retains the most able people from this talent pool and focuses on embedding gender diversity goals in our long-term human capital vision.” EGA tracks gender balance in recruitment, retention and succession planning.

EGA is currently rolling out a mentoring programme for women, led by the most senior executives in the company, focused on personal development and career growth.

Last year the company launched the EGA Women’s Network, a forum for women at all levels of the company to share their achievements and challenges, and to develop and grow.

The EGA Women’s Network launched a bi-weekly series of webinars on business and operational topics, as well as virtual panel discussions featuring successful women talking about how they reached the pinnacle of their chosen fields.

EGA is a partner of Aurora50, a UAE initiative to build the pipeline of women with the required experience for board-level positions. Six positions on subsidiary boards within EGA have been taken by women since the start of 2021.

Chairwoman of the Women’s Network and EGA General Counsel, Head of Compliance, & Company Secretary, Katherine Hahm, said: “It is fantastic to be working for a company like EGA that values diversity and recognises its importance by placing metrics behind it. The 25 per cent target is a great step in the right direction and I am confident that we will be able to further build on this with the initiatives that EGA is putting in place to support and develop women.”

EGA Since 1975, when it was founded as Dubai Aluminium by His Highness Sheikh Rashid Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Emirates Global Aluminium has been innovating aluminium to make modern life possible.

Today EGA is the world’s biggest ‘premium aluminium’ producer’ and the largest industrial company in the United Arab Emirates outside the oil and gas industry.

EGA is equally-owned by Mubadala Investment Company of Abu Dhabi and the Investment Corporation of Dubai. It is the largest company jointly owned by the two Emirates.

EGA is an integrated aluminium producer, with operations from bauxite mining to the production of cast primary aluminium. EGA operates aluminium smelters in Jebel Ali and Al Taweelah, an alumina refinery in Al Taweelah and a bauxite mine and associated export facilities in the Republic of Guinea.

EGA’s aluminium is the second largest made-in-the UAE export after oil and gas. In 2020, EGA sold 2.52 million tonnes of cast metal. EGA is the only UAE producer and makes the UAE the fifth largest aluminium producing nation in the world.

EGA has more than 400 customers in over 50 countries. In recent years over 80 per cent of EGA’s production has been value added products, one of the highest proportions of any aluminium company in the world. In 2020, value added products made up 72 per cent of total sales despite EGA’s flexing of its product mix in response to fluctuating market demand caused by COVID-19’s impact on world manufacturing.

EGA’s aluminium is primarily used in the construction, automotive, packaging, aerospace and electronics industries.

Around 10 per cent of EGA’s aluminium production is sold in the UAE to around 26 downstream aluminium companies that make products with EGA’s aluminium. The growing broader aluminium sector in the UAE supports 60,950 jobs. EGA itself employs over 7,000 of these people including almost 1,200 UAE Nationals.