Gender equity

Inspiring and supporting women in their careers

To achieve our gender diversity goals, we have focused even more this year on attracting and recruiting more diverse and qualified talent with more targeted, non-bias campaigns. We have also enhanced our internal awareness, followed up on retention and internal mobility.

Various initiatives have been set up at Group and regional levels to inspire, support and develop women in their careers. To encourage more women to break the stereotypes and build fulfilling careers in science and technology, female colleagues such as Valerie shared their stories of working in tech in 'Meet the women behind the science'.

In China and APAC countries, female leaders can network with their peers in a tailor-made one-week Women in Business Leadership Program. The fourth edition, held in Shanghai in September, attracted 21 women in management participating in workshops and team building activities. In 2023, 32% of managers recruited were women, a slight increase from 31% in 2022 but lower than our 35% target.

Senior leadership

Positive moves also took place at the company’s highest level with the appointments of the new Executive Vice President (EVP) of the Recycling Business Group (Veerle Slenders) and the EVP of People & Organization (Ana Fonseca Nordang) to the Executive Leadership Team. Umicore now has three women among our most senior leaders sending a positive signal to women on staff that there are opportunities at the very top of the organization. 

Encouraging young talent

Among the 2023 cohort from the young graduates’ program, Umicore also exceeded its 35% target reaching 52% gender diversity in Belgium—host country of most graduates. Talking of young professionals, Anne-Sophie our project manager in Loyalist, Canada earned the Kingston Young Professionals 40 Under 40 Award for her commitment, vision and leadership.