Robyn de Villiers, chairman and CEO of Burson-Marsteller Africa, has been appointed to the Advantage Women Global Leadership team and will spearhead the roll out of the programme across the continent through the group’s leading network of affiliates and partners in 53 of the 55 African countries.
“This offering recognises the value of empowering women in Africa,” said de Villiers. “African women are held back from fulfilling their potential by many constraints. This affects the realisation of the full potential of the continent’s economy. This initiative, which champions diversity, reflects the sentiments of the late former president of South Africa, Nelson Mandela who said ‘As long as women are bound by poverty and as long as they are looked down upon, human rights will lack substance’.”
The group is introducing this new offering as companies, governments, non-profits and other organisations seek to balance gender roles in the workplace. The programme will help organisations in every industry develop and implement effective communications strategies related to gender parity.
“The role of women across every sector is growing dramatically, as it should,” said Donald A Baer, worldwide chair and CEO, Burson-Marsteller. “In managing change within their organisations, in reaching out to all their stakeholders and in building strong reputations, all companies and other entities are increasingly communicating with and about women and this programme builds on our well-established, deep expertise on all these fronts.”
The programme has three core components:
• Reputation – Internal and external campaigns to demonstrate an enterprise’s understanding of and commitment to improving and enhancing the role of women, including executive communications strategies
• Marketing – Campaigns that reach women audiences as consumers, decision-makers and influencersBurson-Marsteller’s research and data analytics capabilities, through sister company Penn Schoen Berland and Burson-Marsteller StudioB, are powerful components of the programme that will be used to develop evidence-based campaigns. This includes activities such as internal audits, perception analyses and research and message testing on women audiences to develop compelling, cutting-edge content to support campaigns.
“This is an exciting time for those of us who are committed to expanding opportunities for women,” said Karen Hughes, worldwide vice chair, Burson-Marsteller. “Momentum is building for companies to increase their efforts and every CEO, board and leadership team will need to work to improve diversity in their organisations and better engage and connect with women. Burson-Marsteller Advantage Women is a response to clients and prospects that recognise the business and social benefits of greater diversity and want internal and external programs to better galvanise the power of women leaders and consumers.”
“More data shows the business benefit to companies and boards that promote women leaders and have a commitment to diversity,” added Katarina Wallin Bureau, COO, Burson-Marsteller Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA). “Communications play a key role in building this competitive advantage. We have developed an offering that brings together our communications experts from across business sectors to develop strategies for organisations to address gender parity and women’s leadership initiatives.”
The Burson-Marsteller Advantage Women global leadership team consists of:
• Prema Sagar, vice chair, Burson-Marsteller, Asia-Pacific & principal/founder, Genesis Burson-Marsteller
• Robyn de Villiers, chair and CEO, Africa
• Margaret Key, CEO, Asia-Pacific
• Claudia Adriasola, COO, Latin America
• Katarina Wallin Bureau, COO, EMEA
For more information, go to www.burson-marsteller.com.
