More than 250 participants join APM Terminals Bahrain webinar on gender balance

APM Terminals Bahrain successfully hosted a webinar on “Promoting Gender Balance in Supply Chain and Logistics”, which was attended by more than 250 local, regional and international participants.

Held under the patronage of H.E. Engineer Kamal bin Ahmed Mohammed, Minister of Transportation and Telecommunications, Kingdom of Bahrain, supported by the  Supreme Council For Women (SCW) and managed by FinMark Communications, the virtual session looked at the important role that gender balance and inclusion can play in sustainable industry growth and advancement.

Speakers engaged in an interactive panel discussion looking at a number of key topics including how to shape company culture, solutions for attracting more women to the industry and methods for supporting their promotion. 

Joining the panel were: Ms. Susan Hunter, Managing Director of APM Terminals Bahrain, Ms. Rania Al Jarf, Director of Gender Balance Centre at the Supreme Council for Women, Ms. Eman Ebrahim, General Manager Supply Chain of Foulath Holding, Ms. Elizabeth Ndaire, Head of Human Resources – Africa and Middle East at APM Terminals, Mr. Esam Hammad, Director of Partnership & Customer Engagement of Bahrain Labour Fund (Tamkeen) and Ms. Fatema Ahmed, Senior Ports Development Specialist for Ports and Maritime Affairs, Ministry of Transportation and Telecommunications. 

Gender balance becomes more prominent in supply chain and logistics

Mr. Morten Engelstoft, CEO of APM Terminals, commented on the forum: “We are very happy to see gender balance become a more prominent theme in the supply chain and logistics sector. While there is clearly a long way to go, we all have a responsibility to make this industry more inclusive for both women and men and we at APM Terminals take this commitment very seriously”.

Also, commenting on the event, its moderator Mr. Kalyan Krishnan, Head of Markets at KPMG Fakhro, said, “The session on Gender Balance hosted by APM Terminals and supported by the Supreme Council for Women was an opportunity to engage senior leaders and engage in conversation around some of the major challenges, opportunities, misconceptions and leverages in achieving Gender Balance. 

A few points evident from the session was that we will need to work together to be able to achieve this milestone and that there was no ‘silver bullet’ solution. The session also highlighted that while there has been some significant progress, we still need to keep the pressure on to ensure that we are building a healthy talent pipeline to be able to sustain the progress and build on it. 

Structured approach towards gender balance

There is also a need to be able to influence and transform mindsets and change perceptions in terms of what women ‘can’ and ‘cannot’ do. With the Bahrain marketplace being driven by 49% women workforce, which exceeds the 47% globally, I would personally raise a ‘call to action’ amongst all business leaders in Bahrain to develop a more structured approach towards Gender Balance within their organizations to ensure they are leveraging the best talent within the community.”

Ms. Susan Hunter, Managing Director of APM Terminals Bahrain, added: “We’re delighted with the exceptional turnout for this event, which we organized to raise awareness of this important topic and the positive impact that achieving greater gender balance can have for our industries and organisations. Strong uptake of the forum and the remarkable support we received in hosting it underscores this is an issue that is top of mind for both the public and private sectors and we look forward to building on the insightful recommendations and solutions that were touched up by the diverse group of business leaders that took part.”