Pepsi is woman friendly

New York, June 2: With their employee-friendly and innovative initiatives, PepsiCo and Citigroup — led by India-born CEOs — have made into a list of best employers for multicultural women.

Evaluating the presence and prominence of coloured women in the US corporate world, the list of 20 companies has been drawn up by US-based Working Mother magazine. It is primarily on the basis of diversity programmes for such employees.

"These businesses recognise that it is not just about recruitment. Many use "real" inclusion programmes to actively develop, retain, and promote their multicultural employees," the magazine said in an accompanying report.

Beverages major PepsiCo is led by Chennai-born Ms Indra Nooyi, named by Fortune magazine as one of the most powerful business people in the world, while Nagpur-born MrVikram Pandit, is the chief CEO of banking giant Citigroup.

According to the magazine, PepsiCo has about 10 per cent employees who are ‘women of colour’, with seven per cent of them in the executives/managers.

"Since 2002, PepsiCo has prioritised the hiring, development and retention of women of colour in middle and senior management through its Women of Colour Multicultural Alliance, which aims to increase representation of multicultural women across the company.

"All told, senior-level representation of women of colour increased nearly three per cent from 2002 to 2006," it added.

Mr Vikram Pandit-led Citigroup has a higher representation of women of colour in its ranks, making up 22 per cent of the total employees. However, when it comes to executives or managers, there is only about four per cent of such people. — PTI