March 8, International Women’s Day 2016: A day when everyone - men and women - pledge to take a concrete step to help achieve gender equality more quickly. However, the World Economic Forum estimates that at current rates, gender parity will not be achieved until 2133. That’s a massive 117 years away!
Its report - “Women. Fast Forward. The time for gender parity is now” – offered a number of ideas on how to accelerate this projection. One finding was that men and women both agree that more female leadership leads to stronger companies.
This is very much the case at Trilogy, an active UN Women Empowerment Partner and a signatory to the United Nations Women’s Empowerment Principles since 2015. Originally founded by sisters Catherine de Groot and Sarah Gibbs, the company now has an 85% female workforce, a female CEO, Angela Buglass, a female CFO, Lindsay Render, and women in numerous roles of high impact responsibility including Global Sales and Marketing Manager Corinne Morley and International Communications Manager Lisa Wilson.
“The success of our business literally depends on women’s empowerment”, comments CEO Angela Buglass. “Our people need to be confident and capable in developing strategy, making decisions, managing teams and the other myriad responsibilities inherent in driving business growth and success. I’m proud to say we are a very high performing team and providing a workplace and culture that values women and men equally is crucial to our continuing success.”
As well as championing equality internally, Trilogy is committed to using its commercial success to support women’s empowerment externally. The company is currently partnered with So They Can, a not-for-profit organisation that supports communities in Kenya and Tanzania. It focuses on education and supporting women towards self-sufficiency, not through handouts, but through sustainable enterprise.
One of So They Can’s social business projects in Babati, Tanzania, employs women and teaches efficient farming practices to help turn their sunflower seeds into a sustainable business. All profits are channeled back into the project to keep the cycle of education and empowerment going.
Trilogy’s partnership has several limbs:
- As a commercial customer, buying the hand-harvested sunflower oil to create limited edition natural perfumes
- A fundraising partner, donating NZ$2 for every perfume sold
- Raising awareness of So They Can initiatives and its enterprise model by generating significant media coverage in New Zealand, Australia, UK and Ireland
“The value to these women is employment”, explains Cassandra Treadwell, founder of So They Can. “The wages from this employment enable them to feed their families. The profits raised from Trilogy’s products are invested back into their community, and through So They Can, into its education programmes there. Education is priceless as it provides a very different future for these women's children, helping to breaking the poverty cycle for future generations.”
