Promoting diversity

Unilever is an extremely diverse organisation in terms of its ethnic and cultural make-up. The Unilever Leadership Executive (ULE) comprises managers from five countries and the top 100 executives come from over 20.

Gender diversity

However, our gender mix is not what we want it to be. Although we have three female Non-Executive Directors on the Board, there is only one woman on the ULE.

We are tackling the issue through a diversity board chaired by the CEO and by a requirement that the shortlist for each senior job should contain a woman. Since 2007, the proportion of women in senior positions has risen from 23% to 28%.

More than 50% of our graduate recruits are women. In principle, the pipeline is being filled, but our task is to ensure many more reach the top levels.