Watch this fabulous conversation with Adidas sharing diverse perspectives that #inspireInclusion

Each year, International Women's Day (IWD) sees many leading brands and organizations use their global platforms to raise awareness about women's equality.

One such progressive organization was award-winning inclusive company, Adidas, one of the Forbes World's Best Employers.

For IWD 2024, Adidas brought their team together to spark meaningful dialogue on topics including gender equity, ageism, returning to work after extended leave, and other barriers to inclusion. The purpose? To inspire conversation, go beyond the statistics, and create a culture that enables everyone to safely raise their perspectives.

Through authentic conversations and personal anecdotes, the candid and thought-provoking discussions explored the complexities of gender discourse in the workplace, challenged outdated beliefs, and advocated for meaningful change. With each voice contributing to the conversation, Adidas focused on a culture of inclusivity and empowerment where everyone's experiences and opinions are valued.  

"Let us all #inspireinclusion as we celebrate International Women’s Day 2024 and International Women’s History Month...Sharing diverse PERSPECTIVES will get us closer to this goal," said Adidas.

Exploring the career impact of maternity leave

The conversation started with the issue of "Is maternity leave a career killer?"

Adidas Global Membership Planning Manager, Ochuko Akpovbovbo, jumped right in saying: "I started my career in COVID times, and I was so used to people working from home and having kids in the background, being like, oh, I want to feed my kid. And it was so chill, right? And people always talked about how COVID was going to change everything and how COVID was going to show us a new way of working, but it seems like everyone's just trying to turn things to how it used to be before without really taking the lessons of - could we be more flexible?"

Discussing the value of women in leadership 

The conversation moved onto leadership, where Adidas colleagues agreed that leadership qualities are mostly associated with male character traits.

"As a leader, you're somehow expected to speak loudly. You have to be very strong in the way you say. And I'm saying that because I'm more on the calm side. So when I talk, even, let's say we say the same statement, but one has a very calm tone, whereas the other one has a more powerful way of saying it. It then comes across differently," explains Adidas Business Development Manager, Yuki Shishikura.

When asked whether female leaders build healthier organizations, Adidas Senior Manager, NAM Lead, Leadership & Learning, Judith Holland, says: "I love female leaders. I like that there is a lot of emotional intelligence there. There's a lot of focus on people. They often have fantastic listening skills."

Ochuko explores the difficulties of being a woman in a leadership position. "There's that pressure aspect. If you're a woman, you're a leader, you're in the spotlight. Whenever there's a woman in leadership and things go wrong, there is so much more coverage and so much more pointing to all the things that went wrong because she was a woman. Because she wasn't focused on all of that."

Adidas Senior Manager for Membership Planning, Giulia Viotto, and Adidas Director of Program Management, Obie Modisane, agrees that more women need to hold leadership positions. 

"Men can be really good. Women can really good. The problem is that there are not enough examples of women in leadership," says Giulia.

"We should strive for the same amount of female leaders versus male leaders because we all bring something different to the table," adds Obie.

Adidas Senior Manager of Retail Concept Management, Peggy Modisane, shares how Adidas is advancing women's leadership careers. "There's the Women's Community Network where you can have this pool of really ambitious, great personalities. Where there's just really the exchange if you want to progress in your career."

Learning more about gender-related topics

Adidas employees also discussed whether gender discourse has become too complex and too political for all colleagues to participate.

"I don't think things are too complicated for people in Adidas. Like, we're smart, we're intelligent. If you're curious, and you want to know more, there's lots of people that can help you break it down and build your understanding," says Judith.

Giving employees a sense of belonging

Adidas believes that embedding Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI) into its culture and talent processes gives employees a sense of belonging and gives its brand a real competitive advantage.

"By creating a level playing field for everyone, every individual has an equal opportunity to achieve betterment, maximize their leadership potential and unleash high performance. By recruiting the best talent and developing our people to reflect the rich diversity of our consumers and communities, we foster a culture of inclusion where we value and leverage differences to engage our employees and connect with our consumers," says Adidas.

Creating an equal playing field for all

DEI has always been a competitive differentiator in Adidas, particularly in its support and partnerships with diverse athletes and marginalized communities. 

Today, Adidas embraces DEI to Create An Equal Playing Field for All within three key pillars - People, Culture and Accountability.

"When people feel respected and valued, they commit, create and innovate at their highest potential," says Adidas Senior Vice President, HR NAM & Global DEI, Vanessa Abrahams-John.

Establishing measureable, aspirational goals

As part of the Adidas people strategy, the company has established a measurable, aspirational goal to help realize its DEI ambitions.

Adidas is committed to increasing female representation in management positions (Director level and above) globally to achieve a gender balance of 50% by 2033.

Having achieved its target of 39.1% as of Q1 2023, Adidas is expanding its goals to achieve gender balance over the next ten years reflecting the available talent in its global markets.

Continuing to expand its goals and developing its female talents, reflect its commitment to equity as well as its consumer focus, where women are a key consumer for the brand.