EGX Chairman Meets With Representatives Of The AUC - Faculty Of Business Administration Demanding To Build A Database Of Women Cadres

Mohamed Farid, EGX Chairman held a meeting with representatives of the School of Business Administration at the American University on Monday to capitalize on the efforts regarding the activation of the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed in July 2017. The MOU aims at enhancing women’s participation in the economic activity, especially in the corporate Board of Directors, which in turn enhances Sustainability.

This is part of EGX efforts to promote sustainability in terms of gender equality in the stock exchanges at all levels, locally, regionally and globally.

EGX chairman continued, “We at EGX work in cooperation with the various entities to raise the companies’ awareness about the sustainability best practices at all levels. We focus on both expanding the women representation on the companies’ boards and on the compliance to corporate social responsibility as well as environmental controls”.

During the meeting, it was agreed to add another term (year) for the MOU, so that all parties achieve the required objectives with regard to enhancing the women’s role of in the companies’ boards, as well as adding some items to the MOU, which are:

1. Accelerate the work pace and coordinate to create a database of qualified women to join the Egyptian companies’ boards in addition to issuing an annual report to monitor the women participation and representation on the boards, based on the educational, professional experiences and achievements.
2. The possibility of holding quantitative and qualitative studies regarding the listed companies’ boards of directors. An analysis of the average number of women joining the boards of directors as well as their attendance and participation rates in the meetings compared to men’s participation.
3. Holding corporate governance training programs that include capacity building concerning the importance of diversity and gender equality; these trainings will be presented to investor relations staff as well as accountants, financial managers and auditors who are responsible for preparing the financial statements.
4. Conduct a survey on investment funds that one of their investment criteria include diversity and gender equality.
5. Develop schedule for the implementation of the items added to the MOU.

In the same context, it was agreed that the AUC Business School would validate the methodology of some sustainability indices to verify whether they include gender and diversity criteria. This would encourage companies to maintain the policies and the concept of gender diversity in boards of directors and executive management.

EGX is one of the first 4 leading exchanges in the world to join and sign the United Nations Sustainable Exchange Initiative (SSE) in 2009. It also launched the S&P EGX ESG Sustainability Index in 2010, which is  considered the region's first benchmark that measures the performance of leading companies in the fields of the environment, corporate social responsibility and corporate governance.

In May 2017, EGX was the first public institution in the region to launch an annual sustainability report, in collaboration with the Sustainability Advisory Committee that was launched in 2016; women representation in this committee exceeds 50%.

EGX Chairman has issued a decision last May to restructure the EGX Sustainability Advisory Committee to enhance and activate its role in the formulation and design of policies that contribute to strengthen the sustainability.