Nigeria’s leading commercial bank and One of Africa’s fastest growing companies, Sterling Bank, has kept up its momentum of victories with the conferment of three citations for favorable human capital management practices by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) at the Gender Leader Awards, 2023. The bank received commendations in the Company Leadership Gender Diversity, Gender Diversity in Supply Chain, and Family-Friendly Workplace categories.
The Gender Leader Awards is part of the Nigeria2Equal programme, which spotlights participating companies for taking actions to achieve gender balance in leadership, prioritizing healthcare and family-friendly workplace policies to foster a growth environment for women in the workplace.
Receiving the awards on behalf of Sterling, Chief Human Resource Officer of the bank, Temi Dalley, commented that it was an honor for the bank to be recognized for its efforts in the mentioned categories.
Dalley said, “we are building an organization with equitable opportunities for all; regardless of gender, faith, ethnicity or physical ability, where people can fully immerse themselves in our employee value proposition which empowers them to live their best life and do their best work.”
She continued by saying that “Sterling is intentional about ensuring equity in opportunities, and also encouraging our women to be all that they can be. This is why we have been deliberate about ensuring a gender balanced organization, and achieving representation at the highest executive and board levels.”
Ms. Dahlia Khalifa, IFC’s Regional Director for Central Africa, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone said, “As we celebrate the accomplishments of these organizations who have shown outstanding leadership in closing the gender gaps within their own organizations, we acknowledge the power of collaboration and the transformative impact that specific, measurable, and time-bound commitments can have on achieving gender parity in Nigeria’s private sector. IFC remains resolute in our commitment to sustain the momentum and scale up our efforts for a more gender-balanced, prosperous future.”
Sterling has achieved these feats by following through on its agenda to achieve gender equity with visible evidences including, a two-hundred and eighty-five percent increase in female employees recruited, and a further ninety-one percent increase in the number of female employees promoted in 2022.
In recent times, the bank has consistently invested in equity within the enterprise, which has seen the bank emerge as Nigeria’s Best Company In Investments In Women As Employees And Entrepreneurs by Equileap’s Gender Gap assessment in 2021, and has been further consolidated with the percentage of women in the bank currently standing at forty-four percent of its workforce at the end of 2022. The bank has also been named as one of the top 30 places to work for mothers by Baby Migo, and has been named as one of the Top 25 Places To Work in Nigeria by LinkedIn for two consecutive years.
Renowned for its now famous HEART of Sterling strategy; which focuses major investments in the Health, Education, Agriculture, Renewable Energy and Transportation sectors of the Nigerian economy, its irreverent brand voice and enviable talent management practices, the lender recently completed a major milestone towards the completion of its transformation into a financial holdings company with the relisting of its shares on the floor of the Nigerian Exchange (NGX).
