Sofia, Bulgaria, 16 January 2008 – Today HP opened its first annual HP Women’s Summit under the title “Building the next generation of women leaders”. As gender diversity is a key area for business development and corporate competitiveness, the Summit aims to increase leadership opportunities for talented women and further build a community of women leaders in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region.
HP is concentrating globally on improving the representation of women within the company. However, HP EMEA has a wider disparity between men and women in management ranks than in any other HP region. The company is committed to reversing this trend through a focus not only on increased hiring of women but also the development and retention of women so they can achieve their career goals at HP.
To this end, the HP EMEA Women´s Summit is bringing together over 150 talented women from across all HP business groups in the EMEA region who have strong leadership potential and who are committed to growing their careers within HP.
More specifically the Summit aims to:
“Through this gathering, we hope to create the next generation of women leaders within HP EMEA and develop concrete actions we can take to increase women leaders in the region,” said Linda Sharkey, vice president People Management, HP Global.
Sasha Bezuhanova, General Manager, HP Bulgaria added, “We are very happy to host the first HP EMEA Women’s Summit in Bulgaria and to contribute with the experience from our country being among the most advanced in Europe in presence of women in leadership positions.”
The three-day Summit is part of a wider HP Women’s Initiative focused on growing an internal pool of experienced women for regional director and VP roles, engaging them in HP Global Citizenship activities, and continuously improving HP’s efforts to attract, hire and retain talented women employees.
The launch of the first HP Global Citizenship Awards
During the Summit HP also took the opportunity to launch the “HP Global Citizenship Awards”. This is a new initiative which aims to reward EMEA employees active in fields of global citizenship and raise awareness of HP’s global citizenship programmes across the region.
The 2008 inaugural Award will be for the category ‘Volunteer Champion’ to both acknowledge volunteer efforts and motivate more women leaders to volunteer in HP´s CSR programmes. All participants of the HP EMEA Women Summit will be eligible for the Award which will honour women leaders who volunteer in social or environmental projects inside or outside of HP. The prize will be a one-week volunteer trip to the HP Digital Community Centre in Dikhatole, South Africa, in November 2008.
In 2009, the Award will extend to include more categories.
For more information on HP diversity programmes, please visit the following link: http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/abouthp/diversity/
About HP
HP focuses on simplifying technology experiences for all of its customers – from individual consumers to the largest businesses. With a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure, HP is among the world’s largest IT companies, with revenue totaling $104.3 billion for the four fiscal quarters ended Oct. 31, 2007. More information about HP (NYSE: HPQ) is available at www.hp.com.
© 2008 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.
01/2008
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