KINNEVIK IS DRIVING THE CHANGE WE WANT TO SEE IN THE INDUSTRY

Diversity & Inclusion highlights in Kinnevik’s portfolio

In May 2019, Kinnevik launched a Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) framework to drive the important change we want to see in our portfolio and the broader industry. Besides the obvious rationale of equal rights for all employees, we firmly believe D&I brings clear business benefits by promoting innovation, financial performance and efficiency, and enables us to attract top talent. In order to deliver on our vision of providing more and better choice we need to truly understand our customers, which is why it makes perfect sense that our organisation and portfolio company teams reflect their customer base. In summary, we are convinced that D&I is a key driver of transformation and that our D&I initiative will ensure we build stronger and better companies that can become the disruptors of tomorrow. 

Read more about the framework and our 2022 targets here.

While diversity may be measured by many different characteristics, gender diversity is widely considered to be the primary measure. Therefore, we have chosen to focus our concrete actions initially on gender diversity. Below are some highlights from our portfolio, showing our Group’s commitment to D&I and the positive trends we see among our companies.

Cedar provides a smarter way for hospitals to manage the patient payment ecosystem. To do this efficiently, the company has created a diverse team that can bring new and insightful perspectives. Cedar's initial focus was on women in tech but has since expanded into other areas such as age, ethnicity and cultural diversity. In addition to creating a diverse team, a taskforce has been set up to foster a culture that welcomes diversity. Watch how this involves all Cedar employees in the video below.

"Having diversity across all levels of our organization not only allows us to better understand our patients, it also helps us achieve better business results through increased creativity, a broader spectrum for innovative thinking, improved empathy, and so much more"

- Florian Otto, Founder & CEO Cedar

Global Fashion Group is on a mission to empower people in growth markets to express themselves through fashion. In doing so, GFG puts D&I at the core of its strategy and believes it is of fundamental importance to the company’s success. The logic is clear – having a truly dynamic and diverse workforce enables it to develop the deep local knowledge and expertise required to succeed within its markets.

To practice what it preaches, GFG has increased the percentage of women in its management team from zero at its foundation in 2014 to 40% in December 2018. Furthermore, the team today consists of 7 different nationalities. The same trend is seen on the board, which is headed up by a female chairman and where the percentage of women has increased from none in 2014 to 50% today, clearly demonstrating GFG’s commitment to gender diversity.

Tone from the Top...

"The secret sauce of the Global Fashion Group is its truly diverse team. We aim to build teams across the world that are diverse and representative of our customers. Nobody can understand our customers better than themselves"

- Patrick Schmidt, Co-CEO Global Fashion Group

In its effort to make travel easy and accessible for everyone, Omio believes that having a workforce that reflects its consumer base is key. To achieve this, Omio has focused on diversity when building up its team of over 370 employees resulting in a strong team comprising 59 nationalities of which 38% are female. An example of its ongoing D&I work is that the company audits career promotions and salary increases to identify and eradicate any latent gender bias. Omio's founder and CEO Naren Shaam explains the thinking behind this in the film below.

"In today's world, companies must reflect their consumer base, and our consumer base is global, diverse and 60% women. Unless we put that into the value system of the company, we will never build something that reflects what consumers actually wants"

- Naren Shaam, Founder & CEO Omio

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