European Diversity Day - 10 years ago the Diversity Charter was established, we celebrated with its first signatories

It has been ten years since we established the Diversity Charter in the Czech Republic and together with reponsible companies we have reinforced the promotion of the principles of diversity, inclusion and corporate social responsibility. In the historical hall of the New Town Hall we reminisced about the beginnings of this key European document - and in the final debate, representatives of the first signatories took the floor.

The partners of the European Diversity Day were Philip Morris International and the European Commission.

In November 2014, first 21 signatories signed the Diversity Charter; and today there are already 130 of them and the number is still growing. The Charter is an important guide to the world of diversity for all employers. Czech Republic was the fourteenth country in Europe to accede to it.

During the European Diversity Day all the signatories received the "Diversity & Inclusion Champion" commemorative certificate. The founder of the Diversity Charter in the Czech Republic, Pavlína Kalousová, who is now the member of the top management of Plzeňský Prazdroj, also received one.

We devoted the morning part of the conference to the topic of supporting women in society and on the labor market, which is still an important and strategic goal of the European Commission. Michaela Prajerová from Philip Morris International – this company was the first to receive the Equal-Salary certificate in the Czech Republic, the head of the European Commission's representation in the Czech Republic, Monika Ladmanová, Pavlína Kalousová and the Belgian ambassador H.E. Jurgen van Meirvenne were our VIP guest speakers in the debate panel.

Aneta Martišková from the company EDENRED Czech Republic then presented the new platform "Future is Female" which was established to support women in various fields and businesses. EDENRED Czech Republic is the partner of this platform.

The second part of the morning belonged to our signatories – ten women from ten companies that were at the birth of the Diversity Charter in the Czech Republic took part in the debate. They reminisced about ten years of the Charter and at the same time talked about the biggest challenges their companies faced. Topics of discussion were women in a man's world, parents at work, mental health and wellbeing of employees and finally diversity in production companies. The invitation to the discussion was accepted by Michaela Chaloupková from ČEZ, Klára Černá from ČSOB, Klára Escobar from MONETA Money Bank, vice-president of the Union of Industry and Transport of the Czech Republic Milena Jabůrková, who also represented IBM, Kristýna Potůčková from Zentiva, Šárka Vránová from Accenture, Olga Řehořková from PwC, Kateřina Nosek from Novartis, Martina Zimmermann from ŠKODA AUTO a.s. and Alena Váchová from Staropramen s.r.o.

Six new signatories joined the Diversity Charter during the accession ceremony.

Videos from the conference, including interviews with our distinguished guests, will be available on our websites and social media later this week.