Vassallo Group celebrates International Women’s Day

Vassallo Group hosted a luncheon on Friday 6th March in celebration of International Women’s Day where over 100 women from directors, managers, employees from across the group and special guests attended this event which was held at the Malta Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry.

Group Chairman Nazzareno Vassallo delivered a speech on this occasion, a long standing tradition which marks a very important day in the group’s event calendar. Being that 60% of the workforce are women the group strongly believes in the capabilities of women at all levels, in fact he quotes “27% of directors are women, apart from the involvement of women in many other managerial positions. We also do our utmost to fight the challenges around stereotypes, create new opportunities and constantly keep on striving to achieve more for women within our society”

CareMalta CEO Natalie Briffa Farrugia spoke about the group’s core values Excellence, Integrity, Respect and Innovation and announced plans for a new Leadership course for women through the group’s Education arm Learning Works which will be launched next year marking the group’s 75th Anniversary.

The Guest of Honour for this year was Mrs Miriam Vella, First Lady. Mrs Vella congratulated the group for its policies which favour equality as recognized by the National Commission for the Promotion of Equality where four companies within Vassallo group have been re-certified with the Equality Mark. She encouraged employers to offer training on diversity and equality to staff and that we must keep on working on changing the culture and mentality in favour of equality in our society. She concluded by thanking the Group for the continuous support shown towards the Malta Community Chest Fund Foundation.

In line with this year’s theme #EachForEqual Guest Speaker Ms Maria Micallef, CEO at General Soft Drinks shared her experience with all on the challenges she encountered along the way. Starting off as a student worker with GSD she stated that it was not easy to overcome certain barriers related to women being promoted to high-ranked positions as was the case with her eventually being promoted to General Manager and subsequently to her current role as CEO. Ms Micallef stated that “Only 18% of local companies have women as CEOs, so we need to work harder for more women to occupy high-ranked roles”. She also shared her personal views on the key to success highlighting Passion, Perseverance, Integrity and Consistency.

As a token of appreciation all women were presented with a special gift in line with the group’s green initiatives. The catering was handled by CaterEssence, the Group’s catering arm which will be celebrating its 10th Anniversary this year.