Coca-Cola Europacific Partners celebrates International Women’s Day

Sam Walker - GB's Field Sales Director

Gender equality today for a sustainable tomorrow. That’s what International Women’s Day stands for at Coca-Cola Europacific Partners (CCEP). But one day just isn’t enough. All year round, we encourage each other to have honest conversations, which tackle the myths surrounding gender bias and equality. And from this point onwards, we’re upping our efforts to bring about positive change for all women at CCEP.

Our mission this year is to #BreaktheBias. Chief People and Culture Officer, Veronique Viullod, is a driving force behind this movement: “We’re choosing to raise awareness about gender stereotypes and bias, so that every one of us can consider how we accelerate equity in our thinking, interactions, and decisions. While we’re making sustained progress, we still have more to do, and we’ve set ourselves a target of ensuring that at least 40% of management positions are held by women by 2025.”

It’s real action such as this that’s led to us being included in the Bloomberg Gender Equality Index for the second year in 2022. The index measures gender equality across five pillars: female leadership and talent pipeline, equal pay and gender pay parity, inclusive culture, anti-sexual harassment policies, and pro-women brand. Clearly our stories are inspiring others and we couldn’t be prouder.

“I’ve been with CCEP for 22 years, both here in GB and Sweden, and I’m currently CCEP GB’s Field Sales Director. I’ve recently made some changes to my role to be able to work more flexibly. I now work four days a week to make sure my working life fits into my personal life, not the other way around. 

“One of the learnings I took away from working in Sweden was that we need to adopt a ‘total life’ approach to work. It’s made me want to challenge our ways of working and make sure we have open and transparent conversations around the topic. Everyone should feel like the option is open to them if they’d like to try it, and I’ve been supported to do that at CCEP.

“I firmly believe work arrangements should be flexible and able to evolve as your personal circumstances do, whether that’s having a family and reducing hours or increasing them as your children grow older. We currently have over 50 different working patterns within my field sales team of more than 350 employees - a real step in the right direction. I’m passionate about championing flexible working and feel it’s just one way we can help to create equal opportunities for all.” 

You can read more about how we are fostering an inclusive, diverse and equitable culture across our business here.