General Electric (NYSE: GE) has won the US Secretary of State’s global 2016 Award for Corporate Excellence (ACE) for its inclusive hiring practices in Saudi Arabia underlined by the All-Women Business Process & IT Services Center in Riyadh.
The annual ACE is presented to US firms that uphold the highest standards of responsible business conduct in their global operations. ACE nominations are focused on the exemplary operations of a company in a specific country with the nominations made by US embassies and consulates. Tony Blinken, Deputy Secretary of State, presented the award to GE at a ceremony held in Washington DC.
Announced in September 2013, the groundbreaking all-women center is a partnership between GE, Saudi Aramco and TCS. The center celebrated the milestone of employing 1,000 women last March, with a target of hiring 3,000 women in the coming years. GE and Saudi Aramco are anchor clients of the center, with services now extended to include Saudi Telecom Company and the Saudi Ministry of Economy & Planning.
A round 600 employees work exclusively on projects for GE as part of Global Operations, GE’s multi-functional shared services organization. At the core of the GE Store, Global Operations is a critical enabler of the company’s simplification efforts. A very diverse team, Global Operations has more than 8,000 employees around the world, comprising 99 nationalities, 62 percent of whom are women. The all-women team in Saudi Arabia delivers 23 shared services operations such as Finance and Accounting, Human Resources, Supply Chain Management, Information Technology and Enterprise Data Management, for more than 50 GE locations world-wide.
The center in Riyadh is working on expanding its scale, by exploring opportunities with potential customers in the government and private sectors. This directly supports Saudi Vision 2030, which aims to increase the female workforce participation from 22 to 30 percent in the coming years.
Hisham Albahkali, GE’s President & CEO for Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, said: “We are exceptionally proud of our Saudi female talent who are engaged in diverse career paths — from engineers to lawyers to roles in our all-women shared services center. Focused on localization and Saudi talent development, we work with our partners to support the goals of Saudi Vision 2030 by accelerating the participation of Saudi women in the workforce. Inclusive hiring is part of our corporate commitment and the all-women center is a vital component of our talent ecosystem.”

Source: Arab News