Renault-Nissan Alliance accelerates gender diversity

The Renault-Nissan Alliance has launched numerous programs globally to recruit, retain, and advance women as it continues to make progress in its commitment to closing the gender gap.

At Renault, women accounted for 18.4 percent of all employees globally in the most recent study, up from 17.6 percent in 2013 and 10 percent in 2000. Women accounted for 18.3 percent of Renault's manager-level positions globally in 2014, up from 17 percent in 2013. Women accounted for 22 percent of the company's 2,000 global key positions, up from 19.6 percent in 2013.

Two members of the 11-person executive committee are women: Mouna Sepehri, executive vice president of the office of the CEO; and Marie-Françoise Damesin, executive vice president for human resources. Damesin is also Renault-Nissan Alliance executive vice president for human resources.

Renault aims to have women account for 30 percent of engineering or technical positions and 50 percent of sales positions worldwide by 2016. It also aims to have women account for 25 percent of its key global positions by next year.

At Nissan, women accounted for 11.7 percent of manager-level positions globally in fiscal year 2014, up from 10.6 percent in fiscal year 2013. In Japan, women at Nissan accounted for 8.2 percent of such positions, up from 7.1 percent in the previous year and more than five times higher than 2004. The manufacturer’s goal is to have women represent 10 percent of managers in Japan and 14 percent of all management positions globally by 2017.

Nissan also is boosting the percentage of female salespeople. Women represented 8.5 percent of salespeople in Japan in mid-2015, up from 7 percent at the end of 2014. Nissan aims for 10 percent by 2018.

In the past year Renault-Nissan Alliance launched a number of initiatives to close the global gender gap:

• Renault became the first manufacturing company to sign the UN’s Women Empowerment Principles pledge to promote gender equality in Latin America.
• Renault launched a women recruitment program in its Algerian factory that resulted in 350 new hires, 40 percent of which were women.
• Renault’s Women@Renault internal support and career network now counts more than 4,500 members in the key markets of Algeria, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, France, India, Korea, Morocco, Romania, Russia, Spain, and Turkey.
• Nissan introduced an official mentoring program for female manager candidates in Japan. The program is available for female general managers and offers reinforcement on issues of leadership, strategy, and career advancement.
• Nissan launched a workshop for young women engineers. The workshop, which is held twice a year, offers women advice on how to build a career before having children.
• Nissan continues to expand the Ladies First retail program in Japan. Ladies First dealerships are managed and staffed mostly by women. The firm has 151 of these dealerships currently and plans to have 300 across Japan by the end of 2016.