How to embed diversity in the heart of your company’s purpose

Recently named as one of Fortune Magazine’s most powerful women in business, Kadri has made sustainability part of her mandate since taking the helm at Solvay in March 2019, just as financial markets plunged.

Kadri, 51, is a French-Moroccan businesswoman who led through past crises, including 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US and the 2008 global financial crash. But coronavirus created unique challenges. “I joke often that back in March, I was not chief executive officer; I was chief mask officer,” she said, about the then global shortage of personal protective equipment, or PPE.

If the first response to the crisis was protecting employee welfare, the second was protecting the balance sheet. “Cash is king, right?” she said, adding that she had to shore up supply chains to maintain product and service delivery as border closures caused bottlenecks.

Aside from convincing the company that remote or hybrid work is the new normal, as it raised productivity, coronavirus also underscored Solvay’s purpose — to create sustainable shared value for all through the power of science.

For example, the company has supplied critical products, such as hand sanitizer, face shields and other protective equipment, to those in need. Moreover, it created a sustainability program, Solvay One Planet, which set ambitious objectives to solve key environmental and societal challenges through science and innovation.

The program has three pillars tackling climate change, resource scarcity and promoting a better life. For example, Solvay will double the rate at which it reduces greenhouse gas emissions, and is aiming for a 26% reduction, which would be in line with the 2015 Paris Agreement to keep global warming “well below 2°C”.

Kadri noted that Solvay is not paying lip service to sustainability: “This is very close to our hearts and embedded in all our business strategies. It’s not a corporate concept paper.”

She said the company does well by doing good. “We believe that to be profitable you have to be sustainable,” she said, noting that the company’s overall financial performance has been sustained or even improved in recent years.

Kadri highlighted a new product called Actizone, which kills 99.9% of bacteria on a range of surfaces, continuously, for 24 hours. “It’s cannibalizing some of the existing technology we have, but it has a higher margin,” she said.

Alongside sustainability, Kadri is also passionate about creating a more inclusive and diverse workplace – not just in Solvay but in wider society. In particular, she hopes to inspire more women to pursue a career in the STEM fields, where they have historically been underrepresented. At Solvay, she has committed to achieving gender parity in mid-and-senior-level management by 2035.