Be the Change that you Wish to See in the World

In this issue of Dufry World we had the chance to chat to Sarah Branquinho and learn about her plans for the Diversity & Inclusion initiative. Paraphrasing one of Sarah´s most admired leaders – Ghandi – her recent appointment as Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer is a first step in “the change that we want to see” in the company when it comes to ensuring the D&I initiative is anchored in strong roots and contributes to grow our global sustainability strategy.

Sarah, congratulations for your recent appointment. Can you please explain us a little bit the scope of your new role in the company?

Thank you – this is a completely new role within Dufry and underlines Dufry’s commitment to ensuring that diversity and inclusion are hallmarks of Dufry’s ethos. Positioning it at Group Executive level is a very public commitment to everyone at Dufry by Julián Díaz – and the Board of Directors – to ensuring that Diversity and Inclusion has the focus that it deserves.  

For me personally, it’s a huge honor, but also a significant responsibility to lead an initiative which is relevant for the entire Dufry community. Delivering a diverse and inclusive culture of course requires leadership, but the success of any D&I initiative is down to everyone in the company sharing their experience, and contributing to formulating a robust strategy and then to making sure that D&I is a natural part of our working lives.

In recent years there has been a worldwide uplift in incidents that have driven a huge change in societal opinion, which has then driven public and organizational awareness of the Global D&I agenda. Dufry’s ambition is clearly articulated in the vision statement (see box). We are starting from a good place. But it will be a journey, a marathon not a sprint, and a journey we make together with lots of input from the Dufry community. Because of Dufry’s natural geographic and cultural reach, we are fortunate enough to work with colleagues who are as diverse in nationality, ethnicity and culture as our customers – in fact, we have colleagues from more than 130 nationalities, and for me that is one of the most attractive things about working at Dufry.

But beyond gender and nationality, we know very little about you, the people working at Dufry. We don’t know if you feel your differences are celebrated or if you feel your differences are holding you back. We don’t always understand personal circumstances and we don’t always have the policies and processes to help our colleagues to meet certain life stage commitments and responsibilities.

Over the next few months, we will be asking our colleagues in many countries to share with us – anonymously but freely and openly – much more about who they really are and the challenges they face. We also want to genuinely understand whether they feel their own realities are recognized. And we want to understand where they see the opportunity to contribute to the development of their own careers and to the growth of the Company through a more inclusive environment.

For most this will take the form of a survey, but I look forward to hearing from any colleagues who want to share their thoughts and ideas with me. I can be reached at sarah.branquinho@dufry.com.

How is D&I going to be articulated within Dufry? Is there an appointed team?

We are currently identifying what we already do which is good, and can then build on it by identifying the areas where we need to improve. For example, the women@dufry initiative triggered some significant changes in policy and in attitudes towards career development, and there has been some excellent work done in gaining Equal Pay Certification – work which is ongoing.

I have an excellent team working with me in a Steering Group to assist with the development, implementation and communication of Dufry’s D&I strategy: Luis Marín, Catherine West, Astrid Heidinger and Natasha Biswas from HR and Renzo Radice from Communication. This core team meets every fortnight and will soon be amplified by the addition of an additional HR colleague, to assist with implementation, and four colleagues who have been invited to represent further regions and functions and who enjoy the respect of their colleagues. They will initially serve for two years.

Further down the line there will be ample opportunities for other colleagues to get involved at regional and country level.

Is the initiative also part of our overall ESG Strategy and engagement?

Yes, it is.  ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance, also known as ‘sustainability’) has a vast scope from energy consumption through to the welfare of the people who produce the goods we sell. Diversity and inclusion is a small part of ESG but a very important one because it focuses on how Dufry treats and develops its people. It has a direct impact on how each of us is appreciated for the diversity we bring to the company, how inclusivity can be harnessed to grow the company and to make it a better place to work, and how we can ensure that talented individuals can grow with Dufry.

Is this an evolution of women@dufry or does it have more ambitious objectives?

Women@dufry grew out of a realization that there was unequal progression within the company, and it wasn’t clear why. The talent was there but progression was lagging. That recognition led to many changes including in the recruitment and interviewing processes at Dufry. Covid has amplified the understanding that most colleagues in Dufry – not just women – have some important aspects of their lives or life stage commitments or demands, which need to be factored in. Covid has also shown how a bunch of talented people can overcome challenges to continue to give of their very best to Dufry, whilst dealing with sometimes difficult personal situations.

As we start to emerge from Covid, Dufry is taking the opportunity to take to heart the ethos of diversity and inclusion as the company builds itself back, stronger in every sense.  

What´s on the agenda of Dufry´s D&I? Where do you think Dufry can improve further?

We believe that there is still a lot more we can do on progression opportunities for anyone eager to grow with Dufry. We are keen to further evolve the Equal Pay Certification process. And we know that there’s still progress to be made on adopting policies which make it easier for people to manage their work and home commitments. We think that Dufry’s people have a lot more ideas than ever reach the table – and there must be a reason for this.

That’s part of the inclusion equation. We want to reach out to the people in Dufry who don’t feel that they can be themselves at work because there’s perhaps a pressure to conform. Yet we know diversity breeds success and we know we need to celebrate the diversity within our company.

However, at the moment much of this is “intelligent guesswork”. It won’t be until we hear from all of you out there, the global Dufry community, that we will really and truly understand the best way to move forward to create a truly diverse and inclusive culture at Dufry.

Short term, what can we expect from the Diversity & Inclusion initiative?

In the next few weeks my personal commitment is to pick up the phone and talk to as many people as possible to expand a bit on what I’ve shared with you today and to take a swift temperature check on what they would like to see from Dufry’s focus on diversity and inclusion. I’d also like to hear from anyone who wants to start right now by contributing their thoughts to developing the pathway that we have just started on.