At the prestigious Standard Bank Top Women™ Awards 2025 which took place on 2 December at the Sandton Convention Centre, Woolworths (Pty) Ltd was named Standard Bank Top Women Business of the Year 2025. This was for its commitment to sustainability, ethical sourcing, and gender equality.
We caught up with Woolworths Group CEO Roy Bagattini to get some insight into the company’s leadership in championing women empowerment.
How does Woolworths approach women empowerment?
At Woolworths, our vision is to be one of the world’s most responsible retailers – this vision guides everything we do. It has shaped our business ethos, compelling us to integrate doing good into every facet of our operations, an approach we express through our Good Business Journey.
Five years ago, we strengthened this commitment by launching the Inclusive Justice Initiative (IJI), marking a significant shift towards social justice. The IJI is our pledge to actively contribute towards eradicating marginalisation and discrimination across all areas where we have influence.
One of the central focus areas of the IJI is the advancement of women empowerment and gender equality. Following extensive research, Woolworths took the step to formally adopt the United Nations Women’s Empowerment Principles (UN WEPs) as our guiding framework. This ensures that governance, leadership accountability, implementation, measurement, and reporting are embedded throughout our organisation.
Last year, we set an ambitious goal to achieve “Achiever” status in the UN Women’s Empowerment Principles gender gap assessment by 2025. We’re happy to share that we met this goal – Woolworths progressed from “Improver” status to “Achiever” – scoring 64 percent against a goal of 50 percent. We believe we are now well on our way to achieving “Leader” status. We are wholly committed to driving gender equality across our business.
How has Woolworths made a tangible difference to the lives of women?
The impact is visible across our value chain from the women we employ, our supplier base, to our customers.
From a workplace perspective, women make up 66% of our total workforce, reflecting our commitment to equitable representation at all organisational levels. When it comes to leadership, women hold 46% of senior management positions, demonstrating steady progress toward gender parity in leadership. In the last year, we have invested R78 million in female-focused skills development, representing 61% of total training expenditure. We also introduced private medical insurance for more than 24,000 of our employees, largely benefitting the women who work in our stores and supply chain.
When it comes to suppliers, our commitment to inclusive growth is evident in our procurement spend on micro, small and medium sized enterprises, which grew by over 40 percent and revenues generated for black- and black women-owned suppliers exceeded R7 billion. There are a number of examples of women suppliers being supported and empowered throughout our supply chain, each of those partnerships demonstrate how our inclusive value chain model delivers commercial impact while advancing gender equity and transformation.
Lastly, our customers see the impact through our brand experience, too. Recently, we celebrated Women’s Month and Breast Cancer Awareness month and each of these campaigns were seen and felt in our stores, and online. For example, all takeaway coffee sold at WCafe in October was served in a striking pink cup with a reminder to do a breast check for breast cancer awareness.
What’s next on the agenda for Woolworths and empowering women in South Africa?
At Woolworths, gender empowerment is more than a strategic objective. It is a defining part of who we are; it shapes how we lead, who we hire, how we communicate, and the way we serve our communities.
Through strong leadership commitment, inclusive programmes, supplier empowerment, and the advocacy work of our Inclusive Justice Initiative, Woolworths will continue to cultivate an environment where women not only participate but lead and influence and thrive.
We are proud to be a catalyst for transformation, and we will keep demonstrating that when women rise, our business, our communities, and our nation rise together.
Roy Bagattini is the Group CEO of Woolworths South Africa, a division of Woolworths Holdings Limited (WHL) which is listed on the JSE Limited Securities Exchange (JSE) with operations across the southern hemisphere.
READ: The full list of Standard Bank Top Women Award winners for 2025
