Caterpillar Eyes Inclusion, Driving Business Results in Asia Pacific

March 27, 2019

Caterpillar contact:
Penny Wu
Global Government & Corporate Affairs
+86 10 5921 0236
[email protected]

Additional contact:
Shamir Osman
SPRG
+65 9790 9056
[email protected]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Caterpillar Eyes Inclusion, Driving Business Results in Asia Pacific 

Caterpillar Hosted First Women’s Initiative Network Summit in Singapore

SINGAPORE — Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE: CAT) welcomed men and women from across Asia Pacific to Singapore’s Mandarin Orchard over the last two days for the first Women’s Initiative Network (WIN) APAC Summit. Summit attendees focused on how to deliver increased business results through diversity and inclusion, equal representation, and women in leadership - issues that are important to Caterpillar.

A recent McKinsey Global Institute Study¹ indicates $4.5 trillion of additional annual GDP in 2025 could be added to the economies of Asia Pacific by advancing women’s equality. That growth would represent a 12% increase on current GDP projections for 2025.

With the theme of “Think Equal, Build Smart, and Innovate for Change”, the Summit served as a platform for sharing best practices among attendees, including business, academia and government leaders in the Asia Pacific region. The event brought together voices of several prominent women in the region, including Singapore Member of Parliament, Rahayu Mahzam, Juliet Taylor of BHP, Georgette Tan, President of the Singapore Committee for UN Women and Denise Johnson, Caterpillar Group President.

“Everyone everyday has an opportunity to be more inclusive. By listening to other ideas and thoughts, we will drive improvements in business as well as strengthening the diversity of our teams and it aids our company purpose – which is to help our customers build a better world. While there are several focus areas within our Diversity & Inclusion strategy, gender is the one diversity topic that is globally applicable. Increasing access for women to leadership positions has potential for tangible impact on our organization’s ability to excel in an increasingly dynamic global business environment,” said Johnson.

Caterpillar is joined by other global leaders in the focus on diversity and inclusion. BHP is a world-leading resources company and one of Caterpillar’s important customers in Asia and around the world. At the Summit, Juliet Taylor, Manager for Account Management and Supply at BHP, shared a few of the company’s practices.

“For BHP, our suppliers are central to our aspirational goal of achieving gender balance in our workforce by 2025. We are proud to support Caterpillar on this important regional event as we work to progress our shared vision for inclusion and diversity,” expressed Taylor.

Summit attendees also discussed the important role men play in advancing diversity and inclusion. At Caterpillar, male leaders across the enterprise have firmly supported the work.

“Men play an important role in making Caterpillar a more diverse and inclusive workplace. In 2016, Breakthrough Leadership - Men as Allies was created as a grass roots initiative to develop and promote a more gender inclusive culture at Caterpillar. It is the first program of its kind to talk specifically about actions and behaviors that disadvantage and disengage a minority population of our teams.” stated Raymond Chan, Vice President, Asia Pacific Distribution, Caterpillar Inc. 

“In the past few years, such courses have been held in 14 different locations in the Asia-Pacific region. This WIN APAC Summit is a continuation of our efforts in promoting a more gender inclusive culture that drives high engagement and builds high-performing team," Raymond continued.

In Singapore, the WIN Chapter designed a cross company mentoring program to create opportunities for female employees to communicate with senior leaders from other organizations to broaden their views. Topics like unconscious bias, breakthrough leadership and harnessing the power of networking are widely discussed. By collaborating with Cat Dealers and customers, Science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) activities are being offered to school students.

Caterpillar’s commitment driving business results through an inclusive and diverse workforce was recognized in January, when Caterpillar was named on the Forbes List of Best Employers for Diversity 2019. Currently, 20% of Caterpillar’s global workforce is women. 

About Caterpillar

For more than 90 years, Caterpillar Inc. has been making sustainable progress possible and driving positive change on every continent. Customers turn to Caterpillar to help them develop infrastructure, energy and natural resource assets. With 2018 sales and revenues of $54.722 billion, Caterpillar is the world’s leading manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines, industrial gas turbines and diesel-electric locomotives. The company principally operates through its three primary segments - Construction Industries, Resource Industries and Energy & Transportation - and also provides financing and related services through its Financial Products segment. For more information, visit caterpillar.com. To connect with us on social media, visit caterpillar.com/social-media.

¹ THE POWER OF PARITY: ADVANCING WOMEN’S EQUALITY IN ASIA PACIFIC April 2018