DP World Limassol supports women’s leadership in maritime industry

Since taking over the multi-purpose port and cruise terminal in Limassol in 2017, DP World Limassol has been fostering a culture of equality and empowerment, increasing career development opportunities for female employees, and hiring women in key positions.

One of them, Katerina Constantinou, has had an impressive journey at the company, starting out as Administration Assistant in 2017 and becoming Cruise Operations Officer only a year later. In 2020, she was promoted to Terminal Supervisor and subsequently worked her way up to Customer Relations Executive, providing exceptional service to port users.

“My inspiration to seek a job in the port sector stems from my grandfather who was a port worker himself,” Constantinou said. “By listening to all his stories about the port, I was driven to follow in his footsteps”.

Despite finding it challenging at first – as she had to understand the way of communicating in a traditionally male-dominated profession – it wasn’t long before she earned the respect of her colleagues, resulting in a smooth collaboration.

Constantinou, who is a Hotel and Tourism Management graduate, attributes her journey to the company’s willingness to listen and adopt ideas and suggestions expressed by staff members. “I felt that this gave me the flexibility and encouragement I needed to fulfil my ambitions”, she said.

In line with the Group’s philosophy, DP World Limassol focuses on empowering staff to grow withing the organisation, irrespective of gender. “ Constantinou is just one of our employees who managed to excel and move up in the ranks of the company, thanks to our guidance and supervision and we are very proud of her”, said the company’s CEO, Simon Pitout.

It should be noted that the percentage of female employees throughout the company’s global network stood at 17% in 2023, while the goal is to increase that to at least 20% by 2025.

To achieve that, the group has launched several initiatives designed to support female professionals and boost their representation in the sector. The MentorHer programme, for example, unveiled in 2018, gives all its female employees the opportunity to be mentored by a senior member of the organisation. The target is to have 1,000 of its staff complete the programme by 2030.

Furthermore, DP World's "Women on Boards" initiative prepares women for executive positions, with the Group allocating 12 out of 33 board seats globally to women in 2022 – a 37.5% increase compared with 2021. A further 14 women have joined the programme this year.

Pitout said: “Our company is working hard to close the existing gender leadership gap in the maritime sector. Although the number of women in our industry has increased over the past years, there is still a long way to go. According to the International Maritime Organization (IMO) women make up just 29% of the global maritime industry workforce”.

“At DP World, we believe that investing in women’s representation and leadership is crucial to building a sustainable maritime industry. We are committed to further empowering women and increasing their representation in leadership positions through various well-defined initiatives and actions”, he pointed out.