Sanofi achieves the third year of Gold-level Gender Parity Certification

• The certification recognizes the outstanding commitments and actions of companies to achieve gender parity at all levels of business.
• Sanofi has committed to reaching gender parity amongst the company's 1,900 senior leaders globally by 2025.
• Sanofi continues its commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion through the continuous deployment of initiatives to increase gender parity.

LAVAL, QC, May 3, 2022 /CNW Telbec/ - Sanofi Canada is proud to announce its third year of recognition by the Women in Governance organization, having earned the Gold-level Gender Parity Certification in 2021. Achieving gender parity is one of the objectives in Sanofi's diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, with efforts to build a workplace that understands and accommodates the needs of its employees and creates stronger connections with patients, customers and partners.

Stéphanie Veyrun-Manetti
Canada Country Lead and General Manager, Specialty Care

"Achieving a gender balance and a culture of inclusiveness is an important contributor to our future success. The gold-level gender parity certification affirms that we are taking the right steps to ensure that women are represented equally at all levels of our organization. Sanofi strives to create the conditions within which all women, in all circumstances, can be successful in their roles.

This certification inspires us to continue to exchange and learn from each other so that collectively we can identify where we need to break down barriers, increase support and create opportunities for women to bring their best selves to work."  

Sanofi has an ambitious global objective of achieving equal representation of women and men among global senior leaders by 2025 and has made important progress against that goal, and that momentum towards parity continues this year. Locally, 52% of Sanofi employees are women. Sanofi has continued its advancement in 2021, now having achieved over 55% of leadership positions held by women. 

Fostering a fair, inclusive and supportive environment for all
Sanofi has set a bold ambition for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I), which is to build leadership and teams that reflect the diversity of its communities. This will be accomplished by setting goals, collecting data, and closely monitoring changes over time to maximize impact and increase accountability around diversity and inclusion.

Over the course of 2021, Sanofi Canada has executed many important initiatives in DE&I, including the following:

• Self I&D campaign: Launched a Canada-wide "self-identification" initiative to have a clearer picture of the Canadian organization and better understand Sanofi's employee population.
• New diversity dashboards that track key performance indicators for gender and ethnicity balance at all levels.
• Creation of Thrive Canada, a holistic workplace wellbeing program for employees that aims to improve and maintain the overall health of employees by providing flexible and personalized offerings across all dimensions of well-being — mental, financial, physical and social.
• Joining the Equity and Diversity collaborative, which consists of 17 life science organizations that share the goal of supporting the Government of Canada's 50 – 30 Challenge, a national initiative to increase the representation and inclusion of diverse groups within the workplace.
• New flexibility in Sanofi's guidelines on where and how to work, to help employees feel more included in the workplace, more empowered through greater support, flexibility and personalization, and a greater ability to balance their wellbeing and mental health.
• New parental leave policy providing all Sanofi employees, regardless of gender or sexual orientation, eligibility for up to 14 weeks of paid parental leave when welcoming a new child into their family.  

Marie-Pierre Lalande 
Head of Human Resources, Sanofi Canada

"I am proud to be part of a company that puts DE&I at the forefront of our priorities, with gender parity being an important part of that journey. DE&I has become a cornerstone of our company strategy, with efforts to embrace greater inclusion in every aspect of our interactions, from employees to healthcare providers and patients.

The feedback we received through the certification process allows us to see where we need to focus our efforts on this ongoing journey. I am confident that we have the passion and the right plan to progress towards our bold objectives."

About Women in Governance 
Women in Governance is a not-for-profit organization founded to empower women in their roles as employees and leaders in their quest towards excellence. Their objective is to close the gender gap in the workplace and achieve parity at every level and department of an organization. More information is available at www.womeningovernance.org.

About Sanofi
We are an innovative global healthcare company, driven by one purpose: we chase the miracles of science to improve people's lives. Our team, across some 100 countries, is dedicated to transforming the practice of medicine by working to turn the impossible into the possible. We provide potentially life-changing treatment options and life-saving vaccine protection to millions of people globally, while putting sustainability and social responsibility at the center of our ambitions. In Canada, Sanofi employs approximately 2,000 people and in 2020, we invested more than $145 million in R&D in Canada, creating jobs, business and opportunities throughout the country.

SOURCE Sanofi-Aventis Canada Inc.

Christine Chin, Head of Communications, + 514-299-3567, [email protected]; Lori Bogdanis, Lead, Corporate Communications, + 514-233-9549, [email protected]