Coca-Cola to women entrepreneurs: Become our partners

Devex reporter Adva Saldinger interviews Coca-Cola’s Charlotte Oades

Making soft drinks to empower women?

Not exactly, but Coca-Cola is increasingly realizing the benefits of helping women entrepreneurs in developing countries acquire the skill sets and training they need to break down the social, cultural and economic barriers they still face to become first pillars of their communities — and then business partners with one of the world’s corporate giants.

Charlotte Oades, Coca-Cola’s global director, women’s economic empowerment

“We think women are absolutely crucial, they are already pillars of the local communities … and of our own business. If we can encourage [them] to thrive, then the communities will thrive … and business will thrive,” Charlotte Oades, Coca-Cola’s director for women’s empowerment, told Devex Impact reporter Adva Saldinger at the the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s International Women’s Day Forum in New York.

Click on the above video for more insights from Oades on how Coca-Cola is helping women entrepreneurs overcome myriad challenges and do business with the company through projects like its own 5by20 Initiative and a new 7 million pound partnership with the U.K. Department for International Development in Nigeria.

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She Builds is a month-long conversation hosted by Devex in partnership with Chemonics, Creative Associates, JBS International, the Millennium Challenge Corp., United Nations Office for Project Services and U.K. Department for International Development.

About the author

Adva SaldingerFollow@deveximpact

As a Devex Impact reporter, Adva covers the intersection of business and international development. Previously, she has worked as a reporter at newspapers in both the US and South Africa. Most recently, she has been ghostwriting a memoir for James Kofi Annan, a former child slave and NGO founder in Ghana.