Nissan South Africa received the Transformation: Women Empowering Award for Manufacturing OEMs at the recent Accelerator awards. Awarded by the National Association of Automotive Manufacturers of South Africa (NAAMSA), the Accelerator Awards recognise the contributions and achievements made by the industry in the preceding year.
This year, Nissan was nominated for both the top exported vehicle of the year award in the manufacturing segment and the Transformation: Women Empowering Award for Manufacturing OEMs. Nissan Africa President Jordi Vila and Nissan Africa Manager: External and Government Affairs Tiisetso Kwape received the award on Friday October 3 at a gala function to close the annual SA Auto Week, which was held in Gqeberha in the Eastern Cape this year.
“We were delighted by both the nominations,” says Nissan Africa President Jordi Vila, “and thrilled to win the transformation award because transformation is not a checkbox for us; it’s a core part of how we operate and lead. Empowering women across all levels of our business is essential to building a sustainable, future-ready automotive industry.
“This award reinforces our belief that diversity is not only the right thing to do, but the smart thing to do — because when women thrive, innovation accelerates, teams perform better, and the entire industry moves forward.”
The company celebrated recently being named as a finalist in this year’s Standard Bank Top Women awards “We can’t just open the door to women to access the industry,” says Kholo Kunene, Nissan Africa Human Resources Director, “we must create spaces where they can develop, grow and thrive. We believe the industry will truly only benefit from more gender diversity and the Accelerator Award this .year shows that the industry agrees with us and what we are doing.”
