Building on the success of its Mauritius cohort, CIEL Group is bringing its Women in Leadership programme to Madagascar. Gathering 34 women managers from the Textile, Finance, and Healthcare clusters, it marks the first cross-cluster initiative of its kind for the Group in the country. A significant milestone, and a concrete step in the ambition to build the next generation of women leaders with intention.
The Women in Leadership (WIL) programme sits within the Go Beyond Gender initiative, CIEL Group’s roadmap launched in 2021 with the objective of reaching 45% women at management level by 2030. The expansion to Madagascar is the next chapter of that journey.
Dev Sewgobind, Group Head of Human Resources & Sustainability, sets out the thinking: “The Women in Leadership programme is directly related to our people strategy at CIEL: building a stronger leadership pipeline, accelerating capability, and ensuring opportunity is accessible across our businesses and geographies. It’s how we shift representation sustainably.”
The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap reports consistently show that full parity, at the current pace, remains a distant prospect. Organisations that want real change must therefore act with purpose.
Three Months, One Shared Experience
The programme runs in two groups of around 17 participants each, with workshop style days and individual coaching sessions spread over three months. The curriculum is built around key themes: personal development and managerial leadership; professional skills spanning communication, project management and the shift from expert to manager; and collective intelligence and networking.
Crucially, this marks the first time participants from different clusters in Madagascar have come together under a single programme initiative. Participants from Textile, Finance, and Healthcare bring diverse perspectives shaped, amongst others, by their respective industries. The programme encourages broader thinking, fresh insights, and connections that extend beyond individual professional environments. It is also facilitated locally, a deliberate choice to ensure strong contextual relevance and meaningful impact.
As Delphine Bouic, Group Head of Community Engagement & Inclusion, explains: “The core of the programme is the same as in Mauritius, but it is delivered by a local trainer to better understand the context in which those women evolve. Culture has a strong impact on leadership roles, and we wanted the training to resonate with participants’ lived reality.”
Investing in the Moments That Define Careers
Research points to a consistent pattern: one of the most critical and fragile moments in women’s progression is the step into management. Without targeted development and visibility, momentum is easily lost. WIL is designed to counter exactly that, by building confidence, skills, and cross-functional networks at precisely the right time.
For Dev Sewgobind, this is where the Group’s core value comes to life: “Putting People at Heart means investing in a way that is intentional, equitable, and sustained, especially at the moments that define careers: stepping into leadership, building influence, being prepared for broader responsibility. Investing in women’s leadership is not only the right thing to do; it is how we build a stronger, more future-ready organisation.”
Building on the Mauritian Experience
When the first cohort completed the programme in Mauritius in partnership with Stellenbosch University, the targeted outcomes comprised expanded responsibilities and promotions. These milestones signalled the beginning of a broader shift in leadership confidence and ambition.
Behind every participant is a manager stepping more fully into her potential, a team that will be led differently, a career that may open doors for others. The ripple effect of that, through organisations, families, and communities, is difficult to measure, yet impossible to ignore. That journey, which began in Mauritius, now continues in Madagascar.
