Sodexo Reinforces Actions to Increase Women's Representation with the Creation of the Sodexo Women’s International Forum for Talent (SWIFt)

PARIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Regulatory News:

“In listening to several speakers during the 2008 Forum, I had the idea of creating a council of women leaders to help drive the Group toward its objectives for gender representation in management, particularly in the operational functions”

Sodexo (PARIS:SW) (OTCBB:SDXAY), a world leader in Quality of Life solutions, announced a new initiative to increase the percentage of women in its top management with the creation of the Sodexo Women's International Forum for Talent (SWIFt). Twenty of the company’s senior female executives, representing 12 nationalities, will propose specific actions needed for Sodexo to achieve a level of between 23% and 25% female representation in its Top 300 by 2015.

The initiative was inspired by the exchanges of best practices that took place during the 2008 Women's Forum in Deauville, France. "In listening to several speakers during the 2008 Forum, I had the idea of creating a council of women leaders to help drive the Group toward its objectives for gender representation in management, particularly in the operational functions” said Sodexo’s CEO, Michel Landel.

SWIFt members already have begun meeting and have identified the following key objectives:

• Make recommendations to the Group’s Executive Committee;
• Identify priority actions, targets and a road map;
• Identify best practices internally and externally;
• Act as company spokespersons regarding the strategic importance of diversity for the organization;
• Develop a network based on cooperation.

Recommendations already resulting from SWIFt meetings include training members of country management teams and enacting measures to promote gender balance in recruitment. Work groups have been formed to develop and pilot the deployment of measures decided by Michel Landel and the Group Executive Committee.

"At Sodexo, 57% of our employees are women but the number decreases as one moves up the hierarchical levels” said Rohini Anand, Sodexo’s Chief Diversity Officer. “The recommendations of SWIFt should help us move forward pragmatically and accelerate our efforts to make Sodexo a leader in diversity and inclusion."

Sodexo’s overall diversity strategy was recognized with the Global Diversity Policy Grand Prize, awarded at the fourth annual "Trophées de la Diversité^®" held in France on October 1.

For the third consecutive year, Sodexo is a partner of this year’s Women’s Forum in Deauville, being held from October 15-18.

About Sodexo

Quality of Life in the service of performance

Quality of Life services play an important role in organizational performance. Based on this conviction, Sodexo serves as the strategic partner for companies, institutions and local authorities who place a premium on performance, as it has done since Pierre Bellon founded the company in 1966. Sharing the same passion for service, Sodexo’s 355,000 employees, in 80 countries around the world, design, manage and deliver an unrivalled array of comprehensive On-Site Service Solutions and Motivation Solutions. In this, Sodexo has invented a new form of service business that promotes the fulfillment of our employees and contributes to the economic, social and environmental development of the local communities with which we work.

Sodexo key figures (as of August 31, 2008)

13.6 billion euro consolidated revenue

355,000 employees

30,600 sites

50 million consumers served daily

80 countries

6.4 billion euro market capitalization (on October 15, 2009)

www.sodexo.com