Gretchen is an Associate Director and Head of Gender and Job Quality within SLR’s Sustainable Finance practice. Over her 35+ year career, she has provided specialised human resources, gender and social inclusion consulting to large and medium-sized industrial and manufacturing enterprises, with deep, hands-on experience in the South African industrial sector. As Chief People Officer for a global forestry and timber manufacturing company, she led the Human Resources, Transformation and Social Performance portfolio for a workforce of more than 4,000 direct and indirect employees across South Africa, with direct accountability for B-BBEE transformation, employment equity, skills development and shop-floor workforce management.
Her focus on gender equality and social inclusion in traditionally male-dominated industrial sectors, such as forestry and timber, manufacturing, mining-adjacent operations, construction, renewables and infrastructure, has equipped Gretchen to identify and implement practical mechanisms to attract, retain and advance women across the workforce, supply chain and surrounding communities. She has an in-depth working knowledge of the South African labour, employment equity and B-BBEE legislative environment and how gender objectives can be aligned with scorecard commitments across ownership, management control, skills development, including learnerships and bursaries, and supplier development.
In 1992, Gretchen was commissioned by the South African Labour Ministry to participate in the working group, alongside the Canadian Human Rights Commission, that developed South Africa’s transformation legislation, the Employment Equity Act. She has a deep, technical understanding of how gender integrates into operations, from inclusive shop-floor design, including PPE, sanitation, change facilities and shift patterns, and HR systems, including recruitment, codes of conduct and grievance mechanisms, through to Gender-Based Violence and Harassment prevention, risk mitigation and safeguarding. Gretchen’s experience as a human resources practitioner and social performance specialist in complex operational environments and diverse sectors extends across all vulnerable groups, and she has specialised in social safeguarding mechanisms across workforces, suppliers, customers and associated communities.
With a strong appreciation for local socio-cultural and operating contexts, she develops transformation strategies, frameworks and practical tools that are realistic, commercially grounded and directly linked to business value.
Over the past 4 years as Head of Gender and Job Quality, Gretchen has led numerous gender assignments, including gender diagnostic assessments, the design and delivery of Gender Action Plans, and Gender-Based Violence and Harassment and Decent Work strategies, focusing on the integration of gender into operational and management systems. Her approach is participatory and co-creative. She routinely conducts interviews, facility reviews and co-creation workshops with a full range of stakeholders, from senior corporate leadership and boards through to supervisors and front-line workers.
