Empowering women

In May 2024 we launched Alpha Females for VentureGarden, in partnership with ACT (American College of Thessaloniki). This programme aims at offering women equal opportunities to participate in entrepreneurship. 

Alpha Females for VentureGarden focuses on female entrepreneurs and includes 3-month support and training on topics centring on how to establish and run a new business, such as:

• Strategic planning 
• Digital marketing 
• Financing tools and business financials
• Success stories of women entrepreneurs 
  

The programme is addressed to VentureGarden graduates from Athens and Thesaloniki, at least 15 in each city, with an average age of 34, who wish to develop their business idea or grow a business they already own. 

Participants will attend 5 themed onsite workshops in Athens or Thessaloniki, running for 2.5 hours each. 

The programme forms part the wider VentureGarden initiative, a business accelerator that supports aspiring entrepreneurs in turning their ideas into businesses. It is the culmination of the partnership between 2 business schools with long tradition in business training:

• Alba Graduate Business School, The American College of Greece 
• ACT-American College of Thessaloniki, the graduate and postgraduate studies division of Anatolia College
  

It has been specially designed to meet the ever rising needs of the business community in developing their skills.

Grow Aware

We support women over 40 years old who left Alpha Bank voluntarily and want to set up their own social enterprise. 

To this end, we have designed the online Grow Aware Academy in partnership with the Women Do Business NGO. During the 3-month programme, participants receive consultation and training on social entrepreneurship issues, through speeches, special events and seminars.

The key topics include: 

• Developing skills. 
• Balancing work and personal life. 
• Cultivating the spirit of entrepreneurship. 
• Learning about stereotypes and restrictive thinking, with the aim of breaking them down. 

Bridging the Gap is a programme we designed along with the Solidarity NGO, aiming at the financial and professional inclusion of 300 unemployed women from vulnerable backgrounds, such as:

• Women with medical conditions or mental health issues
• Single-parent families
• Victims of gender violence
• Young women who are neither studying nor working 
• Long-term unemployed 
• Immigrants
  

The programme supports and empowers the participants, aiming to help them enter the job market. The families and dependants of the participants are also indirectly benefited.

Solidarity Now, which is responsible for running the programme, aspires to bring together and establish a national employer network across Greece, which would provide equal employment opportunities and promote inclusion in various sectors, such as entrepreneurship, technology, tourism, food, manufacturing. 

So, assisted by work advisors, it:

• Supports participants so they may be properly prepared and actively participate in job search, e.g. CV drafting. 
• Helps participants overcome job-entry obstacles, e.g. childcare, work-life balance, social stereotypes.
• Matches participant qualifications to jobs.
• Supports employers in their efforts to find employees. 
• Contributes in raising awareness within companies about the benefits of a multicultural workplace.
  

The programme runs for 12 months.

In 2021 we launched AWARE (Alpha Women. Authentic, Resilient, Empowered), aiming to empower our female executives. Through 2 different initiatives, Trading Alpha Brains and SheforHe, we contribute to their personal growth and encourage them to sharpen their leadership skills. 

The Trading Alpha Brains mentoring programme brings together women who work in different departments. Through the mentor-mentee relationship, our female employees: 

• Exchange experiences and skills. 
• Share their knowledge. 
• Identify common challenges and ways to overcome them.

Aiming to promote a leadership mentality, we have created the SheforHe mentoring programme. Women in senior posts at Alpha Bank become mentors and undertake to provide guidance to newly recruited male employees, so they may: 

• Adapt smoothly to the Alpha Bank culture. 
• Develop professionally and achieve their goals.

The Bankers and Daughters job-shadowing programme is addressed to daughters of our employees who are undergraduate students. Our aim is to help them with their professional orientation and introduce them to the jobs and demands of the banking sector, especially in departments where men make up the higher percentage of employees.