UK: CAP Worldwide Serviced Apartments (CAP) has been awarded Women Owned certified status and launched its brand partner management programme ‘At CAP, you’re welcome’.
The ‘At CAP, you’re welcome’ programme has been launched “to ensure that all partners, no matter how big or small, whether they are global or local, diverse, entrepreneurial or minority owned are assured the same equal opportunity to become a CAP brand partner/supplier and to receive requests to service extended stay demand from our valued clients”.
The initiative is managed internally by Clare Ace, CAP’s global supply and brand partner director.
Jo Layton, CEO of CAP, said: “CAP Worldwide is proud to be part of the formal WEConnect International women’s business enterprise (WBE) accreditation programme, an association that provides support to majority women owned businesses and helps global corporate companies to connect with formally assessed and certified women owned suppliers.”
“In these challenging times we have recognised the best and most sustainable supply chains are achieved through the welcoming of great and diverse brand partners, this has become apparent even more so during the pandemic. CAPTURE, our digital eco-system recognises and records the availability of diverse partners and can provide spend data to support our client’s diversity initiatives. This ensures that we are measured on our actions in this equity arena, not just our words,” she added.
Maggie Berry OBE, executive director for Europe at WEConnect International, said: “We are delighted to welcome Jo, her leadership team and her connections to the WBE community. Jo’s energy and drive to ‘pay it forward’ and to ensure equity and inclusivity in her own business and across her supply chain is refreshing and exciting – we are looking forward to working together over the coming months in this fast-moving space.”
Andrew Hopgood, CAP COO added: “Our goal at CAP Worldwide is to ensure we deliver ‘actionable insights’, both internally and externally. Instead of purely celebrating our own diversity, we wish to continue to create a balanced and equitable business by ‘paying it forward’ to our supply chain, matching each CAP supply interaction with a large provider with the same time dedicated to a SMB or minority owned business, ensuring a balanced approach in inclusivity and equity for all our brand partners.”
Clare Ace said: “At CAP, we want to ensure that all providers, no matter their size, their ethnicity or the gender of their ownership have the opportunity to work with us. Once at the CAP table, all partners will be taken through an initial assessment (if they are not already accredited officially), on their product and company’s ‘safe, secure, COVID 19 clean and legal’ status. It remains important to remember, whether the provider has one unit in a tertiary location, or 90,000 units across the globe, all providers are expected to provide the best, safest and highest level of service and product in their respective market.”
Layton concluded: “Being inclusive and welcoming to the second tier extended stay supply chain who sit at the CAP table is one of our core company values. This is our commitment to inclusivity and equity and is now firmly one of our company KPIs. We assure all our partners, suppliers and clients that – At CAP, you’re welcome.”</p
