MetLife Australia has signed the United Nations (UN) Women’s Empowerment Principles, which aim to promote gender equality in the workplace and society.

“We are strongly committed to gender equality because it has a positive impact on our people, our customers, our partners and business,” CEO Richard Nunn said.

“At MetLife Australia we are making an impact through improving representation of women leaders, promoting women’s development opportunities, prioritising diversity and inclusion and promoting equality.”

Parent company MetLife Inc. said last week at a New York diversity conference that it had become the first US-based insurance company to sign the seven empowerment principles.

CEO Michael Khalaf says the company has formed a Metlife Gender Equality team that will partner with the UN to identify any gaps, such as in recruitment, retention, promotion, compensation and succession planning, and work to close them.

The UN principles include establishing high-level corporate leadership for gender equality, promoting education, training and professional development for women and measuring and publicly reporting on progress to achieve equality.