Accenture, Amazon, Generali, Marriott International and Microsoft among leading businesses pledging to accelerate the economic integration of over 250,000 Ukrainian refugee women and other refugees.

Organised by the Tent Partnership for Refugees (Tent) the companies’ commitments include hiring 13,680 refugees into their workforce and the world’s largest staffing agencies including Adecco, ManpowerGroup, and Randstad committing to connect 152,000 refugees to work. In addition, companies including Accenture, Generali, Indeed and Unilever have committed to train more than 86,000 refugees. Also announced at the Summit was funding from Google.org to accelerate Tent’s work in Poland, as well as new strategic partnerships with LinkedIn and Visa to grow Tent’s professional mentorship initiatives for refugees in Europe.

Other brands making hiring commitments include Adidas, Blackstone, BP, KFC, L’Oréal Group, PepsiCo, Pfizer, Starbucks EMEA, Suez and The Kraft Heinz Company.

In light of these pan-European commitments, Tent will look to connect more companies regionally with refugee talent pools at scale, particularly in Poland, which hosts the largest Ukrainian refugee population at 1.5 million.

Paul Polman campaigner and former CEO of Unilever said: “When I joined Hamdi Ulukaya and the other distinguished business leaders as co-host of the Tent European Business Summit a few months ago, I could not have imagined the scale at which businesses would be stepping up for Ukrainians and other refugees today. I deeply commend the companies that have joined this crucial movement and I pay tribute to the many refugees who are rebuilding their lives, from Ukraine and other parts of the world. Their talent and tenacity is a tremendous asset for any company building a capable and determined workforce”.

With more and more refugees displaced for longer periods of time, businesses have a critical role to play in helping refugees integrate economically in their new communities. Tent was launched in 2016 by Hamdi Ulukaya, the CEO and founder of Chobani, a multibillion-dollar food company in the US, to mobilise global businesses to fill this gap by helping connect refugees to work.

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