AWE Director highlights diversity for International Women’s Day

Alison Atkinson, AWE’s Director of Capital Projects, joined a lively debate at Imperial College London, to mark International Women’s Day.

International Women’s Day celebrates the social, economic, cultural and political achievement of women and Alison took part in a panel discussion which explored the difficulties still faced by women in the workplace and the challenges employers face in overcoming these problems.  She spoke about her own career and explained that she is passionate about diversity because: “When you have diverse teams of people, you have new ways of thinking, you make better decisions and you start innovating. You can attract the best talent because people want to come and work with you.”

AWE is proud of its work to support diversity, including programmes to promote careers for women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Alison, who chairs AWE’s Diversity and Inclusion Steering Group, added:

“We are passionate about the need to increase awareness of the career opportunities that exist within the STEM arena.

“By taking a lead in supporting events and raising awareness of these opportunities, it allows us to raise our own corporate profile as a STEM employer of choice for women and girls, as well as learning from others how to increase the recruitment of women and girls to our STEM roles. It also supports the retention and progression of existing STEM staff.”

Click on this link to view Alison’s panel discussion (with thanks to Imperial College).