Today is International Women’s Day, focusing on the theme of bettering the balance.
The STEM industry’s gender imbalance continues to remain a tricky issue to tackle, despite targeted programmes to recruit more women. One of the key issues driving this imbalance is perception amongst young girls that STEM is not a industry suitable for women to work in.
National Grid’s executive director of the UK, Nicola Shaw, sat down to talk with Serena Peyronnin an 11-year-old pupil from Gravney Secondary School to gain some insight on why this perception exists and what the industry can do to tackle it.
Shaw said: “It is so important that we encourage female interest in STEM from a young age as this is one of the barriers to reducing the industry’s gender imbalance. It was a pleasure to meet Serena and to hear from her about her ideas for how we can improve gender diversity in STEM.
“She asked some great questions about my experience as a woman in engineering, which gave me a chance to reflect on how much diversity has improved since I started my career. We have made great strides but there is still more to do and at National Grid I am proud to say we make it a priority.”