Diverse talent drives change

By Carolina Karlstrom, Head of Sustainability at SGN and POWERful Women Ambassador

The energy industry is an industry in change. In the global quest for a sustainable future, there are four major pillars of this energy transition: energy access, energy efficiency, sustainability, and energy security.

For any organisation to be successful in the transition, it needs to attract and retain a diverse pool of talent who thinks outside-of-the-box, brings the necessary technical and leadership skills and has a fresh perspective to drive and support change.

POWERful Women is a professional initiative working for a gender-balanced, diverse and inclusive energy sector fit for the energy transition.

Hosted by the Energy Institute, and supported by IGEM and EUA, POWERful Women have set a goal to have women in at least 40 per cent of middle management and leadership roles in UK energy by 2030.

I first learned of POWERful Women back in 2015 when I was working in renewable energy. I was one of the early participants in their mentoring programme.

More recently I have become a POWERful Women Ambassador, and I am proud to be supporting their work to accelerate change to ensure diverse talent for the energy transition.

We need many technologies to achieve net zero. We also need many, diverse and brilliant minds to get us there.

POWERful Women work to deliver a gender-balanced, diverse and inclusive energy sector in three ways:

• SUPPORT - They provide practical support for companies committed to improving their gender diversity and inclusion, for example through their D&I forum and sharing of good practice, and for women to advance their careers, for example through the mentoring programme POWERful Connections, and by providing career resources
• CHALLENGE - By reporting on progress and challenging organisations on their commitments. This includes publishing annual board statistics and company pledges, and through the work of the POWERful Women Energy Leaders’ Coalition
• CONNECT - Through running events and providing platforms for women to network and for companies, regulators, government and experts to collaborate.

In my work as a POWERful Women Ambassador, I have recently joined the Women’s network at SGN to support, challenge and connect across and beyond my own organisation to drive change. 

And let’s be clear, with a whopping 74 per cent of UK energy companies having no female executive directors, and 20 per cent of UK energy companies having no women on the board, this industry needs to do more.

If you would like to find out more about POWERful Women, visit the website here.