Powering Progress: have times changed?
London, 15th January: Episode 23 of the Autotrader podcast Women in the driving seat, hosted by Editorial Director, award-winning motoring journalist Erin Baker is released today. The series aims to rip up the rule book on the female-empowerment narrative by sharing personal as well as professional experiences, examining the space where both collide, and the challenges, fears and successes happen.
This episode explores the advancements made within the automotive industry over recent decades and discusses approaches to further enhance diversity and inclusion throughout the sector. The guests also consider the advantages of the electric car grant, and what this means for the wider industry.
All episodes in the series feature a Podcast Pit Stop – a quick fire round covering the professional and personal including; BYD or Omoda/Jaecoo, Ford Transit or Ford Puma? Alfa Romeo or Jeep?
Join Erin as she puts two trailblazers in the driving seat.
Podcast Preview
Lisa Brankin
“[Ford] is an American company, and has been in existence for over 100 years, but it’s also been in Europe and the UK for over 100 years, and our intention is to be here for another 100 years.”
“In business, competition pushes you to do better and go further, but sometimes it’d be really nice not to have any competition – but I think it’s good and we’ve got a lot of strengths that put us in a good stead.”
“We have a European manufacturing footprint, all of our commercial vehicles are designed in the UK, so I’m really confident we’ve got a really good hands on the UK customer. And we’ve invested heavily in building investment in the UK and Europe.”
“Part of that investment is one of the reasons why we’ve been able to get the higher level of EV grant because we’ve invested in clean energy to help us build and produce our vehicles.”
“We’ve always said we understand why the ZEV mandate is there. It’s about meeting emissions targets, and the UK has probably got the most ambitious targets in the whole world.”
“The challenge we’ve got is that customer demand really isn’t keeping up with that ambition.”
“ I think we as a business need to do more about diversity and inclusion overall, not just about women.”
Julie David
“Earlier on in my career, cultures were a lot more hierarchical, much more aggressive, the thought of a more female voice, a different way of thinking was not as accepted as much as it is – hopefully - a bit more now.”
“Certainly, if I think about things that encourage females into automotive now, there’s a lot more there.”
“My maternity leaves were super quick, there weren’t the things in place that there are today – there certainly wasn’t flexible working, you were required to be in the office.”
“The more senior I’ve become, the more likely you are the only woman in the room.”
“The culture is down to the leadership, it’s about who’s running the business.”
“There needs to be much more around being a people leader, not just leading functions and being in touch with the human side of the business is really important.”
Erin Baker
“I think the women in those executive positions need to step forward and talk about being a women in those executive positions in order to encourage women at all levels to come in, to stay in and to rise up within the industry, on the grounds that ‘if you can’t see it, you can’t be it.”
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