The resilience factor: How to dig in
London, 25th September London: Episode 20 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 touches on non-conventional routes into becoming a businesswoman, and the challenges that come with building something outside of a metropolitan area – but how this has wonderful benefits for the community and the economy. We follow up with how we can drive sustainability across all areas in automotive, and why it should be a shared goal in business communities.
All episodes in the series feature a Podcast Pit Stop – a quick fire round covering the professional and personal including; Regulation or Free Market? Solar or Wind? Congestion charge for EVs – yes or no?
Join Erin as she puts two firecrackers in the driving seat.
Jordan Brompton
“It was a female that led the investment when we raised the £30 million – there was a group of us. But I always question, would I have got that if I didn’t have a [male] co-founder? Probably not.”
“I remember some encounters in my early career which make me shudder to my core, and that was more physical dominance from men. But then in my later years it’s definitely been what I feel to be unconscious bias and a little bit of misogyny still there.”
“I became obsessed with energy independence and becoming off grid. But I didn’t realise how impossible it is to stay off grid, you’ve got to stay connected.”
“I didn’t go to uni, I wasn’t very bright at college, was told I wasn’t going to amount to much but I just knew I loved selling and people and communicating. So when I had something that actually struck a chord, and I could see real potential, I just leaned into it with all my might.”
“I just knew in my core that was my purpose and passion to build that business without any data, without knowing the electric car market was about to take off. I just knew that I wanted to be as self-sufficient as possible.”
“I’m such an advocate for growing a business in your hometown, and especially if you’re from the north of England because we get forgotten about a lot – especially places like Grimsby where it used to be a fishing town.”
“People thought we were crazy for building the business there and building the factory there, but the knock-on effects of having a successful business in a town like that, creates careers, fills up local hotels, fills up local restaurants, brings people to the town. The amount of amazing people that have been to the town because they’ve been to the myenergi HQ. It’s just so important and totally doable.”
“In some specific areas it can be really challenging, but I think the net positive is a lot more for our whole entire economy, so when I talk about the ripple effect, it’s not just about your local area. It bubbles out across the entire UK economy.”
“I’ve always dressed to make myself feel comfortable, I’ve always been around glamorous women in my life – my grandparents and my mum are always put together.”
“I have had some comments asking whether my profile picture is appropriate and that just made me dig my heels in a bit more. It’s not about a shock factor, it’s more like what makes me feel good and confident and empowered because you’re already in a very uncomfortable situation.”
“Sometimes I like to give a bit of credit to the blokes because I’ve worked with exceptional ones.”
“One thing I’ve been told that makes me sick and I will not be told again is that I’m too emotional to be a leader. I might speak with a bit more empathy but that doesn’t mean that I’m weak and I can’t make tough decisions.”
Sukky Choongh
“I think when you look at automotive and the reasons why we have vehicles at all, be they a car, a bike, a bus, a truck. There is a purpose for that. We all still want to live our lives, we still want to go places. So the answer is not to stop doing that, but to do it in a cleaner way.”
“I personally think there’s enough data to show that we have the answers to that environmental improvement.”
“Yes road transport is the biggest co2 emitter, it’s the biggest emitter of nox concentrations and emissions across the UK, therefore lets change that technology to bring that down, and we’ve come down massively over the years.”
“Understand that yes, we are the polluter, but we have the answers, so lets get on with it, lets make it happen.”
“We seem to be moving from crisis to crisis, I believe we’ve been successful, negotiating all of the challenges of COVID and now trade.”
“Finding that middle ground and finding a position that works well for the industry as a whole is a challenge. I think we do it well, but there’s always going to be people that say you must be doing more.”
“The major wins are really trying to get people on board, excited and able to make that transition. If we look at commercial vehicles in particular, it’s not that fleets don’t want to do it.
“You will get some older fleet managers that will say ‘this is too difficult for me I don’t want to do it’, but we make it so difficult. Why are we waiting so long to get good connections, why is it so expensive? Why is the planning system broken? These things we can fix, we can change the way we approach them, and we can change the system so that it makes things easier.”
“ ‘Too emotional’ is really interesting because emotion doesn’t show itself as raging, angry, crying. When a man gives you the silent treatment which happens quite regularly because they don’t like something and they choose to ignore you – that is an expression of emotion.”
“I do feel protected within the walls of the SMMT. My earlier career it’s a little bit different. I’ve been on construction sites where men have said ‘oh you really know what you’re talking about don’t you? We thought we were just going to talk to some girl!’”
Notes to editors
ABOUT ERIN BAKER
Erin Baker is an award-winning motoring journalist and Editorial Director of Auto Trader. She writes a monthly driving column for Vogue, is a World Car of the Year judge, consults for Goodwood and hosts She's Electric, a national roadshow bringing women and electric cars together. Erin is passionate about narrowing the gender gap, both in the automotive industry itself and between car brands and female consumers, through more targeted language, marketing and experiences. She is a single mother of two boys.
ABOUT JORDAN BROMPTON
Jordan is a dynamic UK-based tech entrepreneur and angel investor, renowned for her role in revolutionising sustainable energy solutions. As co-founder of one of the UK’s fast growing green tech firms, she’s made green technology smarter and more accessible, empowering consumers to reduce their carbon footprint and energy costs. Beyond her entrepreneurial success, Jordan actively advises at board level and invests in early-stage startups, helping the next generation of innovators scale their impact. Her leadership is a driving force in both clean energy and tech investment, shaping a more sustainable future.'
ABOUT SOOKKY CHOONGH
Sooky Choongh graduated from Kings College London in 2010 with an MSc in Environmental Health and has previously been employed by the London Borough of Islington as air quality officer. She was also the project manager for Low Emission Logistics, a multi borough Mayors Air Quality funded project led by Lambeth Council. She joined the SMMT in July 2017 as Environmental Policy Manager and leads on air quality policy, regional engagement and decarbonisation of heavy duty vehicles.
ABOUT AUTOTRADER
Autotrader Group plc is the UK’s largest automotive platform. It listed on the London Stock Exchange in March 2015 and is a member of the FTSE 100 Index.
Autotrader’s purpose is Driving Change Together. Responsibly. Autotrader is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive culture, it aims to build stronger partnerships with its customers and use its voice and influence to drive more environmentally friendly vehicle choices.
With the largest number of car buyers and the largest choice of trusted stock, Autotrader’s marketplace sits at the heart of the UK car buying process. That marketplace is built on an industry-leading technology and data platform, which is increasingly used across the automotive industry. Autotrader is continuing to bring more of the car buying journey online, creating an improved buying experience, whilst enabling all its retailer partners to sell vehicles online.
Autotrader publishes a monthly used car Retail Price Index which is based on pricing analysis of circa 800,000 unique vehicles. The same data that powers the Index is used by the Office for National Statistics to make the UK’s official measures of inflation more robust, as well as the Bank of England to feed the broader UK economic indicators.
For more information, please visit: plc.autotrader.co.uk
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