Industry strives to raise female representation

Manufacturers are setting bolder gender targets as Autocar again honours women excelling in senior automotive roles

- NICK GIBBS

The meeting that took place in Gaydon last month should have been just like any other for Joana Fidalgo, an engineer working across departments within Jaguar Land Rover investigating new materials except for one thing. "I looked around and then the penny dropped: I was surrounded by women. It was the first time that had happened for me," she told Autocar.

Five of the six people in the meeting were women, some of them category winners in the Autocar Great Women in the British Car Industry initiative, now in its seventh year.

They included Danella Bagnall, vehicle programme quality director and now an Autocar Great Women Hall of Fame inductee after multiple wins in the Vehicle Development category, and Louise Reynolds, this year's winner in the Karen Gibson Vehicle Development category, following her promotion in 2021 to vehicle line director.

For Fidalgo, it was a pivotal moment. "I'm actually surrounded by women I really admire and look up to. I'm coming from manufacturing and powertrain strategy, so often I'm the only girl in the room," she said.

Since Autocar started the Great Women initiative in 2016 to highlight the women who have succeeded or, in our alternating Rising Stars event, are on the path to success in this male-dominated industry, car companies have become much more focused on raising the female representation in their businesses.

Within BMW, for example, boosting the share of women in management is now one of the performance criteria that determine the size of the annual bonuses given to those on the board of management.

BMW's target is to hire or promote women to 25% of management roles by 2025, up from 19% at the end of 2021.

Overall, the proportion of women in the BMW Group global workforce at the end of last year stood at 20%.