By Ash Patel, Marketing Specialist, The Open Group
A few months ago, the Women Re:Inventing Energy event was held in London, with a mission to empower women and their executive allies in the energy sector, showcasing success stories, and discussing challenges. The event also featured inspiring DEI speakers from Amazon and executive trailblazers from Accenture and Thoughtworks.
Recently we sat down with each representative from Thoughtworks, Accenture, and Amazon, in learning more about how they found the event and what it meant to them having sponsored it. Firstly, we sat down with Ruth Harrison, (Global Head of Industry Domains of Thoughtworks) to share her experience. The full interview can be found below:
Please can you all tell us what made you sponsor this particular event?
Thoughtworks is proud to support initiatives such as improved diversity and women’s empowerment, when AWS approached us to participate in the Women Reinventing Energy. It made perfect sense, and we were delighted to sponsor such an important event. Our shared values in client delivery as a premium partner are also demonstrated in our joint commitment to DE&I.
What does ‘Women Reinventing Energy’ mean to you?
It is important to create safe spaces for women to discuss shared experiences and common goals. These spaces have not always been available in male-dominated industries. We were delighted that AWS was taking the lead in ensuring safe spaces are available and that these were extended to include their partners and clients too.
What do you enjoy most about in-person events, such as this one?
Personal connections are so very important when building trust and safety, this in-person event helped stimulate deep conversations, supported by mutual respect, and resulted in great friendships being made too.
If you were to describe the event in three words, what would they be and why?
- Collaborative – due to the variety and mix of partners and clients
- Inclusive – as male allies and colleagues were included in the group discussions
- Friendly – there was such an emphasis on relaxed, no judgment participation, which resulted in rich and meaningful discussion and shared experiences
What does the word ‘community’ mean to you?
Community to me, means a collective support and safety to pursue shared goals with shared values and outcomes.
For those wanting to learn more about Women Reinventing Energy, are there any resources you would recommend?
It would be great if this blog was a regular feature. Perhaps, we can create a LinkedIn group and invite key people to participate and get involved. We could recommend people to join – a closed group by invitation or referral only would create safety.
Overall, what did you like most about the event?
The contacts and friends I made at the event were great and passionate people, who I have maintained contact with since the event.
Please can you list a few takeaways from the event?
- Our shared goals – professional & personal
- Passion for the energy sector
- Desire to make positive change in the upstream sector
- Joint commitment to improving visibility of women in the energy sector
Ash Patel – CDMP, Marketing Specialist, joined The Open Group in 2020, initially working in the Certification Team as a Certification Services Agent, before moving into the Marketing Team where he now works on email mailers, content for the staff intranet (O-Zone), SEO (Search Engine Optimization), to monitoring stats for email communications. Ash holds a First-Class Bachelor’s Degree in Media Production (BA hons) from Coventry University and has a background in content writing, copy writing, script writing, photo editing, and video editing. He is based in the UK.