Season 5 Episode 5: Enhanced by Engineering - Celebrating 105 Years of Pioneering Women Engineers

Impulse To Innovation

Sunday – 23rd June – marks the 11th annual International Women in Engineering Day (INWED), and as always we are celebrating the amazing contribution women engineers make, not just to the profession as a whole, but to society.

The 23rd June is significant as it marks the founding day in 1919 that a group of seven women from the National Council of Women met and signed a Memorandum of Agreement which created the Women’s Engineering Society WES.

The Original Pioneers - the gathering that became WES

WES’s early members were campaigners, hands on engineers, inventors, designers, electricians, pilots, managers and administrators. Many of its leaders and committee members were from the better-off industrial middle or upper classes, but the organisation’s work covered women working on the shop floor, making their way into management, those accessing formal education and even the female end users of engineering innovations such as the introduction of electricity into the home.

Since its inception, WES has become internationally recognised and continues to drive change in the industry; ensuring women have the opportunities to work and be educated in technical fields, and by campaigning for equal rights and equal pay in a sector which remains heavily male dominated.

2024 Winners of the Top 50 Women in Engineering Award - Seven of whom are IMechE members

My guests are Dawn Bonfield MBE president of the Commonwelth Engineer’ Council and past president and former chief executive of the Women's Engineering Society. Dawn was the founder of National Women in Engineering Day in 2014 and in 2015 established the inaugural 50 Women in Engineering List. A materials engineer by profession, working in the aerospace sector she now runs her own consultancy, Towards Vision, working on projects to improve inclusion in engineering

She was given an MBE in the 2016 Queen's Birthday Honours list for 'Services to the promotion of diversity in engineering'.

And Holley Reece-Barkell, is a fellow of the ImechE. She is Strategy & Growth Director for Frazer-Nash Consultancy and newly elected chair of the IMechE’s Diversity & Inclusion Committee. Holley has over 18 years experience in the consultancy sector and is responsible for developing the over-arching ‘’one Frazer-Nash strategy to drive growth across the business.

Holley brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to her appointment as D&I chair from her role as part of the team leading diversity and inclusion in the company, and is keen to ensure its employees feel empowered to achieve their personal and professional goals regardless of their circumstances, identity or background.

Useful Links:

International Women in Engineering Day 2024

Women's Engineering Society Website

IMechE members recognised as 2024 Top 50 Women Engineers

IMechE appoint Holley Reece-Barkell as EDI Chair