International Women’s Day 2019

International Women’s Day is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women.  The day also marks a call to action for a ‘balance for better.’

At Thales, we encourage ambition and innovation across every age and gender: to make life better, to keep us safer. Our organisation relies upon a unique diversity of expertise, talents and cultures to design extraordinarily high technology solutions – solutions that make tomorrow possible today.

Without diversity – without different ideas, different solutions, robust conversations, challenging the norm – it’s easy to fall back on the usual way of doing things. Innovation is at the heart of everything we do, and we need real diversity by challenging gender stereotypes to ensure we’re considering, designing and creating all possible solution for our customers. 

We know there is a lack of gender diversity in engineering, with only 12.4% of roles being occupied by women. At Thales, we’re working with schools, universities, teachers and parents to highlight not just the career opportunities available but just how rewarding it is working in this field, which genuinely helps save lives and makes the world a better place. 

As part of this conversation, it’s crucial that all men are  engaged with gender diversity in order to ensure we can be as inclusive as possible.  This year I will be conducting round tables with our female employees to understand their experience of the Thales Australia culture and the real improvements we can implement. Gender is also a priority area for our Diversity and Inclusion Council; focusing on the strategies we can use to achieve greater gender balance through engaging both female and male employees. 

So today on International Women’s Day, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of our teams for their contributions and of course, to our female team members who without which, we wouldn’t be able to do the work we do.