Encouraging more women into aerospace

Encouraging more women into the aerospace industry, and specifically into leadership roles, is one of our stated ambitions. Across the group, a quarter (25%) of our executives are women and we have a plan to increase female representation in senior roles to 30% by the end of 2025.

Globally we are bridging the gender gap and supporting various campaigns including Women in Aviation International alongside our own internal initiatives including the Women Inspired Network.

Now, in France, we’ve become part of ‘Féminisons les métiers de l’aéronautique’, a local campaign that actively promotes aerospace as a career to women and girls in roles that are more traditionally taken by men, such as engineers, astronauts, aircraft maintenance technicians, pilots, dispatchers, air traffic controllers, and dozens of other jobs within the aviation community.

It is not only further evidence of AkzoNobel’s commitment to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE&I), but also supports a much wider ongoing campaign by the Airemploi Association to attract a wider range of talent, both men and women, into the industry.

Within our own business, we are particularly looking to encourage new female talent within our aerospace coatings manufacturing facility in Pamiers, France, in roles not usually associated with women. As well as engineering, quality control, production management, and research and development, we are especially looking to increase the number of women working in commercial roles, and especially sales.

‘Féminisons les métiers de l’aéronautique’ is not a quick fix. It is a long-term programme to educate and inform young women at school and college of the significant opportunities that are open to them in aerospace, and that their career choices are not limited. Encouraging girls and young women to engage is very important for us as a business and for the future of our industry.

While we are proud of the fact that 40% of our production management team in Pamiers are women, which is high for the aerospace sector and shows were are moving in the right direction, there is a very clear need to expand this trend into sales and other commercial and customer-facing roles.