Frazer-Nash joins the Women’s Engineering Society (WES) as a Company Partner

Frazer-Nash Consultancy became a Women’s Engineering Society (WES) Company Partner in March 2022.

The official Women’s Engineering Society website explains:

‘The Women’s Engineering Society (WES) was founded in 1919 by a small committee drawn from the National Council of Women. This group of influential women had government backing to support women engineers who, although welcomed into the profession during World War I, were under pressure at the end of the war to leave the workforce and release their positions for men returning from the forces. These women founded WES not only to resist this pressure, but also to promote engineering as a career for women.

‘Today, WES is the largest and oldest organisation of professional female engineers in the UK.’

Holley Reece-Barkell, Delivery Manager, who leads the WES partnership on behalf of Frazer-Nash, said:

“Since joining WES as a Company Partner in March this year, Frazer-Nash has taken part in several great initiatives; including a careers-based talk for university students to hear how people working in industry have progressed through their careers, and what skills they gained along the way. We hope that this will not only be a great experience for our women in engineering, but will inspire the next generation of females in STEM careers too.

Frazer-Nash’s People Director, Sam Geis, added:

“Holley’s dedication and passion is inspiring, and instrumental to progressing our D&I ambitions within the business. Holley is also a great role model for the STEM community.

“One key focus of our diversity and inclusion strategy at Frazer-Nash is to address our gender imbalance. We recognise there are many complex and long-term factors which influence the gap, such as the pipeline of girls and women in STEM subjects at school and university, and the subsequent candidate pool of women in engineering. It will take long-term commitment to address this challenge, but we are committed to doing so.”

Steph Jones, Senior Engineer in Frazer-Nash’s Bristol-based Technology Management team, was selected as a new member of the WES Early Career Board (ECB) in June 2022. The board’s mission is to make WES more accessible to younger members, to reflect their concerns and priorities, and to provide input to WES trustees and staff, with the overall objective to influence the direction of travel of society. The members making up the ECB also act as role models for young women who are considering careers in engineering and applied science.

Steph said:

"I'm really excited to join the WES ECB, and in particular, in influencing how we outreach to the younger generations, working at grass roots to widen the perceptions and horizons of those who might otherwise dismiss engineering as 'not for them'. I am looking forward to working with the rest of the board; a group of passionate engineers across industries, to bring about positive change, and I hope to learn a lot from them.

“I was lucky enough to attend the awards ceremony for WES 50 women in engineering (WE50), where they announced the theme for next year’s competition, which will be centred around safety. It’s a good opportunity to get people looking out for members of their teams, or to encourage colleagues to apply.

“Attending the careers-based talk for university students in March was also a great experience. There were around 20 attendees, including at least a couple of men, which was nice to see. The general themes discussed were how to support one another, how to back oneself (in particular, when applying for jobs you may not be 100% qualified for) and how we can speak up against injustices, both in and outside of the workplace.”

Stacey Gurr, Senior Safety Consultant based in the company’s Plymouth office, will be judging a category at this year’s annual WES awards.

Stacey shared her thoughts:

“There are two categories of awards, the first of which is The Amy Johnson Inspiration Award, which honours someone (male or female) not currently working in the engineering sector who has made a truly remarkable contribution in both furthering diversity within engineering and inspiring more women to enter or remain in engineering. There is also The Men as Allies Award, which is the category I’m lucky enough to be involved in judging, which seeks to recognise and celebrate a man who champions and supports women in engineering.

“Judging has now officially opened, and I’m getting to read about some great candidates. It’s really exciting to be involved, and I know all of us at Frazer-Nash are looking forward to supporting many more great WES initiatives through the course of our company partnership”.

To find out more about the Women’s Engineering Society, please visit https://www.wes.org.uk. Or to find out more about a career with Frazer-Nash, please see our careers pages for more details on what we can offer you.