SWiFT recently welcomed Yorkshire Water CEO, Nicola Shaw CBE to their latest guest-speaker event.
Nicola talked about her experiences from her career which has spanned over 30 years. Her previous roles include the Executive Officer at National Grid, Chief Executive of High Speed 1 and Director of FirstGroup’s Bus Division. She shared key milestones of her career; the challenge of being a single young woman in senior roles as well as knowing when its time to go.
In her words Nicola highlighted that the statement ‘if you can’t see it you can’t be it’ is overstated. In her view there is always The FIRST. Be that First!
Answering questions from the audience, Nicola discussed her independent government Network review ‘the Shaw report’ in 2016, the challenges of negative publicity in the water industry and potential impact on diversity and her perspective on interviews.
The evening was hosted by Philippa Hinton, Senior Associate at Ashurst and Women in Rail (WR) Trustee, who said:
“It was a privilege to have had the opportunity to interview Nicola Shaw for SWiFT’s “An Evening with” series. I found Nicola’s authenticity and her willingness to discuss her own vulnerabilities really inspiring and we are extremely grateful to Nicola for sharing so many insights from her long and successful career as a female leader. I only wish we had a few more hours!”
Shamit Weinberger Gaiger, Managing Director for West Coast Partnership Development, who is the SWiFT lead and Women in Rail (WR) Trustee, said:
“It was great to welcome Nicola to our latest event to share her insightful experiences from a fantastic career. She is an inspiration to us all given her rise to senior leadership at a FTSE 100 company at a young age. We need to see more women like that’
SWifT is an integral part of Women in Rail (WR), which provides space and support for its executive members through a peer-to-peer network and fosters the development of high potential women in the rail industry, helping them progress their career and transition to more senior roles.
Open to male and female professionals, SWiFT’s objective is to ultimately shift the dial of gender balance in executive roles in the UK rail sector and, in line with WR core values, further promote equality, diversity and inclusion, with a particular focus on executive grades and roles.
For more information on SWiFT, Membership or upcoming events, please email: swift@womeninrail.org – or visit www.swift.womeninrail.org For more information about WR visit www.womeninrail.org
Photo credit: SWiFT
