Karin Hoeing

I think 25×25 is a great start to talk about how we would like to improve, to have more balanced gender in high leadership roles. BAE Systems, as we are a defence company, we also have this notion of duty and care for countries we work in and 25×25 plays exactly this role for us.

So, we feel it’s not just only about our company and how we increase diversity—and gender diversity, specifically—but much more what can we do within the country and in the countries, we work to help increase the leadership positions, with more female positions filled. And 25×25 is a great platform to help us with that—to share knowledge, bring our own experiences in, but learn from other companies what has worked and what we need to do and how we need to influence the regulators. What else that can be done to have a much better balance on gender at higher levels.

I think the biggest difference we made is when we increased the visibility of it. And we increased visibility by using data pieces, by having much more factual arguments, and explained to people why and how.

And then clear visibility from the top—commitment, have the ambitions out. I think a lot of these things are down to visibility, communication, with some facts underneath. I think that goes a long way.

On the flip side of it, it doesn’t come natural to everybody to think about it this way and treat people the right way. So, we also have increased the training sessions we give people in terms of awareness, in terms of development, and certainly around biases. So, what is it that you need to be mindful of? And I think these pieces—with the real visible leadership and drive and commitment, plus then helping individuals to think about it differently—as a combination goes a long way.