Gerhard Salge, Chief Technology Officer di ABB Power Grids e Diversity Champion

Diversity is a foundation of modern societies and therefore must be a key pillar of any company that aspires to influence societal development. This is our vision for Hitachi Energy.

Gender diversity is one of the key diversities that drives the company’s diversity and inclusion ambition. By further developing gender diversity across our company culture, we will improve intrinsically our social innovation culture and deliver more value to our customers and the whole of society.

Women engineers have traditionally been a minority in core engineering disciplines. With this ‘traditional unconscious bias,’ it required a lot of willpower, stamina, and a real passion and purpose to modernize technology, for women to aspire a career in engineering.

I am fully supportive and impressed by women who pursued and now excels in the engineering disciplines. I am proud of my female colleagues who are demonstrating every day that being a woman engineer is natural and normal. In inspiring other women, they become role models to motivate other women engineers like them and at the same time pave the way to the ambition that gender diversity in the engineering disciplines is becoming a matter of course and does not remain to be a kind of specialty.

Sustainable energy and decarbonization are key targets for our company, from an R&D perspective. Fortunately, we have numerous women engineers in our organization who contribute top level technical expertise and leadership, to create and implement innovative ideas in our products, systems and services.

One recent example is the energy efficiency improvement enabled by the introduction of cutting edge HVDC technology. This development is significantly influenced and managed by our top-notch women engineers within the two highest R&D expert and R&D project management levels.

A workplace environment where diversity is encouraged and where key projects are entrusted on the shoulders of talents regardless of gender, raises the profile of women engineers in the process. In so doing, we also become a catalyst in changing traditional mindset and biases, enabling us to create a world where people the world over consider engineering as a professional for all.