Businesswomen will seek to inspire girls to carve out career in motor industry at CDX16

9:58 am, April 25, 2016

THE UK’S biggest expo of its type will be shining a spotlight on the automotive industry’s female future when CDX16 hosts a special event to inspire girls to carve out a career in the motoring world.

One hundred 14-to-16-year-old girls from 10 schools around the country will be taking part in a fun and informative speed networking session initiated by the UK Automotive 30% Club and run by the Education and Employers charity as part of its national Inspiring Women programme.

Female executives from the motoring world will answer the girls’ questions during the hour-long career speed networking event, which will see 20 tables of five girls quizzing an executive in turn for about 10 minutes, after which a bell will ring and each businesswoman will move to the next table.

Carol Glover, campaigns and communications manager at the Education and Employers charity, said: ‘Career speed networking is a really quick, engaging and efficient way for youngsters to get the answers to any questions they may have. We hope this will really inspire the girls at CDX to see that they can be a success in the automotive industry and other traditionally male-dominated careers.’

Organised by the multi-award-winning magazine Car Dealer Magazine, which is published by Blackball Media, CDX16 takes place at Silverstone on Tuesday, May 24 and is the biggest networking and educational event of its type for the UK’s automotive industry. It’s free to attend for industry professionals, and among the attractions will be keynote speeches from Google, Twitter, Facebook, Haymarket Automotive and the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, as well as 12 workshop sessions on a wide variety of topics.

CDX16 will also feature a special breakout session entitled ‘Women In The Motor Industry’ (WITMI), hosted by Inspiring Women champion Miriam González Durántez, pictured above, who is a partner at global law firm Dechert LLP. Inspiring Women has 28,000 successful women who go into state schools and colleges to talk to female pupils about what they do and how they got there, with the aim of inspiring them to consider a wide range of professions and sectors.

The Inspiring Women campaign was launched in October 2013, and in 2014, for example, female workers at Aston Martin’s Midlands base took the latest Aston Martins to a nearby school in Coventry to encourage girl pupils to ‘work hard and aim high’, as González Durántez put it. That was followed by a career speed networking event with 100 girls.

So far, more than 300,000 girls across the UK have benefited from professional women’s perspectives of the range of jobs available to them as well as the entry routes.

The UK Automotive 30% Club was founded in January 2016 by Julia Muir, the managing director of Gaia Innovation Ltd, and aims to close the gender gap in the UK’s motor industry by seeking out and recruiting talented women to fill at least 30 per cent of key leadership positions by 2030, since 30 per cent is seen as a tipping point for change in a male-dominated group.

Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, who is Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Transport, is set to open the career speed networking session at CDX16.

MORE: CDX16: 120 guests sign up for WITMI in its second year