My commitment to inclusion is rooted in lived experience, professional purpose and a determination to change the sectors I work in from the inside. My career began in quantity surveying and engineering recruitment, where I often found myself in spaces where women, and particularly Black women, were significantly underrepresented. During three summer placements with Gardiner & Theobald, I was the only Black woman in the office and one of very few women in a technical role. Later, while recruiting civil and structural engineers in oil and gas, I was given a list of 100 engineers to contact and only five were women. That moment made the issue impossible to ignore and turned my interest in inclusion into action.
Rather than accepting underrepresentation as “normal”, I organised a Women in Engineering event for clients, bringing together female engineers to raise awareness, challenge assumptions and encourage practical action. It helped prompt clients to do more school outreach and showed me how influence, visibility and convening power can create change.
When I joined Great British Energy – Nuclear, then a start-up organisation, I saw an opportunity to do things differently from the beginning. The nuclear sector has historically been male dominated and can feel inaccessible because of its technical nature and geography. I was clear that if we were building a new nuclear organisation from scratch, inclusion could not be an afterthought; it had to be designed into culture, recruitment and leadership practices from day one.
In year one of GBE-N, I helped scale the organisation from around 20 people to 145 contractors, secondees and interims, building a diverse workforce at pace in a highly specialised sector. At that point, our workforce was 55% female, 16% from non-white backgrounds and 2% declared disability. By June 2026, GBE-N had grown to 299 people, including 138 permanent staff, while continuing to strengthen representation, with the workforce now 58% female and 17% from non-white backgrounds.
I achieved this by embedding inclusive recruitment practices, including CV redaction, values-based behavioural interviews, diverse interview panels, reasonable adjustments, partnerships with diverse job boards and a clear focus on reducing bias. Permanent staff attrition from 2024 to date has remained below 1%, showing that we are not only attracting diverse talent, but creating the conditions for people to stay. Internally, I set up and chair GBE-N’s D&I network, which has grown to circa 26 members. As a small organisation, my strategy is to maximise impact through collaboration with specialist D&I partners, enabling us to deliver a full-year events programme that raises awareness and builds inclusion across the business.
Alongside my role at GBE-N, I became Co-Chair of Women in Nuclear London & South East in March 2025. In under a year, I helped create a fully functioning volunteer team operating with the structure and ambition of a small business. We delivered site visits, networking events, allyship activity and sector engagement, including a Deloitte-hosted event promoting nuclear to non-nuclear professionals and a video endorsement from Ed Miliband. This work contributed to our region winning the Women in Nuclear Regional Innovation Award.
I also founded a cross-sector “women in networks” collaboration group to reduce silo working and share practical action. We are working with partners including WISE to promote transferable skills, mentoring, sponsorship and leadership opportunities, helping retain and move talent across sectors.
My achievements are not only the programmes I have delivered, but the mindsets I have shifted. I have used every role, relationship and platform available to make inclusion practical, visible and measurable.
Key achievements include:
• Scaling GBE-N rapidly while maintaining strong diversity outcomes, including 58% female and 17% non-white representation by June 2026.
• Embedding CV redaction, inclusive recruitment and values-based behavioural interviews to reduce bias.
• Setting up and chairing GBE-N’s internal D&I network, growing it to circa 26 members.
• Delivering a full-year D&I events programme through specialist partnerships, including REiN, Enhance the UK and World Health Day activity.
• Delivering reverse mentoring between executives and graduates.
• Helping GBE-N maintain permanent staff attrition below 1% from 2024 to date.
• Co-leading Women in Nuclear London & South East to win the Regional Innovation Award.
• Founding a cross-sector women’s networks collaboration to promote mentoring, leadership and transferable skills.