LEADERSHIP
“ THERE IS SO MUCH MORE CREATIVITY FLOWING WHEN YOU HAVE DIVERSITY OF THOUGHT BROUGHT IN BY PEOPLE WITH DIFFERENT BACKGROUNDS . GENDER IS ONLY ONE COMPONENT . THOSE TWO THINGS SPEAK LOUDLY ENOUGH .”
CAMILA REED Head of Social Media , International Women in Mining lives better . Hence , this is a priority for the organisation , alongside helping set up more WIM groups , highlighting role models and expanding its board to include more voices .
“ We also have the IWiM SpeakUp programme ,” says Reed , “ which is about getting more women speaking at conferences not just about ‘ gender issues ’ but as mining experts . The drive now is to actually work with companies and help them to position their women , or be more flexible about letting their women take speaker opportunities . The final thing we ’ re launching is a corporate membership scheme , in order to get more sponsorship for our projects .”
One has to hope that this inspirational drive to achieve greater inclusion in mining will pick up pace . “ We have a cohort of champions – women and men ,” says Dischinger . “ There ’ s nothing specific in terms of expanding that conversation of inclusion that ’ s different to other STEM sectors , or to business generally . It ’ s about talking to people . We have men on our board and are looking for more , and diversity is a conversation that we have day-to-day .”
69