Even though women make up about half of the labour force, they only account for a quarter of the automotive manufacturing industry, according to advisory firm Deloitte. Women already in the industry need to be able, and supported, to climb through the ranks to leadership, while more emphasis needs to be placed on recruiting women by OEMs and suppliers alike. 

Ekaterina Serban, head of privacy and information security at tier supplier Bosch and Mandisa Gordon, finance transformation manager at JLR believe it is critical to specifically support and promote black women, who are severely under-represented and that there needs to be an emphasis on how recruiting more women from different backgrounds can help prepare OEMs and suppliers to be more competitive in the future…