THE FEMALE LEADERS OF TOMORROW
At Seco, we strive to have an inclusive workplace with gender diversity and community involvement. One goal for 2030 is that 33 percent of our managers are females. In that process, a pilot project has strived to discover the ambitions and capabilities of female talents within our company. Lotte Hesen, Sharduli A Nikam and Jennifer Sohlberg, have all been participating in the female talent program.
"I have been at Seco since June 2017, so almost 5,5 years now. I am based in Lottum, the Netherlands. At this moment, I am the HR Business Partner for our Production Unit in Lottum (Round Tools). Besides this role, I am the local HR Generalist for the Product Line Solid Milling and R&D Solid Milling, both for the locations in Lottum", Lotte Hesen says.
What are your learnings from being a part of this project?
"My learnings from being a part of this project, is that I can grow and develop in such a great company. As all the Operations Management Team members joined our (one of the) first meetings, made how important it is to have female leaders in our organization. In one workshop, we paid attention to the unwritten masculine and feminine rules. I got several eye openers and “aha” moments, so interesting. And of course, I met several female colleagues who I didn’t know before, so that was also really nice. I hope we can continue this great network", Hesen says.
How do you visualize the future for female leaders and how do you think Seco will benefit from having more females in leading positions?
"I think it’s a requirement to have a balance between male and female leaders in an organization. Both have another perspective on how organizations, process and people work. These different perspectives complement each other. It makes also you keep alert and critical. It has been proven a heterogeny team has better results than a homogeny team (note: not only based on gender!). And with Seco, we strive for the best results, right? Besides this, we can be a role model for the next generation: a great company like Seco has a good balance in the leading positions. This makes those women create a good balance between work and private life", Hesen says.
"My name is Sharduli Nikam I am currently based in Pune, India. I have a bachelor’s degree in Production Engineering and an MBA in Operations and Supply Chain. I work as a Project Engineer in the Strategy and Technology Department in Seco Operations. I have joined Seco in 2018 in the last semester of my bachelor’s degree as an intern, got employed right after and have just been around ever since", Sharduli A Nikam says.
What are your learnings from being a part of this project?
"When I got chosen to be a part of this network, I felt extremely fortunate to be included in it. It is very easy to get lost in our day-to-day activities and routine jobs without exploring the big picture.
This network was a formal platform to think in that direction. The pilot can be seen as a step to understand the importance for “female talents”, especially those who are still forming their career options like me, to visualize what's possible for their future professional lives in order for them to frame their ambitions and envision who they might become", Nikam says.
How do you visualize the future for female leaders and how do you think Seco will benefit from having more females in leading positions?
"The quality of a great leader has never been gendered dependent, things like skill set and personality traits make up a good leader, be it a male or female. With that being said, we do see an under representation of women in leading positions. Hence, I think it’s of great importance for Seco to acknowledge the value of gender diversity and provide platforms such as this. Having an equal representation of females in leadership position will only be beneficial in terms of providing different perspectives and approaches to business, that can often lead to better performance of the organization", Nikam says.
"My name is Jennifer Sohlberg and I’m based in Fagersta at Seco HQ Customer Excellence Support (former Global Customer Support) since five years back. I am currently working with process development and improvement, and my main goal is to strengthen the quality and efficiency of the support in general.
Being chosen to take part of the Female leader talent program was a great opportunity for me to get more insight in Seco and Sandvik’s strive to increase the number of female leaders in the business. This has always been an important matter to me as it is my personal and professional belief that diversity creates innovation; innovation drives people and people drive business forward", Jennifer Sohlberg says.
What are your learnings from being a part of this project?
"This program has given me a deeper understanding of differences between male and female leadership and my main learning is that the contrasts should be seen as complementing. From my experience, there are many women at Sandvik that share my mindset and feeling that this program is valuable and essential, and I think all members of the program are happy to have had the chance to meet some very inspiring female role models within Seco and Sandvik", Sohlberg says.
How do you visualize the future for female leaders and how do you think Seco will benefit from having more females in leading positions?
"Having more female leaders in a male dominated industry widens the workplace culture and creates a greater space for employees to develop and thrive. This program is an appreciated move in the right direction for Seco. I hope the program will continue to develop more female leaders, and that the business can continue to grow and thrive with even more female influence", Sohlberg says.
