In honour of International Women’s Day, Vattenfall asked their Heat Team’s Lead Engineering Manager, Selene Molina Blanco, to reflect on the importance of representation, equality and the collective need to #BreakTheBias.

Selene Molina Blanco, Lead Engineer South at Vattenfall Heat UK

1. How long have you worked at Vattenfall? And what made you want to work in heat engineering, and at Vattenfall?

I have worked at Vattenfall for three years. I didn’t know much about heat engineering before moving to the UK, but I did know I wanted a job where I could use my process and mechanical engineering skills whilst working towards a more sustainable future. I had heard about Vattenfall through some former colleagues who ended up convincing me to make the move and help them to build the new UK district heating business. It was definitely a great decision!

2. How have you noticed the demographics of your cohort change at Vattenfall since you began working there? Has this had a positive impact on the work environment and the team?

Since I joined Vattenfall, we have always had a very dynamic team. It has been great to see the team continue to grow, particularly with people from other industries that have brought new points of view to our work.

3. Why do you think it’s important to celebrate International Women’s Day? What does it mean to you?

For me, International Women’s Day is not only a day of celebration but also about recognising the work society still has ahead in order to reach equality. Pay gaps, the under representation of women in politics and decision-making positions, and the fact women are often the ones carrying out the majority of care work but remain unrecognized, all attest to this.

4. The theme of International Women’s Day 2022 is “Break the Bias” – have there been times when you feel you’ve had to overcome biases about the jobs women should take?

I can’t recall having been challenged directly for wanting to study or work in engineering, but I have been called “bossy” as a child when leading others came naturally to me, or “manly” for having male friends and choosing STEM subjects.

5. How do you think more women could be encouraged to enter careers in engineering?

By breaking the bias from a young age that women are not good at STEM. Women are equally capable, but from a young age they start developing self-doubt due to the proliferation of gender stereotypes, which pinpoint science and technology as careers for boys and teaching and caring for girls. It could also help to show engineering as the fun and challenging career that it is. Engineering is about finding solutions for any problem or cause you care about and treating those issues as puzzles.

6. What advice would you give to young women thinking of pursuing careers in engineering?

To not doubt their abilities and seek out others who share their passion. Engineering touches everything in our lives, so there’s plenty of pathways for young women to go down which reflect their interests e.g. health, transport, energy, food…

7. Why do you think it’s important to have a gender-diverse workplace?

Because our workplace should reflect our society as a whole. Ideally, we need to reach a point where a diverse workplace is the norm, not the goal.

8. Why do you think it is important that more women take up engineering in the near future?

In the same way that our political workforce should be representative of our society as a whole in order to reflect our problems and concerns, engineering also requires diversity given they design the world around us. They define whether your car is crash tested with a female shaped dummy (spoiler, they are not), choose what information to feed into Artificial Intelligence systems and design the shape and weight of tools everyone should be able to use. If engineers are biased, then their solutions and products will be biased too.

9. Is there a specific woman who has positively impacted your career or influenced your career path?

Many! Just to choose two examples: Sandra Slihte (my manager) has definitely influenced my career path by encouraging me to stay in district heating and to not be afraid of taking on new challenges. I also remember very clearly during my first job in an engineering company designing solar thermal power plants, most of my team mates were female and they were great and inspiring professionals too!

KeyFacts Energy: Vattenfall UK country profile