July 2024

*Motivating staff – what’s the secret? The secret is being truly interested in your people and understanding what their passions are.  People look for 3 things in their work.  Something to believe in which is the vision. Someone to believe in, which is the leader.  And for someone to believe in them which is their self-worth and passions. *In challenging times, what keeps people going? That their business leader is truly interested in working on the challenge together and they have support no matter what. That they are working on something that matters. Also the person needs to have an open heart and open mind (called Shoshin) so that they can solve that challenge. *Is being happy at work about money? Money is not the key reason people leave a business. The #1 reason is their direct relationship with their manager.  This is why it is key to have managers trained in how to manage people. However due to the increasing cost of living, money has jumped up from the #4 reason #2 reason people. *A highly commodified world gets in the way? At times business leaders and owners may need to cut the costs down and this can impact a person and their pay and performance. Businesses need to embrace technology and couple it with their people’s development in a highly commodified world. *Did you fall out of love with electrical engineering? I loved being an engineer.  It was black and white.  However I loved the leadership side of business.  I also wanted to climb the corporate ladder and had a mentor guide me to do and MBA and apply for leadership roles which is exactly what I did and it worked to move into leadership roles. *Favourite book? This is the hardest question.  I read between 30-40 books a year.  If I had to […]

Mariana Costa Checa Mariana Costa Checa is a Peruvian businesswoman and the founder of the education nonprofit Laboratoria, which is addressing one of the toughest challenges facing the modern workforce: providing training and upskilling needed to elevate the playing field for underemployed women. By focusing on high-demand digital skills such as web development and user experience design, Costa’s social enterprise is preparing women who have been out of the workforce, or employed in low-paying jobs, to launch and grow promising careers in technology. After graduating from the London School of Economics and Columbia University, Costa returned to her native Peru. She started a web development company but was inspired to create Laboratoria when she noticed very few women working in the field. The start-up began in Peru in 2014 as a six-month intensive bootcamp with 15 students. It’s now in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and soon the rest of Latin America, and has graduated more than 2,400 women, with an employment placement rate of more than 85 percent since 2019. Its graduates have worked in more than 950 companies across industries, increasing their incomes by an average of 2.7 times and contributing to closing the talent and gender gap in tech. Costa has received countless corporate and media awards for her disruptive way of tackling one of society’s greatest problems, and even had a Mattel Barbie doll made in her likeness. “Our work at Laboratoria is a bet on the talent of Latin American women,” she said. “With the digital economy transforming our region, we want to make sure women can benefit from its opportunities and be part of building our future as technology creators.  

Laura Boccanfuso started her PhD in computer science after being a stay-at-home mother for eight years to her three kids. She’s been building AI-enabled classroom tutors ever since. As the founder and CEO of Van Robotics, Boccanfuso wrote the original code in her home workshop while undertaking postdoctoral studies at Yale University, far from her home base in South Carolina. Her mission? To find ways to support children with autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and other special needs, in their classroom learning time. Like all entrepreneurs, Boccanfuso faced pushback when she initially approached venture capitalists (VCs) to fund her business. Yet her hurdles were different: one VC wouldn’t support her because her husband wasn’t part of the business or leading it with her, and another because she held too much equity, even though it was her first round of funding. “There was this perception that women don’t have technical capabilities,” Boccanfuso said, adding VCs would address technical questions to men even though she wrote the code herself. VCs also pushed her to design a retail model of her robot, named “ABii,” even though its purpose was to support classroom learning—not double as a babysitter or tutor. Boccanfuso ignored them and found talent and resources from her academic circles in child development and robotics, and ABii by Van Robotics is now being used in schools and homes in 38 US states and seven countries. More than 100,000 students and teachers have already benefited from robotic reinforcement in the classroom—as well as from Boccanfuso’s experience as a stay-at-home mother, which helped her build a learner-centric, school-based solution. “I think moms are phenomenal problem solvers,” she said.

Helen Blomqvist, President,Sandvik Coromant,Europe Despite progress in gender inclusivity, the underrepresentation of women in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields still persists. According to a 2023 report from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), women make up only 28% of the STEM workforce. Looking across the world, the MIT reports figures stand at 24% in the United States, 17% in the European Union, 16% in Japan and 14% in India. Driving the shift While the STEM gender gap remains apparent, there are several factors at play that could bring about better inclusivity. Manufacturing stereotypes are moving away from perceptions of dirty, dangerous environments. As industry embraces digitalisation, the rigid, manual jobs of the past are being replaced by roles centred around innovation, collaboration and problem solving. The growing focus on experimentation, flexibility and hybrid working is making manufacturing a more modern and inclusive place to work for all. Changes brought about by the pandemic have invited a greater sense of flexibility, with an uptake in digital tools further fostering a more inclusive culture. There is also increasing recognition of the benefits of an inclusive workforce. According to a Wall Street Journal report examining diversity and inclusion among S&P 500 companies, “diverse and inclusive cultures are providing companies with a competitive edge over either peers”. What’s more, a pre-pandemic McKinsey report Delivering Through Diversity showed companies in the top quartile of their rankings for successful gender diversity on their executive teams were 21% more likely to have above-average profitability. For ethnic and cultural diversity, that figure was 33%. It’s clear that businesses have to take strides to truly reap the benefits of diverse teams. One way of inspiring a more balanced working environment is to promote the voices of those already in the industry. Sandvik Coromant spoke to its president, […]