On Monday 26th June 2023, Turner & Townsend hosted the Annual General Meeting (AGM) for Women in Transport, where insights were shared about our successes and learning from the past year, as well as the plans to build on this incredible work in the year ahead. It’s always great to look back over the year and realise how much we have grown, how much more support has been achieved and appreciate the huge amount of activity that has been undertaken by this amazing team.

Our thanks to Turner & Townsend for the warm welcome and afternoon tea. We have a long-standing relationship with the team at Turner & Townsend and they have generously hosted a number of Women in Transport events over the years. We’re delighted to strengthen this partnership with Turner & Townsend becoming our latest Supporter partner.

Thanks to Katie Hulland, Patricia Moore, James Corrigan and David Hourihan for hosting and, of course, the cakes!

James Corrigan, Jo Field, Patricia Moore, Katie Hulland and Sonya Byers (left to right)

The full AGM slides can be viewed below.

June 2023 Snapshot

It’s been a truly exceptional year at Women in Transport as shown by our June 2023 snapshot. To put this in context, for those new to the network, we rebranded as Women in Transport in 2017. Then we had 120 members and operated within the M25 and had around 3,000 followers across our channels.

Women in Transport now has more than 1400 members, 6 regional hubs (plus one launching later this year) and over 24,000 followers across our socials. Our website continues to perform well. We have achieved all of this with no paid marketing support or sponsored advertising. A testament to the incredible work of our volunteers.

We offer our members a varied events programme, access to annual mentoring and a brilliant leadership development programme plus much more.

Women in Transport is a volunteer led organisation and none of this would be possible without the passion, dedication and commitment of a simply incredible group of volunteers who support each and work collaboratively with industry to make a difference.

Kelly Davis, Mailys Garden, Sonya Byers, Marny Moruzzi, Joana Hill and Asiya Jelani (left to right) at the Spring Reception hosted by TfL

Collaboration across transport

Over the past 12 months, our board members and volunteers have represented Women in Transport across industry, actively advocating for women, creating opportunities for raising the visibility of our members and collaborating across industry to progress equity.

MOVE Advisory Board – Mailys Garden and Asiya Jelani
Intelligent Transport Advisory Board – Sonya Byers
Highways UK Advisory Board – Marny Moruzzi
Transport Employment Skills Taskforce (TEST) and Working Groups – Sonya Byers and Gary Lincoln
Women in Bus and Coach – National Steering Committee – Caroline Ward
Women in Rail/RIA EDI Charter - Nishma Mistry (EDI Champion)

TEST is chaired by Women in Transport Patron, Rachel Skinner CBE. It’s brilliant to work with a board that is representative of transport as a whole and is collaborating to break down silos. We’ve welcomed the opportunity to signpost to existing initiatives in transport to ensure we don’t duplicate each other’s efforts.

Chloe Leach O’Connell, Caroline Ward and I joined the National Steering Committee for the Women in Bus and Coach group earlier this year. We also participated in research at the scoping stage for the network. Caroline will remain on the Steering Committee as the representative from Women in Transport linking with her work as project lead for the Inclusive Employment Journey on our D&I Bus Group.

Caroline and I were delighted to be at the launch event of the Women in Bus Network this week and see our Women in Transport members, Hayley Magorian and Ruth Salmon on centre stage. Hayley shared the incredible work she and the Women’s Colleague Network Group at TfL have delivered as volunteers over the past two years. Ruth conducted the research and scoping work for the Women in Bus and Coach network and shared some of the challenges and barriers for women working in transport. It was great to see the 2021 research from Women in Transport’s APPG quoted. It was lovely to see members from Alexander Dennis, Laura Tofts from our Lead Cohort 5 and Debbie McCreath from our D&I Bus Group (pictured below). In fact, the room was packed with Women in Transport members including Jennie Martins, Chair of Bus Users UK, and Sharon Kindleysides.

Partnerships

In March 2021, Gary Lincoln took on the role of External Partnership Lead as a volunteer. Gary works tirelessly to meet with potential partners and build strong relationships. Gary was a finalist for Inspirational Man of the Year in this year’s Women in Rail awards and he is certainly our Inspirational Man of the Year. He gives an enormous amount of time to Women in Transport and supports several of our members with mentoring and coaching alongside this role as well as sponsoring our Advance mentoring programme since its inception.

Last year, we introduced tiered partnership packages. These have proved incredibly popular. We now have 32 partners on our tiered packages working with us to support women in transport. Gary organised two partner workshops open to all of these partners facilitated by Jo Major from Diversity in Recruitment. One on inclusive recruitment and the second on employer value proposition.

We also have over 30 more partners that we work with through events, marketing and professional partnerships. You can learn more about our partners here. We are currently reviewing our 2024 packages and looking at ways to improve our communication and engagement with partners to keep them up to date with everything that we’re doing.

TfL is our Leader partner and sponsored our Spring Reception held on International Women’s Day at their Stratford offices. We’ve been continuing our strong relationship with the Women’s Colleague Network as well as other colleagues across TfL. Marcia Williams, People Manager, Delivery Manager and Diversity and Inclusion Lead featured in our International Women’s Day podcast and Joe Brown, Chair of the OUTBound network was featured in our PRIDE podcast this month. Both our Leader and Advocate packages include a place on our leadership development programme (Lead). We currently have two TfL members on our Lead programme.

Our Advocate partners are Kier, RHA, Transport for Wales, Network Rail and ALBUM.

Kier has worked with us on a number of events including the launch of the North West Hub and a series of roundtables on the motherhood penalty. They are the first Advocate partner to go live with their Voyse page.

We currently have one member from RHA on our Lead programme and have supported their UK’s Kindest Town campaign.

Transport for Wales supported the activation of our Wales Hub, have had women on every cohort of our Lead programme this year and are doing amazing work around early careers.

Network Rail has one member on the Lead programme that started this month and we are looking forward to collaborating together to attract more women in transport.

I was delighted to launch our partnership with ALBUM at their conference in Edinburgh hosted by Lothian Buses. We’ve got off to a brilliant start with Kate Cringle, Operations Director from Warrington’s Own Buses benefiting from the place on the Lead programme. For all ALBUM members, there are currently free memberships available which you can apply for or nominate someone else for here.

Funding

Funding is incredibly important to continue our work as a non profit. Over the past three years, we have been focused on diversifying our revenue and ensuring we have stable and sustainable financial model. As a non profit, we reinvest everything back into delivering our mission of advancing women in transport.

Our cashflow remains positive and we’ve seen a 137% increase in corporate membership. We’ve had three regional hub activations in 12 months (Yorkshire, Wales and North West) with West Midlands just before the AGM in 2022.

Our key priority over the coming year is to further professionalise our business and operating model so we can continue to scale our impact and better support our members. This will include:

Transitioning to a new bank account and accounting software
Joining the NCVO
Securing HR and marketing consultancy and support
Continuous improvement across all our processes including volunteer, partner and member engagement

Team changes

In January 2023, we expanded our central team with Jo Pobrotyn joining as my Executive Assistant. Jo has been brilliant in helping us improve our processes and keep projects on track. Shireen Ali-Khan has joined the team as part of our Lead delivery team and as project lead for Intersectionality. Trinity Barnatt also joined our Executive Support Team, working alongside Kerinder Bhogal to manage our inbox and administration.

Our central team all work flexibly and part-time. In May 2023, following the results of the UK pilot, we moved to 4 day working week with a full stoppage on Fridays. The leadership team consider this an important move in leading the way in being an inclusive organisation as we continue to grow. Importantly, it allows us time to achieve some work/life balance.

Board members – stepping down

We have been incredible fortunate to have a stable board of dedicated volunteers supporting the launch and building the momentum of Women in Transport. This year, a number of our board members are stepping down. We can’t thank them enough for the many hours of time that they have spent volunteering their precious time and skills to the board.

Sarah O’Brien has been our Co-Treasurer since 2017. Over the past 12 months in particular, Sarah has helped ensure we have new processes in place, ensured successful VAT returns and kept up with a growing number of supplier set ups. Katie Abraham continues her role as Treasurer.

Neil Pepper MBE recently received the Women in Rail Lifetime Achievement Award. He has held several different roles on the board and has inspired us all as an active advocate and ally to all women working in transport. Neil will continue to volunteer his time on our national school engagement working group.

Kirsten Galea has had several different roles on the board. In the past 12 months, she handed over her role of Mentee Engagement Lead to new volunteers. Kirsten keeps up engagement with comments, reshares and retweets across our social media channels. Kirsten will continue to support us with social media engagement as a volunteer.

Asiya Jelani has supported four regional activations since she joined the board in 2021. It has been an exceptionally busy role. Asiya will continue as a speaker for Women in Transport and as one of our representatives on the MOVE advisory board.

Julie Cartwright was the Regional Lead for North West and was all set for a big launch just before lockdown. Julie has been an invaluable support to Joanna Hill who has taken over this role. Julie continues as a volunteer for the North West Hub.

Carrie Brooks was the driving force behind the launch of the Yorkshire Hub and a passionate advocate of Women in Transport. Carrie has moved sector but remains an active member of Women in Transport.

Jenni Daglish took over as North East Lead over a year ago. During her time as a regional lead, Jenni ran a members’ survey and several events.

Again, a massive thank you to all our departing board members. You have made a significant contribution to Women in Transport and it is hugely appreciated.

Lead volunteer roles

We have volunteers working nationally across Women in Transport in a variety of roles and we are grateful to every single one.

Some notable mentions:

Natalia Martins and Marina Garyfalou took on the role of Advance Mentee Engagement Co-Leads in October 2022.
Sue Terpilowski OBE joined as our Equity Index Project Lead in September 2022.
Katie Lidington returned after maternity leave to support as Events Administrator in May 2023.
Katie Harris become our School Engagement Working Group Lead last month.

Advancing women through professional development

Advance - Mentoring Programme

We launched applications for the sixth year of our Advance mentoring programme in October 2022. Advance 2023 was made possible by the generous support of our corporate sponsors: TXM Group, Xanta, Network for Skills, National Express and WSP.

We’re incredibly grateful for their support to make mentoring accessible to any woman member of Women in Transport at any stage of their career.

We’re hoping to run a seventh year launching in October 2023 subject to sponsorship. Angela Gainsford and I met this week to discuss the plans for 2024. We already know at least of our mentors would like to mentor again which is wonderful news.

We would like to raise £16,500 plus VAT in sponsorship to cover the costs of the Advance 2024 programme. Our aim is to expand the programme to 45 pairs. Please contact me at ceo@womenintransport.com if you would like to support the Advance programme.

Lead – Leadership Development Programme

Lead is our virtual leadership development programme. It runs three times a year and is delivered by Shireen Ali-Khan and Iain Smith. Shireen and Iain are continuously improving the programme based on the feedback from participants.

The programme has more than 30 touchpoints including group workshops, one to one coaching and inspirational women guest speakers. On graduation, our Lead women join an alumunae providing on-going support. It's truly a transformational programme.

Shireen and Iain are running regular find out more sessions – these are a virtual opportunity to meet the team and some participants plus ask questions. The sessions are open to non members and anyone interested in the programme.

The next cohort starts in September 2023. You can find the full timetable and register for find out more sessions on our website here.

Advancing women by influencing industry and driving forward equity

Women in Transport is committed to working collaboratively across industry to progress equity for women working in transport.

Presidential Strategy

Last May, we launched our President, Jo Field’s 3 year strategy with the four focus areas:

Women’s safety
Challenging gender and cultural barriers to progression (intersectionality)
Inspiring the next generation
Influencing industry to decarbonise

We’ve used these focus areas to guide and prioritise our events, external speaking engagements, partnership working and working groups.

All Party Parliamentary Group for Women in Transport

Women in Transport acts as secretariat for the All Party Parliamentary Group for Women in Transport. The group was reformed for the seventh year earlier this month. In the next year, the APPG will deliver a programme of events including:

A panel discussion on the link between EDI and health and safety
A virtual event focusing on removing barriers to active travel
A roundtable discussion on Women’s safety on the transport network – Spring 2024 (or International Women’s Day 2024)
The launch of the Women in Transport Equity Index

Women in Transport – Diversity and Inclusion Bus Group

Our Women in Transport D&I Bus Group was co-founded and is co-chaired by Chloe Leach O’Connell. For 2023, we set ourselves two key objectives:

1. Supporting recruitment across bus and coach.

2. Collaborating on inclusive bus design.

We also have a key focus on women’s safety on bus. The group meets four times a year. We’ve held two meetings since January 2023 with guest speakers including Emma Freivogel founder of Radical Recruit and B-Radical, Karen Camilleri from Camilleri Appointmentsi, Cat Wildman from Powered by Diversity and Tahnia Ahmed from the DfT.

We’ve been featured in Passenger magazine showcasing the progress we’ve made over the past four years. We’re proud of this brilliant group of people who come together to support each other and have created a safe space for open conversations and collaboration on diversity and recruitment across bus and coach.

A major contribution from the Women in Transport D&I Bus Group to the transport sector is the Inclusive Employment journey. Launched in February 2022, it is the concept of our two amazing volunteers Caroline Ward and Chloe Leach O’Connell. It is backed by the CPT (Confederation of Passenger Transport) and we crowdfunded to launch the project. It provides a central resource for the whole of the bus and coach industry to use and benefit from. The ‘journey’ covers every step of employment, from community engagement and recruitment, through to support with ‘life after buses’ when long servers leave the industry.

If you haven’t seen it then I encourage to visit the-ieg.org.uk and have a look at the case studies, share it with your network and please submit case studies too.

Intersectionality

In 2023, we have launched a significant programme called “Intersectionality” to challenge gender and cultural barriers to progression, led by Shireen Ali-Khan on behalf of Women in Transport.

We are providing a platform to tell the stories of all women working in transport. A safe space for open and honest conversations about topics that we often don’t feel comfortable or safe talking about but which matter. We hope by sharing the experiences of women that we can help promote greater understanding, empathy and inclusion.

Podcast

Shireen launched the Women in Transport podcast launched in March. There have been four incredibly powerful podcasts so far on International Women’s Day, Maternal Mental Health, Pride and Infertility. You can see upcoming topics in the slides above.

Next year, topics will be informed by the intersectionality survey and feedback from our members. Potential topics are trauma, grief, micro-aggressions, accents and more.

I urge you to listen, share and engage in these podcasts. Please also engage with the Q&As, polls and the opportunity to share voice notes via Spotify.

Motherhood Penalty Campaign

The idea for a focus on the motherhood penalty came from a partner roundtable facilitated for us by Jo Major from Diversity in Recruitment in February 2023.

It sparked a discussion that led to Beci Piggott from Kier reaching out to Shireen to suggest an event – this in turn led to a complete campaign.

Shireen led a virtual book club on Joeli Brearley’s book The Motherhood Penalty

Hosted and produced a podcast on maternal mental health and then worked with Beci and our regional leads to host four roundtables. An insight document is currently being produced. Shireen is also working with our APPG to further amplify this work.

Survey

Shireen has worked collaboratively across our regions, members and partners to deliver some exceptional work so far. There’s lots planned for the year ahead and into 2024.

We really want this work to be informed by data. There’s an intersectionality survey on our website to gather some information from anyone working in transport regardless of gender. The survey is open to non members. Please can I ask you to participate and share this survey with your network.

We will also be looking for sponsorship and funding to continue scaling the intersectionality programme. Please do contact shireen@womenintransport.com to discuss the opportunities.

Events

We continue to deliver an incredible programme of events with a record 57 events in the past 12 months!

These events are led and delivered by our volunteers and made possible by incredible relationships with partners across transport. There is truly something for everyone from virtual networking, Menopause Mondays, site visits, professional development workshops, panel discussions and book clubs.

Where else do you can visit the House of Lords, the Senedd and Scottish Parliament in one year plus crawl under a train for just £60 for the year?!

Huge thanks to everyone involved in these events and in particular Steve Griffiths, our Events Lead and our Regional Leads.

We will be launching a membership survey over the Summer to get your feedback and ideas for our 2024 programme as well as general feedback on your Women in Transport membership.

It was brilliant to catch up with some of our members at the MOVE conference last week some of the lucky winners of free tickets from our ballot. We also had the opportunity to see Mailys Garden, Asiya Jelani and Anna Filby (Lead Cohort 4 alumunae) speaking on stage.

Phew! Are you still with me? I hope so as we’re about to dive into the incredible work across our regional hubs and this is just a few highlights from a wonderful 12 months.

Regions

Scotland Hub

The Scotland Hub is led by Mailys Garden and backed by Momentum Transport Consultancy, Transport Scotland and Network Rail.

Launched in 2021, Scotland now has over 60 members from across the private, public and charity sector. Scotland has organised eight events ranging from site visits, online/in person networking and panel receptions.

In the past 12 months, highlights have included Christmas Mince Pies event in Glasgow, a Spring reception ‘Anniversary’ event include Transport Ministers and many MSPs at the Scottish Parliament, a Motherhood Penalty roundtable hosted in Glasgow and welcoming the City of Edinburgh Council as corporate partners. There is lots of activity planned for the next 12 months as you can see in the slides above including an exciting site visit to the Caledonian Sleeper depot.

Wales Hub

The Wales Hub is our first dual language Hub, led by Jo Foxall and backed by Transport for Wales and Welsh Government.

The Wales Hub was established in 2022 and formally launched at The Senedd in Cardiff Bay in November by Welsh Government Minister for Transport, Julie James and Chief of Customer & Culture at Transport for Wales, Marie Daly. It was a lovely, well attended event and there was a huge amount of online and offline engagement from partners and stakeholders across the sector in Wales.

At the event, the ‘Where women are working in transport in Wales’ research report, delivered in partnership with Chwarae Teg was also launched. The research report looked into where women are working across the sector in Wales, what roles and levels they are working at, what are the challenges to them being able to do their jobs and what are the barriers to more women entering the sector. This helped us set some robust objectives for the Wales Hub.

The Wales hub ran two in person panel discussions in celebration of International Women’s Day in March. One in Pontypridd and one in Wrexham and both were interesting and challenging discussions around the topic of ‘Embracing Equity’ and how the organisations present can do more work in this space. There were also good discussions on the role of male allies, the importance of flexible working and also supportive workplaces. A further online lunch and learn event is planned for July on the subject of Gender Budgeting and is being delivered by Liz Hind from the Women’s Gender Budgeting Group. A ‘Net Walking’ event is being looked at for later in the year.

The team has also established our Education Sub Group being led by Katie Harris, Early Talent Lead at TfW. Katie has set up a working group and is working with colleagues in Welsh Government and Careers Wales to establish an approach and tools to best reach out to schools. Katie is now leading a working group to bring the work on school engagement together across Women in Transport nationally.

The Wales Hub has three corporate members so far, Transport for Wales, Welsh Government and Cardiff Bus.

North West

The North West Hub officially launched on 27th April 2023, led by Joanna Hill of HW Martins, with support from Julie Cartwright.

The brilliant in person launch event in Liverpool was attended by over 40 people, discussing some of the barriers women face in the industry and shared best practices. It has led to conversations with potential members and corporate partners, and two further events that are in the pipeline.

Joanna has since hosted one of four Motherhood Penalty roundtables. Joanna has also joined the schools engagement working group and is working with Voi and Transport Training Academy to co-host two events in late summer. Both will look to interface with education/further education and young people to show them more about working in the industry.

Joanna will be hosting the next Book Club and helping shape what this will look like going forward for members.

Joanna has also joined our Lead Programme on the Cohort 6 that started in June.

West Midlands

Sonya Byers and Dal Kalirai, Princes Trust networking event

The West Midlands Hub is led by Dal Kalirai and backed by National Express. It is a vibrant hub with over 100 members. Just a few highlights can be seen in the slides above. Ambitions for 2023 included inspiring the next generation into careers in transport and continuing work tackling violence against women and girls (VAWG), lending our voices to educate and make lasting change.

Dal and her team of volunteers have been actively speaking on behalf of Women in Transport in the West Midlands and beyond as well as participating in research across transport.

We are excited to see the outcome of the application for funding from NX Foundation to support schools outreach and VAWG work to include hosting visits, highlighting concerns and interventions and working with safer travel partnerships.

I was delighted to join Dal and her team of volunteers along with Steve Griffiths at their latest event this evening. Hosted by The Princes Trust in their Birmingham office, it was a wonderful opportunity to network and hear about the incredible work of this important charity. We’ve come away buzzing with ideas and are looking forward to working with the Princes Trust to break down barriers for young women and help them get into and achieve success in the transport sector.

Yorkshire

The Yorkshire Hub launched in 2022 backed by City of York, the regional lead was Carrie Brooks who handed over the reigns to the equally brilliant Charlotte Pearce in 2023. One of the major innovations that the Yorkshire Hub has introduced to Women in Transport is Menopause Mondays. Creating a monthly safe space for members to discuss everything related to perimenopause and menopause. There’s been some fantastic guest speakers and conversations. Charlotte hosted the April session with author Kate Muir as the special guest. You can watch the recording pn our YouTube channel.

What’s Next!

I hope you can agree that we have achieved a significant amount in the past 12 months, supporting our members and helping drive forward equity for all women in transport. We’re working heard to share your stories and break down barriers. There is always more that can be done so what’s next?

Women in Transport Equity Index

I am delighted to announce that we are officially launching the Women in Transport Equity Index survey next week, in partnership with WORK180. This project is being led by Sue Terpilowski OBE as a volunteer.

This groundbreaking initiative aims to revolutionise the industry by providing crucial baseline data, recognising best practices and driving positive change. This momentous occasion marks a significant milestone in the ongoing efforts to promote diversity and inclusivity within the transport sector. The Index seeks to identify and address the real gender diversity in transport-related positions, fostering an environment where all individuals have equal access to opportunities and resources.

I want to personally thank Sue for the incredible amount of work she’s done since we committed to launching this project last Autumn. A special mention to Sally Middlemiss from the Bicycle Association who has been working closely with us on this project.

Please look out for the launch of registrations for the survey on Monday 3rd July 2023. It is aimed at companies to complete of any size from two employees. Please share with your networks and encourage participation from every area of transport.

And that’s a wrap for the AGM. What an absolutely amazing 12 months. I am so proud of our team and everything we’ve achieved collectively. I know from talking to many of you what a difference being part of Women in Transport has made. Thank you for being part of Women in Transport, for supporting yourselves and each other.

To all of our wonderful members, volunteers and partners – we couldn’t do this without you – never forget the difference that you make!

Sonya Byers, CEO
Women in Transport