Women in Rail officially launched it new initiative, SWIFT, on Wednesday 24th April 2019.
The event was kindly sponsored by PWC, London.
The event was attended by over 150 guests representing senior and executive roles from across the UK railway industry.
Our keynote speaker at the launch was Keith Williams, Chair of the Williams Review and Lillian Greenwood MP who talked about the benefits of having a gender balanced workforce and of promoting equality, diversity and inclusion in our industry.
Throughout the evening, senior executives from across the UK railway industry shared their views on why it is important to develop the next generation of female* leaders in UK rail and to demonstrate to the rail workforce that our industry’s leaders are committed to working together to build a fairer, more diverse and inclusive sector and, more specifically, to improve gender balance in executive roles.
*At Women in Rail and SWiFT, the words “female”, when used by the team, spans the nine protected characteristics, including age, gender, ethnicity, religion, disability and sexual orientation, as well as broader behavioural and background diversity, such as thinking and personality types, socio-economic background and life experience and include women who are transitioning and non-binary people.