“What if we treated great female scientists like they were stars,” a girl asks in GE’s new spot, created by BBDO New York. “What if lived in a world like that?”
The ad features 86 year old Millie Dresselhaus, the first woman to win the US National Medal of Science in Engineering and a professor of Physics and Electrical Engineering at MIT.
“Her accolades are impressive and inspiring. She felt like the perfect choice, embodying a stark contrast to the traditional “celebrity”,” the company explained in a statement. “GE considers her a real hero and incredible advocate for women in physics and other sciences.”
The spot released today by GE is a part of their commitment to help create that world. In sync with this spot, the company has announced that they are working on a new initiative to double the number of women working in science and technology and starting a number of initiatives, such as extended maternity leave, subsidized childcare, and total salary transparency, to retain them.
“As GE’s Chief Technology Officer, it’s my great privilege to lead the company’s innovators in our mission to see, move and create a better future for GE and the world,” GE’s Senior Vice President & Chief Technology Officer Victor Abate told DIVERGE. “If the world my company serves is half men and half women, shouldn’t I have a team that represents that population?”
“By building a technical workforce that reflects the world, we can accelerate innovation and transform industry,” he explained. “This is a strategy necessary to inject urgency into addressing ongoing gender imbalance in technical fields and ultimately fully transform into a digital industrial company for the future.”
The company has set a goal to bridge the gender gap with a goal of adding 20,000 women in technical roles by 2020 and obtaining 50:50 representations for all their technical entry-level programs. Additionally, GE is also sponsoring programs to encourage more girls to take an interest in STEM subjects. In a white-paper released today, GE highlighted the economic opportunity of addressing gender imbalance across the sector.
According to the report, women are still under-represented in the technology sector with 13-24% represented in IT and Engineering positions globally, and just 17-30% ascending to senior leadership positions. Data also showed that while women tend to outnumber men in higher education (55% to 45%), STEM education drops significantly.
Commenting on the study, GE Chief Economist Marco Annunziata said in a statement: “Unless we bring more women into technology and manufacturing, there will be a significant negative economic impact on the sector. This is a problem for business to actively address.”
As a part of this goal, GE has enlisted a cross-company Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Advisory Council to help advise the company. This will include an expansion of its “Leading without Bias” training, testing different ways to hold managers accountable for creating an inclusive environment, the development of internal and external programs for the next generation of female leaders and innovative programs/benefits to improve the GE employee experience to remain critical to remain an employer of choice.
