International Women’s Day 2020
On March 8th, the world celebrated International Women’s Day 2020. Our team was delighted to attend events throughout the week, including those organised by the Women in Aviation and Aerospace Charter. The charter was set up in 2018 to create a more balanced and fair industry in a traditionally male-dominated environment.
We were reminded that today, only 5% of the world’s commercial pilots are women so for young girls, “you can’t be what you can’t see” rings true. There’s no time like the present to shine a light on women in science, engineering, and tech and show young girls around the world what’s possible. As for startups in the UK today, we know that for every £1 of venture capital investment, less than 1p goes to all-female-led teams.
The data speaks for itself, so how can we help shape the future for female founders?
At the ATI Boeing Accelerator, we are proud that 2 out of 9 of the startups in the cohort are female co-founded and more than 30% of our mentors are women. Our core team is three brilliant women and Wil (shoutout to him, recently nominated for the ‘Men for Gender Balance’ award at the 2020 Rising Stars).
Looking ahead, our team is increasing our efforts and focus on getting more women, and more broadly diversity, into the programme and supporting them with the fundraising process and any investment challenges they might face.
This may come as a surprise, but while our founders and mentors work within the aerospace industry, they have come from all walks of life with careers in law, operations, design and more. This goes to show that you can break into tech, regardless of your experience or degree.
We want to take this opportunity to highlight some of the incredible female founders and mentors in our first cohort that are changing the dialogue in aerospace as well as in their respective industries:
Veera Johnson
Co-founder of Circulor
Veera is the Co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer of Circulor. Veera has held a number of senior positions in finance, TMT and management consulting. She is also the founder and CEO of Procserve, a specialist eCommerce solutions provider that was successfully sold in 2015.
Daniela Paredes
Co-founder of Gravity Sketch
Daniela is the Co-founder & Chief Customer Officer of Gravity Sketch. Daniela has a background in industrial design - developing packaging, furniture and interior design for global brands like Muji. She has also received one of Innovate UK’s 2019 Women in Innovation Awards.
Anna Kretz
Supply Chain at Boeing
Anna leads Boeing Supplier Development and Diversity in Europe and Africa.
Based in London, Anna is responsible for managing the supply chain development strategy across all Boeing business units. Her focus is on new and emerging suppliers, industrial partnerships, and expansion of strategic opportunities with current suppliers.
Uduak Koka
Global IP Manager at GKN Aerospace
Uduak oversees and manages the global aerostructures and special products group intellectual property (IP) portfolios at GKN Aerospace. She provides recommendations to the business on protective strategies for new and existing technologies arising from the cutting-edge engineering conducted. Prior to her current role, Uduak frequently delivered IP training for the academic and entrepreneurial community of Imperial College London.
We’re also delighted to receive strategic expertise and insights from programme mentors including: Anna Keeling, Susan Schofield, Lina A. Huertas, Lauren Hendry Parsons, Miriam Sarin, Lucy Caffery, Vix Anderton, Ellie Rehbein and Cathy White.
If you would like to recommend a mentor for the programme or if you know a driven female founder with a product that has an application in the industry, then sign up to our newsletter to be the first to hear about our application launch.
For more information about the programme, please contact the ATI Boeing Accelerator team:
Gabi Matic — gm@atiboeingaccelerator.com | linkedin.com/in/gabrielamatic
Wil Benton — wb@atiboeingaccelerator.com | linkedin.com/in/fatkidonfire
Ksenia Kurileva — kk@atiboeingaccelerator.com | linkedin.com/in/kseniakurileva
