A question of balance: Gender diversity in a global aluminium and energy company
About 19% of Hydro’s 30,000 employees are women. Our ambition is to increase that to 25% in 2025. But how? With quotas, strong role models, courageous leadership – all of the above?
Hilde Merete Aasheim is the first female CEO in Hydro’s history. She says, “We see diversity as important and necessary for the development of our company, and we need to do more to increase gender balance and diversity.”
In a recent Hydro Talks podcast, Hilde Vestheim Nordh, Executive Vice President for People & Safety in Hydro; Ingrid Guddal, Plant Manager of our primary aluminium plant in Karmøy, Norway; and Susanne Rothstein, Vice President of Finance, Hydro Building Systems, who is based in Toulouse, France, discuss the challenges and opportunities in fostering greater gender balance at work (and in the home).
Nordh is responsible for helping develop a new Diversity & Inclusion strategy. “It’s proven that diversity gives better business results. The right competence should always be the most important, but it should be possible to attract highly qualified women at all levels of an organization. One way to do that is to ensure that there is always diversity in the final rounds of our recruitment process.”
Guddal was educated at a technical university and holds an MBA. She has been plant manager since 2018, and shares what it’s like to have a demanding position with a lot of responsibilities – in a working environment once dominated by men.
And Rothstein shares lessons from her professional career and how her part of the business is actually ahead of the curve when it comes to gender diversity: “As finance manager for Hydro Building Systems, I feel that I actually have really good opportunity to impact how we work with gender diversity.”
You can hear more in the Hydro Talks podcast, “A question of balance: Gender diversity in a global aluminium and energy company” and view other topics on the Hydro Talks page, where you will find links to Spotify and Apple.
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