Energy industry bosses have opened up to an Aberdeen business event audience about discrimination hurdles they faced because of gender or race.
The Axis Aberdeen and AFBE-UK Scotland session heard from leaders from BP, Intertek and other firms about barriers they encountered as they climbed the career ladder.
Doris Reiter, BP’s senior vice-president for the North Sea, said that in her first term at university – studying chemical and mechanical engineering – she was asked multiple times if she was “just there to catch a husband”. She went on to complete a PhD in petroleum engineering.
‘Doris, I don’t think you’re really cut out for leadership’
The supermajor’s North Sea boss also shared an experience early in her career, when she had a “development conversation” with a manager.
She told her superior: “I want to solidify my technical background, and would like to be a team leader and a manager.”
Her manager replied: “Doris, I don’t think you’re really cut out for leadership.”
The Austrian was also told the company she worked for promoted women, but only those with a British or American accent.
Axis Network vice-chairwoman Emma Behjat, business development manager at Intertek, also shared her experiences.
She told those attending the event at Wood’s offices in Altens she came from a “low socio-economic background”. Despite this, she went on to graduate from Imperial College London with a PhD in chemical biology.
What a difference a name makes
Achieving this made her “really proud and excited to get into the workforce”.
She said: “When I was applying for roles I used my given name, which is Hamasseh Behjat. I wasn’t getting much feedback and that was disheartening.
“I remember my dad saying to me one day that he wanted to have a look at my CV and then he told me to use my preferred name, Emma.”
For subsequent job applications “the response was much different” to what she had experienced when applying for roles as Hamasseh, she said.
This was not the end of the prejudice she faced: “I work in sales and sales technical sales, and I can remember it was a male-dominated environment, Ms Behjat said.
Sexist slur over sales success
During a training session she was told, in front of others, she was doing well in sales “based on people finding me sexually attractive, basically disregarding my knowledge and technical experience”.
The event’s panel featured Ms Reiter, Ms Behjat, AFBE-UK co-chairman Ollie Folayan and Chrissie Clarke, vice-president for diversity and inclusion at Wood. Moderator for the discussion was Shaun Scantlebury, partner at EY People Advisory Services.
Ongoing gender imbalance at the top
Earlier this year industry leadership group POWERful Women released its Annual State of the Nation report, finding 21% of UK energy companiess have no women on their boards.
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