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Naomi Climer

Naomi Climer became first female president of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) on 1 October 2015.

She was previously the head of Sony's Media Cloud Services.

Studied chemistry at Imperial College, London.

Joined the BBC as a trainee Broadcast engineer, then technical roles in BBC Radio, BBC World Service and BBC News, also worked at ITV and in local radio.

Joined Japanese firm Sony in 2002. Worked in California for three years for Sony.

She is a keen sailor and motorcyclist.

Father was an engineer.

Has been a member of the Board of Trustees of IET since 2010.

“I would like to find a way to get the next Doctor Who to be a woman,” she says. “I think that would be symbolic. It’s not a campaign I am launching, but I think it is the kind of change that makes a difference. I am sure there are other iconic figures where it would also be great to see a woman popping up.”

“I wanted to make my own way,” she says. “I didn’t want to be seen as a token woman, and all of those things, but the fact is that I wouldn’t have got into BBC engineering if I hadn’t been a woman. They went looking for graduates of technical subjects that weren’t necessarily engineering.”

Now, she says: “I am increasingly feeling like we have to introduce quotas because despite the best efforts [engineering] has been exactly where it is today for decades. We are making really slow progress.”

Companies know that diversity is good for the bottom line because mixed teams, whether of race, gender or age, are naturally more creative and therefore better able to come up with solutions for the problems engineers face. Therefore it is “frustrating and disappointing” that the sector’s glaring gender disparity has not been fixed.

“If there was just one issue, we would have cracked it by now, but there are just so many little parts to this,” she says. “It is everything, from the subtle ways boys and girls are treated differently from birth that lead them in different directions. It’s down to the information that parents have about what their kids could be. And the image of engineering, particularly in this country.”

= Read more = Climer wants to see more young engineers visiting schools and talking about the breadth of roles on offer – from creating apps to constructing railways and working on huge space projects. The UK needs an extra 1.82 million engineers in the next decade, so engineering graduates are almost guaranteed employment – and starting salaries are some of the highest around.

“For decades to come there are going to be interesting, wonderful jobs for engineers in just about anything that interests you,” says Climer. “You could make someone’s life better, you could change the world.

“There is this incredible opportunity for engineers to be out there making a difference to the world, to the way we live and work, and to the planet.”

Naomi Climer, first female president of Institution of Engineering and Technology, Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, former head of Sony’s Media Cloud Services

Naomi Climer, president of Sony Media Cloud Services, became the first female president of the Institute of Engineering and Technology (IET) on 1 October 2015, the first woman to hold the position in the institution’s 144-year-history.

She has been actively involved in the IET for many years. Climer joined Sony Europe in 2002 as director of Sony Professional Services, managing a team of around 100 staff, based in 15 countries and operating in 108 territories across Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Climer, currently IET deputy president, has spent her career immersed in the rapidly changing world of media and entertainment technology from the analogue, pre-internet days of TV and radio through to the multi-channel, multi-platform, mobile experience of today.

After graduating from Imperial College London, Naomi began her career as a BBC Broadcast Engineer, before quickly progressing to senior management. She continued in the world of media, joining ITV Digital before moving to Sony. She is currently President of Sony Media Cloud Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, leading a team focussed on harnessing the power and opportunity of the cloud for professional video content production.

Climer has a strong interest in diversity issues and has been an active campaigner for the need to encourage women within the engineering profession in the UK.

“Engineering is a hugely exciting and diverse career with the opportunity to do something life or world changing. But there is a big job to do to increase public understanding of the important role engineering plays in their daily lives and get more young people excited about the possibilities of an engineering career,” she said.

“Engineering and technology are behind almost everything. From our smartphones and the apps that can help us navigate at sea, track our health or remotely control our homes as well as making phone calls. In transport, from the driverless car to commercial space travel, environmental engineering and air traffic control. Security, robotics, virtual reality and music also rely heavily on engineering. There’s something for everyone in an engineering career!

“It will be an honour to become the President of the IET and of course to be the first female in that role.”

The first female president of the Institute of Engineering and Technology is calling for quotas to boost the UK’s flailing female engineers.

Naomi Climer was appointed president of the IET last week,

One of Climer’s first initiatives as president is now to demand quotas to increase the number of women in British engineering:

Despite the best efforts, there has been little progress in attracting more women into engineering over the past few decades so I feel that the time is right to force action through the use of quotas.

The UK has the EU’s lowest proportion of female engineers, and this has remained flat for decades.

While GPs are roughly equally split between the sexes, fewer than one in 10 employed in the UK's engineering sector, a sector that makes up a fifth of the economy, is a woman. Introducing quotas is only one part of the solution to this, according to Climer, who also said that attitudes need to change, especially among teachers and parents:

If there was just one issue we would have fixed it by now, but there are just so many little parts that we need to fix.

Climer takes on the role as president of the IET fresh from Sony, where she was president of subsidiary Sony Media Cloud Services. Prior to this she worked as an engineer at ITV and the BBC, and she expresses frustration that the industry’s “glaring” gender disparity has yet to be fixed:

'''Naomi Climer is President and Fellow of the IET, and is former President of Sony’s new global division – Media Cloud Services, with a mission to develop cloud based services for all parts of the media industry worldwide, after previously heading Sony’s B2B organisation in Europe (Sony Professional). She studied at Imperial College, London, before training as an engineer at the BBC and working in technical roles in BBC Radio, BBC World Service and BBC News as well as at ITV and in local radio. Naomi has a strong interest in diversity issues and has been an active campaigner for gender diversity within Sony and within the engineering profession in the UK, resulting in her short-listing for a WISE Women of Outstanding Achievement Award For Leadership and Inspiration in 2012.'''

Naomi Climer

Naomi, please can you tell us about your career to date and what first got you interested in engineering?
I started out as a trainee engineer at the BBC after gaining a degree in Chemistry from Imperial College London. My time at the BBC was vital in launching my engineering career and gave me experience in a range of areas, including news and radio. During my early career, I also spent time working for local radio as well as ITV.

I have headed Sony Professional in Europe and up until recently, was President of Sony’s Media Cloud Services, where I was based in the U.S. I have always been an active contributor to the IET as well, being a member of the Board of Trustees since 2010.

As previously mentioned, I studied engineering at a higher education level but made the move from chemistry to engineering around 1987 because at that time, the BBC was trying to get women to become engineers, much like today really.

What does it mean to you to become the first female president of the IET in its 144 year history?
Whether male or female, I feel it’s a great honour to become president of the IET. Having been on the Board of Trustees for the past five years, I feel very involved with the IET and becoming president will give me even more opportunities to do so. I hope that the role will enable me to make a difference in the world of engineering and it would be great to encourage more women to become president in the future.

What are your plans for your presidential year?
I’m sure my presidential year will be a busy one. I’m very passionate about engineering so this coming year will be about getting as many people involved as possible, and increasing diversity among engineers.

Los Angeles

I feel that engineers deserve more credit for the hard work that they do as well. Living in California, engineers are treated so well, almost like rock stars. In the UK we don’t have anything like that. Engineers sort of ‘get on with it’ while no one is truly appreciating the work that they do. I think the stereotypes surrounding engineers in the UK have changed and improved, but we still have a way to go.

If you want to make a difference in the world, whether with science and health, or technology, engineering really is a great path to go down; I think that is an important message.

At the end of my presidential year, I would like to think that the general public’s opinions towards engineering will have changed for the better. I think that is how I will measure my success as a president. At the end of the year, I will ask myself: “Has the image of engineering changed for the better? Are people more aware of the engineering that is all around them as a result of my year as president?”

We hear lots of clichéd male dominated culture in Silicon Valley. You lived in Los Angeles, rather than San Francisco, but what were your perceptions of the U.S. culture for women in tech?
Perhaps surprisingly to some, the stereotypes around women in tech in the U.S. are far more relaxed than in the UK. I found that they take a much more positive and female friendly approach. While diversity is still an issue there, it is not as much as it is here in the UK.

You are a British woman who worked for a Japanese-owned company in the U.S. What was it like to be a diversity champion in Sony?
In one word: challenging. I worked a lot with diversity champions in Japan who are dealing with deeper issues of diversity both in society and the workplace. It really showed me that women all over the world are facing different diversity issues which is something that really needs to be tackled. The actual campaign work was positive though as it seemed to resonate with men who wanted to be part of a diverse workforce.

The UK’s education system is often criticised for forcing teenagers to make choices that reduce career flexibility at an early age. What changes would you like to see?
Unfortunately, schools in the UK require students to make choices on GCSE subjects at the age of 13 or 14 while A Level or BTEC decisions are made at 15 or 16. This can often end in them ruling out a career in STEM (science / technology / engineering / maths). In the U.S. though, I found that students can wait until the age of 20 before having to streamline their career choices, giving them much more time to consider what they want to do.

If the UK system is to continue, it is important that students have access to the relevant information, advice and expert knowledge from those in industry when making such choices. We must remember that young people are key to the future of engineering.

What was the best piece of advice you received at the start of your career?
Quite a short and sweet message really: If you can’t please everyone don’t worry – as long as you’re clearly trying to do the right thing for the company and operating with integrity, people will understand.

How do we speed up the process of change when it comes to diversity?
Of course diversity is important, especially when it comes to engineering, as diversity can lead to the discovery of new ideas. The more mixed a team, whether in terms of gender, age or class, the better it will be at coming up with solutions to issues. For engineers, this is THE most important thing. What possible reason could we have for not encouraging diversity?

In the UK, we are currently seeing a huge shortage in female engineers, something I would like to see change during my time in presidency. The introduction of more women to engineering will increase diversity and aid engineering in general. In order to do this however, there is no quick fix.

I think that role models are an incredibly important part though. I’ve mentioned before that it would be great to see characters such as Doctor Who and James Bond in female form. I’m not going to create a campaign for this, I just think that role models have a huge impact on how we think about things.

In terms of encouraging women into engineering, there isn’t enough passion and energy surrounding it. The IET Young Woman Engineer of the Year Awards are great for this however. They provide young women with positive role models for STEM subjects as there is definitely a shortage of these.

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