To celebrate International Women’s Day our Women at LEA (WAL) Committee hosted a virtual lunch event featuring guest speaker, Catherine Karakatsanis of Morrison Hershfield. Catherine shared with us her experience as a woman in the industry and the work she has done to help bridge the gap to equality in the engineering field.
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As an industry leader with a great deal of experience to share, Catherine gave a powerful and inspirational talk about the importance of gender equality in the workplace. Using this year’s #ChooseToChallenge theme, she gave statistics, spoke on common misconceptions about women in the workplace, and explained how best to combat gender bias. Providing personal anecdotes on her experience, Catherine has a way with words that can only be described as inspiring.
Catherine described the hardships she faced in her career and how she used that experience to better the workplace. Despite adversity and the barriers in place, Catherine remained positive throughout her career and worked hard to achieve the goals she set.
Gender equality benefits everyone. By having a balance of voices, more inclusive hiring, innovation is the outcome. Having multiple perspectives and points of view bring forth strong ideas and higher performing results. By educating leaders and those in management positions with gender intelligence training, we can create an environment in which all can thrive. Addressing the barriers in place and understanding the issues women face is critical.
We must acknowledge gender issues, discuss and work to make change. We have come a long way in the fight for gender equality, but we have a long way to go until it is fully realized. We need to choose to challenge gender biases every day of the year.