Women in Aviation and Logistics launch mentorship scheme to encourage female leaders

In the aviation industry, the leaders are signing up to the International Air Transport Association's (IATA) 25by2025 initiative that aims to advance gender diversity in the aviation industry. Similarly, Women in Aviation and Logistics (WAL) have launched a new free to use and join mentorship scheme to support and encourage the NextGen of female leaders. Seventeen mentors have already signed up.

The aim is to bring together industry leaders, both women and men, to mentor and support women looking to develop their careers in the aviation and logistics industry.

Dnata and Kenya Airways announced to sign up for IATA’s 25by2025 initiative.

WAL has developed a new online hub at womeninaviationandlogistics.org with resources to facilitate and support mentors and mentees, who are asked to commit to a minimum of four hours over fourth months.

“We continue to push for gender parity to future-proof and energise our industry by developing projects with tangible results, as well as monitoring the industry to give constructive feedback,” said Emma Murray, CEO and founder of Meantime Communications.

“For the mentorship scheme, we have put together a workable blueprint, and already have commitment from seventeen industry professionals and counting.Now we need companies and individuals to spread the word and encourage mentees to come forward and mentors to sign up.”

WAL research reveals that since March of this year, when the movement was launched, only 16 percent of speakers across 16 online events and six in-person conferences were women, with three online events having no women speakers at all. WAL also looked at current gender balance in the boardrooms and executive teams of 24 industry associations, 13 of which are global, and 11 regional.

“Lack of gender balance is visible and audible: only 11 percent of board seats at industry associations are occupied by women and our industry events count only 16 percent of females speaking,” said Céline Hourcade, Founder and Managing Director of Change Horizon.

“We certainly lack women at the top and women with specific expertise, and when they are in place, they are not always visible, or known to event organisers, groups looking for board members, or journalists: that is why we created a database of female experts. We are calling on more women to sign up and for the industry to properly use this resource to drive change,” Hourcade continues.

The WAL database is now searchable and hosted on the new website, including women who have registered an interest in speaking at events, putting themselves forward for board membership, and giving expert input for journalists.