OREANDA-NEWS. May 11, 2016. SSE is one of a number of companies to sign a gender diversity pledge within POWERful Women’s ‘Igniting Change 2: Building the pipeline of female leaders in energy’ report. POWERful Women, PwC’s initiative to ensure 30% of executive energy company board members and 40% of energy company middle management are female by 2030 at the latest, launched its latest report at the House of Lords last night.

As one of the report’s signatories SSE is committing to more than doubling the amount of women earning over ?40,000 within its organisation by 2025. The pledge is part of SSE’s wider gender diversity work and means SSE will increase the number of women earning ?40,000 from 11% to 25%.

Invited guests attended the launch of this year’s report which continues PwC’s work in monitoring the energy sector in its progress towards gender diversity.

Rosie MacRae, Head of Diversity & Inclusion at SSE, said: “We are delighted to sign POWERful Women’s ‘Igniting Change 2: Building the pipeline of female leaders in energy’ report and pledge to increase the number of women earning ?40,000 from 11% to 25% by 2025.

“We are under no illusion, we have a lot of work to do to achieve better gender balance, not only within SSE but across the wider industry. Working alongside organisations like POWERful Women can help us take bold steps towards reaching our diversity goals.

“SSE, along with other employers in the energy sector, is facing a significant skills shortage in the next 5 to 10 years. The work we’re doing on gender diversity will not only help us fill that gap but help us grow as a company.”

Ruth Cairnie, Chair, POWERful Women believes getting more women into the industry is key: “I’ve always believed that getting more women into the energy industry, and into senior roles, is something that matters immensely. Not just for the women themselves, so they can share some of the great working experiences that I’ve had, but because of the evidence that more diverse organisations perform better and are more robust in tough times.”

Speakers at the event included Caroline Dinenage MP, Minister for Women, Equalities and Family Justice; Sir Phillip Hampton, Chair, Women on Boards, Department of Business, Innovation and Skills; Ruth Cairnie, Chair of POWERful Women; and Laura Manson-Smith, Partner PwC.