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Inspiration from the Automotive News Leading Women Conference

Published Date

Several of automotiveMastermind’s team members attended the Automotive News Leading Women Conference and had an inspiring time hearing from key leaders in the automotive industry.

Our team truly enjoyed learning, networking and mentoring at the Automotive News Leading Women Conference last month. The event was held at The Henry in Detroit, a venue rich with automotive history and inspiration. With nearly 650 attendees, the day was filled with sentiments about empowering women. There were too many influential speakers to highlight each individually; but we wanted to recap our time at this incredible event.

Women’s Empowerment in the Automotive Industry

Why do these events matter? Catalyst reports that:

  •  Although women are almost half of the U.S. labor force, they represent only about 25 percent of the automotive workforce.
  • In 2018, only 16 women (8 percent) were executives in the top 20 motor vehicles and parts companies in the Fortune Global 500.

Events focusing on women in the automotive industry matter and automotiveMastermind is passionate about them. Fun Fact: the female to male ratio at automotiveMastermind is 77 to 167, and of those 77 females, 14 are in leadership roles (director and above).

It’s important for the automotive industry as a whole to recognize all team members and highlight diversity, inclusion and raising up the people around us. Here at automotiveMastermind we elevate women and it was important to exemplify this with some of the most influential women in the industry during this event.

Mentoring

The day kicked-off with a morning mentoring session. We had the honor of speaking with a group of 90 young women from five metro-Detroit area-high schools about our careers. We split into groups – two mentors and eight young women – to answer questions and share career ambitions. The students were very curious about how the women in the group chose their career path. We discussed career motivations and many more impactful topics. It was incredibly fulfilling to talk about our automotive expertise and the unique paths each of our team members took to get to our current roles. We hope our chat influenced these excellent students to pursue the automotive field and add to the number of women in our industry.

Inspiration

There were many memorable and inspirational quotes from the days’ speakers. Here are two that stuck out to us.

  •  “It’s ok to say ‘I don’t know’”
    • Lori Blaker, president and CEO of TTi Global In shared that you don’t have to be the expert in every subject, it’s perfectly acceptable to say you don’t know the answer to something but that you’ll look into it and get an answer.
  • “You’re not my audience”
    • Colonel Nicole Malachowski, the closing keynote, had a truly inspirational story. She recanted a time when she spoke to a group of young women at an event before she was about to do an air show and a passerby said something to the effect of, “I don’t know why you’re bothering listening to her,” and in her mind she thought ‘you’re not my audience’ and chose not to engage with him. You don’t have to fight a battle with someone who doubts you if their opinion doesn’t matter – put your energy into the people and voices that are meaningful in your life and career.

Thanks to Automotive News for encouraging women from all walks of life to pursue careers in the automotive industry. It was inspiring to hear from all the speakers and award recipients about their personal triumphs in their careers that lead them to their current positions and what they see for the future.

How can automotiveMastermind help?

How is your company supporting women? Contact us today to learn more about how automotiveMastermind can partner with your dealership and ensure that all employees are being supported.