Princess Anne honours pro-women manager
- Nov 13, 2017
- 2 min read
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) Apprentice Programme Manager Terry Sandham is this year’s winner of WISE Man of the Year award for achieving 30% female engineering apprentices against the national average of 8%.
"Helping women be powerful" - Terry Sandham. Picture by WISE Awards
Sandham received the award last night at a colourful ceremony held in London to honour outstanding contributions of women in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). The WISE Man of the Year award was launched last year as part of encouraging science and technology companies to hire more female employees.
Sandham started his career as an apprentice motor technician attending college once a week and night school twice a week. After his studies, he was employed at Ford Motor Company.
He joined GSK in 1988 as a technician within the manufacturing unit and has since climbed the ladder to his current role as Apprentice Programme Manager. His work revolves around managing and developing young talent.
“I actively engage with external agencies and schools promoting careers to young people through our STEM programme and demonstrating the importance of growing your own talent to build a sustainable workforce,” said Sandham in a post on WISE Campaign website.
Speaking during the ceremony, WISE chair and Microsoft managing director Trudy Norris-Grey said the gender gap in technology is one that can be solved as long as the will is there. “The question for business is – what more can you do to attract and retain women in technical roles?," she said.
“Tonight’s awards show what can be achieved by business leaders who put sustained and strategic effort into attracting and retaining women. With a big push, we could get a million women working in STEM by 2020."
Trudy Norris-Grey
Awarding the triumph of companies
Software engineering firm, AVEVA got the WISE Employer Award for achieving above industry numbers of women across the business – from a 50/50 gender split in this year’s graduate intake, to 24% of women on the executive team.
Building services partnership Troup Bywaters + Anders were also honoured for doubling the number of their female apprentices to 20% this year. On the other hand, Anne Adams and and her team from The Open University were awarded the WISE Tech Innovation prize for their work using storytelling and interactive games to improve STEM learning for women. The Institute of Physics and Amy Mercer both won the WISE Talent Award and the WISE One to Watch Award respectively. While, the institute of Physics won the award for their guidance on tackling gender stereotypes in schools, which pilot schools have used to more than treble the number of girls taking AS Level physics over two years while Amy Mercer were the wise one to watch for being a STEM advocate.
“Mercer has engaged whenever possible with younger generations in order to share and promote her passion for science. She was chosen as the winner by a live vote on the night,” WISE awards wrote in a statement.
The awards were sponsored by BAM Nuttall, Goldman Sachs, Babcock, NHS England, Rolls-Royce PLC, Intel, MBDA, Aveva, Thales and AWE.
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