Women are Essential to the Future of Infrastructure
Changing the way we approach infrastructure throughout the world is ambitious, but the Women’s Infrastructure Network is fearless.
“ Once we trigger the collective unconscious to realize equality and diversity as virtues necessary for a better life in society, the world’s potential is limitless.” — Ouahida Bendjedou, Senior Legal Manager at Groupe ADP and Founder of WIN France.
PHOTO CREDIT: Franck Bindefeld
At some point in our careers as women working in male-dominated industries, we all have been through situations where we were the only women in the room. We were underestimated in our knowledge and skills, we were interrupted while we were talking. It might have contributed to this outcome of very few women in these industries reaching top management levels. Nonetheless, infrastructure remains such an incredible, dynamic, purposeful sector, and for that reason women should not avoid being a part of it.
As Legal Manager for Americas within Aéroports de Paris for the last three years, and with my 16 years of experience in infrastructure, I have been involved in multiple deals in real estate, project finance, and public-private partnerships for diverse types of infrastructure such as administrative buildings, justice and national security, military, health, education, stadiums, highways, and airports. I’ve always felt part of a movement that enhances people’s lives and serves the public interest.
I am a firm believer that infrastructure has a direct impact on people, and that women are essential players to facilitate the inclusion of climate change, diversity and social justice issues in every infrastructure project. Women's Infrastructure Network (WIN) is a community in which women in the public and private infrastructure sectors could meet, exchange ideas and experiences, and help shape the infrastructure agenda. The network started in the United States and expanded throughout Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and very recently in France.
The amazing women of WIN in the US asked me to launch the French branch of WIN, a thrilling challenge I gladly accepted in 2020. Throughout the launch process, I wanted WIN France to achieve three objectives:
Be a place for women working in infrastructure in France to connect,
Help them to stand out in the industry, and
Promote infrastructure as a career path for young professionals in order to participate in the shaping of tomorrow's infrastructure.
In spite of the pandemic slowing the launch, we managed to participate in e-conferences and publish a few articles to give a sense of what French women have to say about infrastructure. To be honest, it is not an easy task to bring people together with the ambitious goal to change the world, to change the way we do infrastructure — and the COVID-19 pandemic made things a little more complicated. But I believe that the time is now to forge forward.
We need to focus our energy on attracting the many hidden (and not so hidden) talents who will present ideas, recommendations and advice to public authorities, investment funds, general contractors, operators, and suppliers in order to reveal a world where infrastructure is designed with respect for the environment, diversity and social justice. If we can do this with the help of more women, then we will have made a big step in the direction of more equality. Once we trigger the collective unconscious to realize equality and diversity as virtues necessary for a better life in society, the world’s potential is limitless.
Why don't we start within the infrastructure community, a community which participates in modelling the world we live in, to shape a new mindset?
About the author: Ouahida Bendjedou is the Senior Legal Manager at Groupe ADP, an airport operator present in all aspects of the airport value chain, from upstream studies in engineering, master planning and design, to the commissioning and operation of complex infrastructure.