Today is International Women’s Day and the theme for this year is:

“Women in Leadership: Achieving an Equal Future in a COVID-19 World’

COVID-19 has amplified some of the inequalities faced by women.  The industries that have been hard hit (tourism, retail and hospitality) have a high number of women employees.  Where both partners worked from home during the pandemic there seemed to be an unequal distribution of household and childcare responsibilities.  By increasing women’s access to leadership roles this would ensure that women’s voices and experiences are factored into decision making.

The Engineering industry is traditionally a male-orientated industry, however there are initiatives like the Diversity Agenda to try and increase female participation within the engineering and architecture industries.  Steps in the right direct have been made.  Four out of the ten Board members for Engineering NZ are female and their leadership team is 50% female.  ACE New Zealand has recently appointed Helen Davidson as the CE.

The Leadership Group at Lautrec is made up of seven members:  Kevin Brown, Juliet Hyatt Brown, Denis Pino, Jie Wang, Blazenka Rose, Greg Chesson and Aimee Walker. We appreciate the breadth of experiences and insights a diverse team brings to the table.

This is a profile on the women who are part of the Leadership Group at Lautrec.

Juliet Hyatt-Brown – Lautrec is the co-founder of Lautrec which was established in 2008.  She oversees the Finance, Legal, Human Resources, Health and Safety and the IT aspects of the Company.

Juliet is a qualified lawyer who originally practised in the areas of commercial law and litigation and has also worked extensively in the tertiary sector.

She is no stranger to the engineering industry.  Her father and grandfather were civil consulting engineers who worked around the world including for the UN in the north eastern regions of Thailand and also on the Auckland Harbour Bridge.

Jie Wang – Jie is a Chartered Engineer and has been with Lautrec for almost five years.  Jie is one of our senior structural engineers and is responsible for reviewing the software that Lautrec uses and has a keen interest in identifying ways to increase efficiencies.  Before working at Lautrec, Jie was an engineer in China and has worked on a number of complex projects.

Blazenka Rose – Blazenka has over 20 years’ experience designing residential, commercial, and industrial builds in New Zealand.  She mentors a number of junior engineers and provides oversight on the approach to design of residential projects as well as training programmes for the recent graduates.

Aimee Walker – Aimee has worked for Lautrec for over five years and is the Communications and Engagement Manager.  She is responsible for the internal and external communications and quite often acts as the conduit between the client and the design team.  She has a keen interest in looking at ways to enhance the Customer experience.