The First Meeting of the Discussion Club ‘Women in Power Industry’

On 29 November 2019, Izolyator plant took part in the first meeting of the Women in Power Industry discussion club in Moscow.

Conseil International des Grands Réseaux Électriques (CIGRE) is the largest international non-profit Association for promoting collaboration with experts from all around the world by sharing knowledge and joining forces to improve electric power systems.

Since 2016, specialized forums for women engineers have been held as part of the CIGRE Sessions. The main tasks of these meetings are exchange of experience and motivation.

The CIGRE national committees operating in the member countries of the association are actively involved in the formation of the forum agenda.

The meeting was organized by the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation and the Russian National Committee of CIGRE (RNC CIGRE) with the support of the Rosseti Group of Companies and the Federal Grid Company of the Unified Energy System (FGC UES).

The first meeting of the discussion club ‘Women in Power Industry’ in Moscow (Photo: Rosseti Group)

The main objectives of the discussion are to consolidate positions on the most pressing issues of the industry women's agenda, taking into account the experience of club members, the activities of similar venues, as well as CIGRE projects and other associations.

The meeting was attended by: State Secretary — Deputy Minister of Energy of the Russian Federation Anastasia Bondarenko, Head of the Center for Technical Supervision of the Rosseti Group Olga Zuykova, Director of the Center for Energy at the Moscow School of Management Skolkovo Tatyana Mitrova, Chief Engineer for operation of Moscow cable networks — branch the Moscow United Electric Grid Company Victoria Vostrosablina, co-founder of the Association of Women of the Atomic Growth Foundation Alexandra Ryabykh, Head of CIGRE International Study Committee D2 ‘Information Systems and Telecommunications’ Olga Sinenko, representatives of generating companies, manufacturers of electrical equipment, scientific organizations and universities.

Participants in the first meeting of the Women in Power Industry Discussion Club (Photo: Rosseti Group)

The National Study Committee D1 was represented by Marina Vladimirova, Deputy Director for Quality, Izolyator Plant.

Marina Vladimirova (C) at the first meeting of the Women in Power Industry Discussion Club (Photo: Rosseti Group)

The meeting was moderated by Natalya Ozhegina, Deputy Chairman of the Management Board of FGC UES, curator of the Youth Section of RNC CIGRE.

Taking into account the global trend to increase the role of women in all spheres of professional and managerial activity and taking into account Russia's achievements in ensuring non-discriminatory access to technical professions, which remains an unresolved task in many countries, the relevant directions and opportunities for developing mutual support within the framework of the industry female community with the unifying role of the Ministry of Energy of Russia were defined.

In addition, the following issues were discussed:
- the need for practical informational consolidation of the most pressing issues of the industry women's agenda raised at various venues, holding a general club meeting at least once a year;
- the need to present a uniform position of all industry-specific women's communities in Russia at the Women's Forum at the 48th CIGRE Session in 2020 in Paris, the creation of an appropriate coordination work group;
- the need for the accumulation and exchange of statistical data to identify positive and negative trends;
- creation of a separate generalizing information platform within the framework of the RNC CIGRE website, where thematic information from Russian and international sources will be presented in open access, plans and results of the community’s activities will be reflected.

Materials of the Rosseti Group were used in the photoreport.