Engineering news
Emily White wanted to be a mechanic when she was younger, but got told by a careers advisor to "aim higher" and consider a career in mechanical engineering instead.
Following this advice, she studied Mechanical Engineering with Financial Management at the University of Strathclyde and gained Chartered Engineer status (CEng) from The Institute of Mechanical Engineers in 2009.
Immediately following university, White completed a summer internship with Proctor & Gamble (P&G) in their logistics centre before she went travelling for a year, volunteering central America, South America, New Zealand, Australia, Vietnam, and Cambodia.
P&G offered White a job on her return to manage an area on the pampers production line. She said: "The biggest challenge of working at P&G was being one of the only females and a graduate on the line and so being taken seriously by the very experienced line shift teams.
"It was a great lesson in finding ways to get answers/information to solve problems without people being offended that someone who’s been around for less than a week is trying to manage them – if you wanted to be successful it’s all about the relationships you form."
White is now the managing director of Entap – a London-based European renewable energy asset management company. Created in 2005, Entap has cumulative experience of managing over 1,500MW of wind and solar projects with portfolios across Europe and offices in London, Ireland and Cyprus.
Leading the operations and maintenance (O&M) functions for onshore wind, White’s additional responsibilities include overseeing project development, acquisition and managing the due diligence phases relating to the investment and financing of European projects.
She also directs a team of project managers in the implementation of renewable energy construction contracts. To date, this has included four wind farms consisting of approximately 120 turbines (310 MW) in Sweden, Cyprus and the UK.
White said: "I've always been pretty senior in a room at Entap, however without fail the first time I go into a contractor meeting I can see people are surprised and not sure how to take me. I’m not sure whether it’s a female thing or an age thing or something else completely.
"I find the only way through it is to be very prepared beforehand and follow up well afterwards – the moment people see what you are delivering neither your age, gender or anything else matters."