News

International Women’s Day – a leadership perspective

08 March 2022

As we celebrate International Women’s Day, we spoke to Urenco’s Head of Government Affairs, Emilie Isaacs, who shared her experience and insight on how women could be included more in the workplace. Emilie comes from a public and private sector background, including a recent Deputy Director role at BEIS (Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy). She even worked on President Bush’s election campaign  in 2004. 

Urenco is committed to increasing the proportion of women and other underrepresented groups in its business, and ensuring that all are respected, valued, engaged and included in the workplace.  We are signed up to the Nuclear Sector Gender Commitment, with the ambition that 40%of the workforce in nuclear will be women by 2030.  

Emilie shared her thoughts…

How did you get here?

“I was most recently a Deputy Director at BEIS for two-and-a-half years. I worked on the Brexit negotiations with Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Before that, I worked in a variety of government affairs roles in the UK, the US, and New Zealand, in the private sector. Some of the projects I was on included interesting issues for McDonald’s and the Arizona Police Federation. So you never know where life can take you!” 

What does your current job entail?

“I lead the Government Affairs team at Urenco, and that involves developing and implementing the government affairs strategy with my team. I am overall responsible for the engagement and interaction between Urenco and our Governments. We are highly regulated so we have a lot of important interactions with the Government from a regulatory perspective and lots of work with the Government as they develop policy on important elements of nuclear policy, such as advanced fuels and hydrogen which will help the world to decarbonise.”

What do you most like about it?

“I have a great team and I enjoy working closely with them. Plus, I love politics and government affairs and feel very lucky to have a job that I find really interesting.”

What would your advice be to other women looking to go into Government Affairs?

“I guess anyone, men or women, who want to go into Government Affairs should try and get some relevant political work experience, whether it’s with an MP, a think tank, or campaign group. I think the most relevant experience for me was working inside Government. I learnt an incredible amount from this and having a deep understanding of how government works means I am much more effective in doing my job and giving my team direction.”

What support do you think women need to succeed in a still male dominated sector (nuclear)?

“I think having a sponsor is important and can help as well as a good network.  A sponsor is someone who can support you and champion you. A good external network is vital to hear about job opportunities or promotions and also can be vital in learning from other women about how they have overcome some of the more negative workplace ‘challenges’ that women can have.  

“On a personal level, I think for anyone, men or women, to succeed in government affairs at least, it’s important to bring outside thinking and external expertise to your job or workplace. For example, I read very widely, not just newspapers or books, but think tank reports and similar. It is very important to understand how other groups and people think and to understand other viewpoints. 

“More generally I think women in the nuclear sector still need more women in senior positions, and these would ideally be inspiring female leaders, not those who pull up the drawbridges behind them. Women who can be confident and support other women in an organisation and the wider industry to progress.”  
 

You’re an LGBTQ+ ally at Urenco. Why is this important to you?

“It’s about ensuring Urenco is a great place to work if you are LGBTQ+, and that employees here have as good an experience as any other employee. That really matters and it’s part of our long-term culture programme work.”