Women in Manufacturing Summit Empowers Women in Male-Dominated Industry
The annual Women in Manufacturing Summit was held Oct. 7-9, 2024, in Boston. The theme of this year’s summit was “Be a Champion for Success.”
“Being a champion for success is not just a theme, it’s a call to action,” says WiM President and Founder Allison Grealis. “You are all not just participants in this journey, you are leaders shaping the future of this industry.”
Keynote address
The keynote address of day one of the summit was NFL Senior Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Sam Rapoport. Rapoport shared her personal experiences of working in a male dominated industry and how women in manufacturing, also male dominated, can best navigate finding their voice, asking for what they deserve and standing up for themselves.
Rapoport's career includes many accomplishments. She started a program to get young girls interested in playing flag football, which lead to six U.S. states sanctioning youth girls flag football programs. Additionally, she founded the NFL Women’s Forum.
Rapoport’s advice to the women in the room was to always shoot your shot and to start with the people who care, ignoring those who don’t. When trying to get NFL head coaches involved in the Women’s Forum, Rapoport said that focusing on the head coaches who she knew would be interested in getting involved was the best way to get started, because that inspired other head coaches to follow suit.
“It’s the 20/70/10 rule. Twenty percent understand diversity, equity and inclusion and how to enact it, 70% of people want to do the right thing but don’t know how to move forward and 10% will be against it. The ground will move from under the 10%,” says Rapoport. “We tend to focus on the naysayers and trying to change their minds. Ignore them. Focus on those who want change but don’t know how to enact it. Give the playbook to that 70%.”
Other opportunities at the summit
Also at the WiM summit this year was numerous breakout sessions, covering topics such as smart manufacturing technologies and trends, LGBTQ+ journeys in manufacturing, integrated sustainability, digital transformation in production, investing in employees health and more.
“Be ready for a fast-paced, customer-focused environment. Push forward, be flexible and do not stop progress,” says Patty Sorenson, director of performance excellence at Linde, during the Digital Transformation of Production session. “Deploy your digitalization in smaller pieces to reduce your risks.”
Attendees of the summit also had the unique opportunity to tour local manufacturing plants. Some of the plants that attendees got to tour included PepsiCo, Moderna, Cedar’s Foods, New Balance, Dell Technologies, among others.
What’s next?
The 2025 WiM Summit will be held Oct. 12-14, 2025, in Chicago. More WiM events can be found here.
The Women in Manufacturing Education Foundation also hosts year-round programs designed to equip women with valuable connections, access to career pathways and programming for all stages of a manufacturing career. The next event is a virtual learning series webinar on Jan. 14, 2025.
