Quality Director for Balfour Beatty’s Major Projects business, Amanda McKay, has featured at number 33 in the Financial Times’ OUTstanding list Top 100 LGBT+ Executives, with Christina Riley, Balfour Beatty Senior Planner and Co-Chair of the LGBT Network, featuring at number 29 in the list’s Top 50 Future Leaders.
The OUTstanding lists celebrate the successful careers of LGBT executives and allies, in addition to their role in creating an inclusive workplace for other LGBT people.
Balfour Beatty is committed to creating an environment where all employees can be themselves and perform at their best, ensuring there are no barriers to success.
The company operates an LGBT affinity network which encourages a culture of respect regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. The affinity network also offers education and training to all employees on LGBT+ issues, in addition to collaborating with external partners and the supply chain to drive best practice within the construction industry.
To find out more about how Balfour Beatty supports the LGBT community, listen to Amanda McKay’s interview on Gaydio here.
ENDS
Media enquiries to:
Cassie Farrar
Balfour Beatty
t: +44 (0) 207 963 2150
e: cassie.farrar@balfourbeatty.com
For all non-media related enquiries please contact +44 (0)20 7216 6800 or info@balfourbeatty.com
Notes to editors:
- Balfour Beatty (www.balfourbeatty.com) is a leading international infrastructure group. With 30,000 employees, we provide innovative and efficient infrastructure that underpins our daily lives, supports communities and enables economic growth. We finance, develop, build and maintain complex infrastructure such as transportation, power and utility systems, social and commercial buildings.
- Our main geographies are the UK, US and South East Asia. Over the last 100 years we have created iconic buildings and infrastructure all over the world including the London Olympics’ Aquatic Centre, Hong Kong’s first Zero Carbon building, the National Museum of the Marine Corps in the US and the Channel Tunnel Rail Link.
- Balfour Beatty is committed to creating an environment where all our employees can be themselves at work and perform at their best. As a global company, it is critical to our success that our employees are as diverse as the customers and communities we serve. In order to achieve this Balfour Beatty has taken the following action:
- Establishing diversity as a key part of the company’s Build to Last transformation. The diversity and inclusion three-year plan sets out strategic aims, objectives and, more importantly, metrics in support of our endeavours. Overseen by Balfour Beatty Chief Executive Leo Quinn its progress against these metrics is regularly tracked.
- Creating a range of national networks across the company to support BAME, Women and LGBTQ staff in creating a workplace that is more inclusive.
- With the support of its customers, Balfour Beatty is recruiting from a large and more diverse pool of talent. For instance, in collaboration with Network Grid, our Power, Transmission and Distribution division provide opportunities for ex-offenders to get back into employment. Our Rail division support the British Forces Resettlement Services and its careers events, through advising service personnel on careers within the construction industry.
- Working with expert diversity & inclusion focused bodies such as Stonewall and the Youth Women’s Trust to get guidance on how we can better improve our recruitment and workplace culture so that we can recruit and retain a talented and diverse workforce.
- Actively promoting and encouraging our women to enter awards such as the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) Young Woman Engineer of the Year Awards to overcome the perceived barriers to career progression.
- This year, Jwerea Malik, a Business Analyst at Balfour Beatty was awarded the Best Woman in Highways award at The European Women in Construction and Engineering (WICE) for her work in driving forward the Balfour Beatty Women in Business Allies Affinity network and in actively encouraging the use of safe reporting.
- Christina Riley, a Senior Planner and the Chair of Balfour Beatty’s LGBT & Allies Affinity network was also awarded the Corporate Rising Star award at the British Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender (LGBT) awards ceremony for her work in driving change within the business and more widely across the construction industry.
