Eight major industrial and mining companies with a strong presence in Andalusia, Acerinox, Atlantic Copper, Cobre Las Cruces, COX, Keyter, Sandfire Matsa, Moeve, and Takahata, have shared the best practices implemented in their firms at an event held at the headquarters of the Ministry of Industry, Energy, and Mines to conclude the series of events organized for the first Women’s Week in the industrial and mining sectors of Andalusia.
The Minister of Industry, Energy, and Mines, Jorge Paradela, opened this meeting highlighting the important role that large companies play in «setting the path» in areas as relevant as increasing the presence of women in the industrial and mining sectors. «Leading companies have enormous power to set new standards in governance, environmental and social issues, and of course in equality policies,» he said.
He emphasized the need to share «cases of companies that are fully committed to increasing the presence of women in the industry and mining,» because, although «progress is being made, there is still a long way to go». Currently, there is a 26% female presence in the industrial sector, a figure that was at 19% five years ago. «When it comes to promoting the role of women and equality policies, leading companies set the path,» added Jorge Paradela.
In this regard, he stressed the importance of analyzing «how we, as a society, influence this from an early age, and how we reverse the fact that the Science Baccalaureate is the only one without a majority of female students, that Technical Higher Vocational Training only has 12% girls, and 4% in the case of Intermediate Vocational Training.»
Picture of the participants in the event that concluded the activities of the First Women’s Week in the industrial and mining sectors of Andalusia.
Throughout the presentation of the different participating companies, it became clear that coinciding measures focus on raising awareness, communicating to society that the industry and mining sectors are nowadays modern industries, evolving alongside the most advanced technologies, where the need to use physical force is long gone, in an environment where men and women can work on equal terms. They also emphasized the importance of conducting internal awareness actions through various training initiatives such as flexibility measures, telecommuting, continuous working hours, and professional development programs focused on women, for example, «women have priority in equal merit situations,» leadership programs, and mentorship.
Rosa Ruiz Gómez and Gema Moray, heads of the Sustainability and Fusion sections of Acerinox, respectively, shared the company’s goal of reaching a 15% female workforce by 2030. «It is not only important to raise awareness within the factory, but it is also necessary to go to the source so that girls consider studying STEM careers or more technical training cycles.» They mentioned that they have been running campaigns to visit schools to explain the job opportunities available and also taking actions to increase female presence in different departments of the factory.
On the other hand, Rocío Aznar, Compensation and Benefits supervisor at Atlantic Copper, emphasized the importance of «equality of opportunities.» In her company, there is a 19% female presence, with 45% of the board being female, 33% in middle management, and a challenge in the operational base where the female presence is at 10%. To improve these figures, they implement various measures to attract female talent, such as ensuring that 50% of students doing internships at the company are girls or presenting success stories of female workers in educational institutions to showcase an attractive sector.
From Cobre Las Cruces, their Human Resources Manager, Rocío López, highlighted the fact that they were «the first mining company in Spain to approve an equality plan in 2018 that included 79 measures,» and new measures have been added since 2022 related to the company’s future «not only to attract talent but also to help them find opportunities to progress and be represented at all levels.» Currently, they have an 18% female workforce, «a foundation for improvement,» and 43% of them work in technical and operational areas.
Representatives of eight major industrial and mining companies with a strong presence in Andalusia, Acerinox, Atlantic Copper, Cobre Las Cruces, COX, Keyter, Sandfire Matsa, Moeve, and Takahata.
From the engineering firm COX, Roser Castelló, Director of Diversity, Inclusion, and Equality of the group, pointed out that only around 28% of women pursue STEM studies. «This makes it even more difficult to attract, retain, and promote female talent in the industry and technology companies, as it is already challenging to incorporate technical employment.» For this reason, the company implements specific programs aimed at school stages and takes students from 4th grade of Secondary Education and 1st year of Baccalaureate to the facilities to show them the plants, our technologies, work processes, etc., for three days to «inspire boys and girls in STEM and how engineering can help improve and innovate.» They also carry out mentorship programs with universities and other entities, aiming to bring students closer to «close role models.»
José María Raya, CEO of Grupo Keyter, highlighted the importance of changing the culture because «more than the strategy, it is what permeates the day-to-day of the company.» He shared how for over two decades, talent prevailed in the selection processes over other gender-related factors. «Our female workforce has grown by 126% in the last three years, out of the 800 people hired, almost 200 are women; we are approaching 25%, and what makes us most content is that in our middle management and executive positions, 38% are women.»
Nuria Fresco, Director of Human Resources at Sandfire Matsa, emphasized the need to «give visibility to women in the sector, especially in traditionally male positions. We want to show that mining is indeed for women, as well as emphasize the importance of today’s girls and young women having female role models in the sector.» She also noted that the direct female employment in the company exceeds 22%, well above the 9.1% in the national mining sector. «Out of the 218 new hires we had in 2024, 66 were women, that is, 30%; this is a sign that women do want to work in the mining sector.»
José Alfonso Martínez Cueto, Director of Human Resources at Moeve, formerly Cepsa, stressed the need to promote a «cultural transformation of the DNA so that inclusion, equality, and diversity policies are internalized throughout the company’s chain; it’s about culture, not just measures,» he added. He highlighted the «ambition» to increase the presence of women. «We have many more female engineers than field operators,» an area where efforts are being made in recruitment. «Our goal in 2024 was to reach 30%, and in 2025, that target is being ambitiously increased,» he said.
Laura Molina, Director of Administration and Finance at Takahata, focused on the La Carolina factory, which started in 2019, with 65 employees, of which almost 70% are women at all levels. In her company, equality is fostered through a culture where employees know they are valued for their talent and performance, through continuous training programs, internal promotion tailored to needs, and individualized training updates, among other measures.