With the 2020 launch of the Hilti Scholarship for Women, the Liechtenstein-based, multinational corporation intends to send a powerful signal. Created to support IMD’s female MBAs into leadership roles within the construction industry, Hilti’s scholarship is aimed at nurturing talent and increasing female representation across the sector.
The Hilti Scholarship for Women will award recipients CHF 25K towards their IMD MBA tuition and is aimed at female engineers who aspire to leadership roles within the construction field. As well as providing a financial component, the scholarship will offer recipients mentoring and networking opportunities through Hilti’s considerable global network.
“Nurturing female talent and helping women find their space in the technological arena is a benefit for our organization, our client base and the industry as a whole,” explained Sabine Krauss, Hilti’s Global HR Leader.
Krauss outlined the corporation’s strategy to create an inclusive environment to positively impact diversity across its teams. By encouraging different perspectives and problem-solving skills drawn from multi-generational, globally drawn and gendered teams, Hilti’s intention is to refresh construction’s business solutions.
“By introducing additional support mechanisms, such as the Hilti Scholarship for Women, we hope to encourage new voices, new views and new energy into our high-performance teams and allow women to progress in our industry,” said Krauss.
The Internet of Things and the introduction of digital solutions in the construction industry has created the opportunity for an influx of female representation across the industry and provided new areas of career progression.
Women engineers from outside the construction field are encouraged to apply for the scholarship, said Krauss. Understanding their perceptions of industry barriers to female career progression and ideas as to how these obstacles could be removed would help to further address the current lack of female representation in the sector.
“There is so much passion, innovation and opportunity in the field right now and in Hilti. I am excited to see what this signals to both the MBA and the alumni community at IMD,” she said.
The deadline to apply for the Hilti Scholarship is September 1, 2020 and interested applicants are asked to provide a 750-word essay on the following title: Construction is one of the biggest sectors globally. Its scale, ambition and competitiveness pushes suppliers to be highly innovative. Yet these companies are not seen as attractive employers for women. What can they do to change that perception?
Submissions can either be made on the IMD admissions application, or sent to [email protected]. Only MBA applicants can apply and scholarships will only be offered to those who are accepted into the IMD MBA program.
