March 5, 2018
The Spanish Association of Female Executives and CEO's has awarded the prize to the company in the SME category.
The operator promotes and encourages initiatives that favour diversity in the STEM field.
MADRID, 5 March 2018. HISPASAT; the Spanish satellite-based communications operator, today has received the "Talent without gender" award in the SME category, hosted by the Spanish Association of Female Executives & CEO's (EJE&CON). During the awards ceremony in the second year of the event, celebrated this morning, the company has been praised for the initiatives developed to promote and encourage diversity at the internal level and in the STEM field. The president of Hispasat, Elena Pisonero, has received the prize on the company's behalf.
The EJE&CON prizes recognise organisations, institutions and individuals from Spanish society who promote female talent each and every day through inclusive policies that encourage diversity. The jury is made up of highly qualified and renowned members: Lucía Cerón, director of the Institute for Women and for Equality of Opportunities; Ana Plaza, general secretary of the Spanish Confederation of Business Organisations (CEOE); Nerea Torres Egüén, president of EJE&CON and CEO of Siemens PPAL; Ángel Pes, president of the Spanish network for the United Nations Global Compact; Helge Skaara, ambassador of Norway to Spain; Eugenia Bieto, general director of ESADE; Asunción Soriano, CEO of Atrevia; and Vicente Sánchez, CEO of Wolters Kluwer in Spain and Portugal.
For Elena Pisonero, president of HISPASAT, “it is an honour to have received this prize, which gives recognition to the technology sector. The greatest challenge is put the technology gap over the gender gap. At HISPASAT we strongly believe in the concept of sustainability and attracting talent in an open, diverse and mixed field. For us, it is important to promote these careers among females from an early age since the real gap starts at 15 years old. It is here that HISPASAT is taking action to ensure that females are not afraid to be what they aspire to be, and for this reason, it is essential that they have references”.
Initiatives to promote equality and promote female employment
The initiatives developed by HISPASAT to promote equality and education are in line with the commitment that the company assumed in its Corporate Social Responsibility policy to help develop individuals and the community.
In recent years, HISPASAT has promoted and participated in different actions to promote diversity in the aerospace sector, a highly specialised sector with a very high percentage of engineers and other graduates from scientific programmes and a limited presence of females.
According to the data from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sport, only 25% of students from technical degrees are women, as such the operator has focused part of its efforts on developing female technical vocations, participating in specific workshops with young girls and teens with the objective of serving to inspire and stimulate the attendees to focus their professional interests toward these opportunities.
In 2017 the company also created the 1st HISPASAT Scholarship for Female Engineers to allow one female student with a good academic record to conduct postgraduate studies in a Master's Degree in Aeronautics Engineering or Telecommunications related with the aerospace sector. This scholarship, to be awarded each year, intends to promote the presence of female talent in the technological field and to thus contribute both to women's professional development in these studies as well as increase the number of women in the aerospace sector.
At the internal level, HISPASAT's HR management policy is based on equality, from the selection of personnel, which is done through a blind CV in the first stage to emphasise the academic degree and professional experience, thus avoiding gender biases, until the egalitarian training policy and promotion processes established by the company. HISPASAT guarantees that all the company's professionals enjoy equality in terms of rights, company benefits and compensation.
On the other hand, in order to promote the equality of opportunities in employment among women and men, HISPASAT has signed a collaborative agreement with the Ministry of Health, Social Services and Equality to extend the implementation of the anonymous CV model in hiring personnel, and another with the Institute for Women to collaborate on a plan to incorporate female grant holders into technology companies.
About HISPASAT
HISPASAT is comprised of companies that have a presence in Spain as well as in Latin America, where its Brazilian affiliate HISPAMAR is based. HISPASAT is a world leader in the distribution and broadcasting of Spanish and Portuguese content, and its satellite fleet is used by important direct-to-home television (DTH) and high-definition television (HDTV) digital platforms. HISPASAT also provides satellite broadband services and other added value solutions to governments, corporations and telecommunication operators in America, Europe and North Africa. HISPASAT is one of the world's largest companies in its sector in terms of revenue, and the main communications bridge between Europe and the Americas.
Press contact:
María Felpeto – tel. +34 91 710 25 40 – mfelpeto@hispasat.es / comunicacion@hispasat.es
