WOMEN IN DATA CENTRES
IMPROVING ATTITUDES TOWARDS WOMEN IN THE DATA CENTRE SPACE
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ABOUT
Deborah Andrews , Professor of Design for Sustainability & Circularity at London South Bank University
Deborah has 20 + years ’ experience in sustainable design and manufacture , the Circular Economy and Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment and a proud Chartered Environmentalist . She has collaborated with the data centre industry since 2010 and is the founder and academic lead for CEDaCI ; this EU Interreg NWE-funded project generated ground-breaking research to develop a Circular Economy for the data centre industry . A key output is the Circular Data Centre Compass – a free online resource which enables stakeholders to make informed decisions about sustainability , procurement and retirement of equipment in line with their business focus .
Deborah Andrews , Professor of Design for Sustainability & Circularity at London South Bank University , gives her view on the importance of encouraging a balance between men and women and why there ’ s a desperate need for organisations to introduce a more positive and definitive career structure to enable women to take up progressive opportunities .
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Can you tell us about your background in this field and what prompted you to take up a career in date centres ?
Although I ’ m an academic and I work with various industrial sectors on issues around sustainability and circularity , I ’ ve spent most of my research time working with the data centre industry . Like quite a few others , I fell into the industry by accident – a happy accident .
Around 2010 / 2011 , I was invited to supervise a PhD called an Industrial Case Award , funded by the EPSRC ( Education and Physical Sciences Research Council ). The idea was that this kind of PhD enabled industries to work with universities to engage in research they wouldn ’ t necessarily be able to do .
The industry partner at the time was HP and I collaborated with other academics who had expertise in building services and construction and the PhD focused on carrying out the first comprehensive life cycle assessment of a whole data centre .
In your view , why is it that we ’ re still having this conversation about the industry ’ s gender imbalance today ?
It ’ s interesting that whenever you go to events , the issue of diversity and inclusion is raised . Particularly at events where there ’ s a senior managerial level , most of the participants are male , pale and stale – they ’ re older white men which is partly because of the level at which they ’ re working . There are comparatively few women at senior level in the data centre industry .
I ’ d like to think that influence in employment selection is changing and further down the career hierarchy there are more women joining the industry who are yet to market at the highest level .
We are dealing with people who were maybe educated in the 60s , 70s and 80s . Some of the men are positively encouraging
12 Women in data centres