Women of Renewable Industries and Sustainable Energy (WRISE) is an organisation based in the US with a mission statement based on 3 key pillars: creating opportunities; ensuring that women have access to people, resources and networks; and educating and influencing leadership.

IJGlobal editor Ila Patel chats with Doseke Akporiaye – executive director of WRISE – about her upbringing in Nigeria where she witnessed energy poverty and the need to provide electricity as a necessity, rather than a luxury.

This laid the foundations for Doseke to build experience in start-ups, scaling businesses and social impact in the tech and renewables sector, culminating in being headhunted by WRISE.

This podcast – which runs for around 50 minutes – focuses on pay disparity in the energy space in the US, systemic problems requiring systemic solutions and how overall business and organisational systems should be designed to encourage and support recruitment, development and the retention of diverse talent.

This latest episode can be accessed on Spotify (embedded above) as well as through Apple Podcasts and on the Amazon service. It is also hosted across a slew of other platforms and is open access on all of them.

"Some organisations look for quick fixes and selling programmes or putting on events to address these issues. They put a person of colour in a DEI position and think this is a DEI hire, we have done our job. But, you need a sincere commitment to it, not because this is a moral issue but because it is good for business," says Doseke. 

"Organisations should be striving to improve decision making and enhancing overall performance. In order to do that, there needs to be a diversity of thought, perspectives, backgrounds, experiences to bring about better outcomes and solutions," adds Doseke.

Doseke backs her comments with key stats for the US:

• McKinsey & Co study found that a diverse inclusive workforce means business will outperform competitors by 35%
• Harvard Business Review data show that diverse companies are 70% more likely to capture new markets
• People Management data show that diverse teams are 87% better at making business decisions and diverse management teams lead to around 19% higher revenue
• only 23% of C-Suites are made up of women and only 3% of this number are women of colour 

Tune in for an inspirational and educational episode on women in the renewable energy space in the US.