Three deserving women won the 2021 Women with Hydro Vision awards. Learn more about them and hear their stories of challenges faced and overcome.
Each year at HYDROVISION International, the world’s largest hydropower and dams industry event, a Women with Hydro Vision lunch is held. This gathering allows women in the industry to network, meet their peers and recognize the very impressive women who are chosen each year to receive the Women with Hydro Vision award.
Why do we give an award to women in hydropower? I’ll share my four good reasons with you.
First, women possess great strengths when it comes to leadership. For example, the Peterson Institute says 30% female representation on boards can add up to six percentage points to a company’s net margin. And in 2021, Bloomberg reported on a study of more than 800 employees’ preferences for male and female leaders. Employees rated female leaders more positively, and those with female leaders reported greater levels of engagement. Asked which leadership competencies were particularly important to them, employees cited: “inspires and motivates,” “communicates powerfully,” “collaboration/teamwork” and “relationship building.” Female leaders outperformed their male counterparts on all of them.
Second, despite these strengths, women are grossly underrepresented in leadership positions. Globally, women make up 49.6% of the total population – with regional variances of course. And as of February 2021, women made up 38.8% of the global workforce. However, the Center for American Progress says that women comprise only 26.5% of executive- and senior-level officials and managers and hold 19% of board seats. In 2020, the number of women who were CEOs of Fortune 500 companies reached an all-time high, at 37. This was up from 25 as of January 2018 but still represents less than 7.5%.
Third, women are underrepresented in the science, technology, engineering and math – or STEM — professions. In fact, women make up just 28% of STEM professionals, which is up from 23% in 2019. Specific to the power and utility market: According to the International Energy Agency, women only account for 22% of the traditional energy sector. And Ernst & Young’s Women in Power & Utilities Index revealed that in 2019 only 6% of board executives and 17% of board members of the top 200 utilities globally were women.
Fourth — as the fact that we are able to continue giving these awards every year to very deserving women clearly shows — there are many women doing exceptional work in the waterpower industry. Our goal is to recognize their hard work and dedication and to hold these women up as role models for the next generation of women who are ready to make a difference in hydro.
Meet the 2021 award winners
Clarion Energy’s Hydro Group is pleased that this year marks the seventh class of recipients for this awards program, which was designed to honor influential women in hydropower for their accomplishments and contributions to the industry. The recipients were nominated by their peers and selected by a panel of past Women with Hydro Vision winners.
It was not possible to hold HYDROVISION International in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but these women still very much deserve to be recognized, so on Dec. 7 we delivered a special virtual program. During this program, our three 2021 award winners were recognized and shared the stories of their journeys as women in a male-dominated field.
Additionally, during this virtual session the 2021 Julie Keil Memorial Scholarship winner was announced and presentations were given by the Women in Hydropower mentorship program and the Global Women’s Network for the Energy Transition.
As I mentioned earlier, each winner made some remarks during the program, and these video clips are included below. I encourage you to watch them, as they provide valuable insight into how these capable women have succeeded in the industry and can provide guidance for women now journeying along a similar career path. And for the men, they can help you find ways to better guide and mentor women at your companies.
The award winners for 2021 are:
Emilia Nobile, GE Renewable Energy
Ilia Nobile is Installed Base P&S CoE leader Europe with GE Renewable Energy. Based in Switzerland, she leads the EMEA Plant and Systems Center of Excellence for Service within the hydro business. Ilia joined GE Hydro in 2013 and led the Plant and Grid Integration group, mainly focusing on the integration and interaction of pumped storage variable speed technology into the transmission network, before moving to her current role at the beginning of 2020.
Before joining GE, Ilia held various roles in a wide range of different power industry companies worldwide, spanning from transmission system operators to industrial manufacturing and consulting companies. She holds a PhD in power systems from Washington State University.
Yiying Xiong, Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center
Yiying Xiong is associate director for Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center. Before her transition to bioenergy, she worked in the hydropower sector for 20 years. She was born and raised near China’s Three Gorges Dam, and it was the first hydro project she worked on. Xiong has supported government agencies, development banks, financial institutions and power companies around the world on nearly 100 hydropower and dam projects, including dam safety, new development, asset acquisition, project financing, licensing and permitting, fish passage, dam decommissioning, river forecasting, reservoir operations and climate change.
Xiong is involved with the Midwest Hydro Users Group, International Commission on Large Dams, U.S. Society on Dams, Women in Hydropower mentorship program and American Society of Civil Engineers. She hopes to bring hydropower and bioenergy together to tackle climate change and clean energy challenges.
Ellen Faulkner, Ayres
Ellen Faulkner, PE, is a senior project manager in Ayres’ Water Resources Group. She has worked primarily as a consultant for U.S. hydro project owners since beginning her career with Mead & Hunt in 1986. In addition to supporting design, compliance, evaluation and licensing work, she has served on several Boards of Consultants at Federal Energy Regulatory Commission projects, where spillway capacity was a focus. When her children were young, she slowed her consulting pace and worked as a contributing and technical editor for Hydro Review magazine and a HYDROVISION track facilitator.
Ellen has a bachelor’s degree in geology from Bryn Mawr College and master’s degrees in civil and environmental engineering and water resources management from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She holds professional engineer licensure in Wisconsin, Michigan and Missouri and is active in the Midwest Hydro Users Group and Women in Hydropower mentorship program.
Click here if you know of a deserving woman to nominate for this award for 2022.
