February saw our first major Inclusion and Diversity event of 2020 with LGBT History Month. This set the scene for another busy year supporting some important initiatives as we continue building an inclusive culture for all our people. We marked the start of LGBTHM by flying the flag across our UK sites, and we celebrated one year of our Pride Network Group, run by LGBTQ+ Leonardo employees and allies to support each other and their colleagues. We spoke to the group Chair Sam Bone to discuss how the company is making significant strides in providing an inclusive and supportive working environment for all staff.

Later in the month, we celebrated International Women and Girls in Science Day with an article from Lynda McVay, our Director of Skills and Capability, addressing equality and gender balance, one of the top priorities of another of our network groups, Equalise.

February also marked the return of National Apprenticeship Week, which provided a perfect opportunity to highlight the contribution that apprentices make to our business and key programmes such as the UK’s Future Combat Air System, Team Tempest. As one of the programme’s founding industry partners, we are committed to promoting the engineering opportunities open to #GenerationTempest, and so during the week, we hosted a Team Tempest live Q&A on Instagram, encouraging our followers to #AskAnApprentice about working on Tempest with representatives from Leonardo, BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce.

Later in the month, we hosted some younger engineers at the regional finals of the Flying Start Challenge at RNAS Yeovilton. It was fantastic to meet the teams of students from local schools getting hands-on with STEM.