Following a full summer schedule of airshows and exhibitions, Leonardo continued to hold a strong presence at events throughout the rest of the year. This was certainly true in September, when we supported the Atlantic Future Forum in New York on-board the Royal Navy's HMS Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier. During the forum, Leonardo showcased its capability and expertise across domains. Our AW159 Wildcat and AW101 Merlin helicopters played a key role on the same aircraft carrier as part of the successful Carrier Strike Group in 2021.
We returned to the Defence Vehicle Dynamics (DVD) expo in Millbrook in September, exhibiting our technology at the biennial defence industry event. Ahead of the event, Leonardo’s Ian Hayhoe and Jan Boyes explained how the company’s unique experience and knowledge in procurement and ongoing support can benefit the Ministry of Defence’s (MOD) vision for securing future military advantage. We also published an article detailing the advent of our Hostile Artillery LOcating (HALO) system, which is in service with over ten nations, including the British Army, Canadian Army and US Marine Corps, to ensure service personnel have the technology needed to combat artillery threats.
Once again, we were proud to support National Inclusion Week (NIW) in September. To mark the start of the week, Rachel Ruxton, our new UK Head of Inclusion and Diversity (I&D), shared her ambitions for Leonardo about what building a welcoming and inclusive workplace means for her. Throughout NIW, we held an exciting line-up of activities across our UK sites to raise staff awareness of our varied I&D programme. We also spoke to Jainna, a Project Management Degree Apprentice at our Basildon site, about the importance of getting people’s names right, and the consequences of name discrimination.
Back in 2019, Leonardo become one of the first signatories of the Women in Defence Charter, exemplifying our pledge to promoting gender balance across the defence industry. We extended this commitment by participating in the Women in Defence UK cross-defence mentoring programme, and in September, we were delighted to embark on our second year in the scheme, with Leonardo supporting the participation of 20 colleagues from across the UK business.
There was more cause for celebration later in the month, as a team of apprentices from our Basildon site won the Institution of Mechanical Engineering’s (IMechE) Apprentice Automation Challenge (AAC) 2022. This was the third year in a row that a Leonardo team had taken the top prize, with this year’s cohort impressing the judges with their automated sustainable solution to reduce plastic waste.
Following three years of fundraising activities, graduates and apprentices at our Yeovil gathered to donate over £88,000 to the Yeovil Hospital Charity Breast Cancer Unit Appeal. The site trainee committee announced that their new chosen site charity will be PROMISEworks, which delivers inspirational mentoring for the most vulnerable, disaffected and disadvantaged young people in Somerset. Meanwhile, we were delighted to share the news that our Edinburgh-based colleagues had decided to support LifeCare for the next two years. The charity has over 80 years’ experience in the community local to our Scottish site, supporting older people living with dementia, poor health, isolation and loneliness.
We supported Air Ambulance Week 2022 in September. As a member part of the air ambulance community – with our AW169 helicopter amounting to around 1 in 3 UK air ambulances in service – we were proud to celebrate the achievements of the charities across the UK that make a lifesaving difference at critical moments.
As we continued welcoming new joiners on our 2022 Early Career programmes, we were excited to announce that we will be increasing our Early Careers population by 50% next year, with vacancies for an additional 300 trainees driven by Leonardo’s leading roles in important engineering programmes.
Sadly, September was also the month in which the nation mourned the passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. After a lifetime of service to the UK and all the nations of the Commonwealth, we remembered her leadership in good times and bad, and her steadfast sense of duty.