We were pleased to return to DSEI at ExCel London in September, to showcase our world-class portfolio to visitors from across the globe. Leonardo capability leads met with attendees and delegates to explain our wide range of products and services. Our experts also contributed to a variety of sessions during DSEI conferences, focussed on aspects of the land, air, naval and cyber domains.
Leonardo’s central role was embodied by the AW149, our solution to the UK government’s New Medium Helicopter requirement, which stood proudly at the centre of our stand watching over proceedings. Its cameo foreshadowed one of our first announcements at the show: that our Yeovil site, the “Home of British Helicopters”, had notched up £1.6 billion of export orders over the previous 18 months.
The Global Combat Air Programme (GCAP) industry partners demonstrated the strength of their collaboration to deliver the next generation combat aircraft at the show, reflecting positive momentum and strong trilateral cooperation. As part of this, the three nations' industry champions for defence electronics, including Leonardo UK, announced that they are working towards a joint project delivery set-up for the programme's ISANKE & ICS domain (Integrated Sensing and Non-Kinetic Effects & Integrated Communications Systems).
We made many other significant announcements at DSEI, including that we had won a competition to provide expertise in data science, data engineering and data visualisation to the UK Ministry of Defence as part of its Cyber Mission Data programme. Leonardo also unveiled a mature concept of the Rotary Wing Uncrewed Air System (RWUAS) Technology Demonstrator Programme (TDP), known as project 'Proteus' by the British Armed Forces.
We rounded off the week by announcing that we have agreed to partner with the Army Benevolent Fund (ABF – The Soldiers’ Charity), as part of our long-standing commitment to the UK Armed Forces and in recognition of the contribution of personnel and their families.
Later in the month, we shared stories from our colleagues who had joined our Cyber & Security Solutions business as part of our partnership with WithYouWithMe (WYWM), whose programme aims to implement skills-based talent management.
We supported National Inclusion Week once again in 2023, as part of our commitment to making inclusion an everyday reality. Following this year’s theme of Take Action Make Impact, we hosted a series of webinars and in-person sessions across our UK sites. During the week, we were proud to announce our membership of Business Disability Forum, the leading business membership organisation in disability inclusion. This provides us with access to expert advice, support and events to help us ensure employees with disabilities are included in everything we do. We also announced our third year of partnership with Women in Defence, extending our commitment by participating in their mentoring programme, which saw 22 colleagues from the business participating in the nine-month course, starting in September.
The Leonardo Challenge returned in September, with a new twist focussed on sustainability. Dubbed Move Together for the Planet, this year’s challenge saw colleagues from around the world joining either virtually or in-person to travel as far as they could by any physical means. In turn, the company committed to support a reforestation project in Malawi with one tree planted for every 3 kilometres completed. In total, 1,754 employees from 27 countries travelled a total of 66,817 kilometres, meaning a total of c. 22,000 trees will be planted.
The work of our People Team was recognised twice in September, with our flexible benefits scheme taking home a prize for the second time in a year at the WSandB Awards, and renewal of our Gold level IIP accreditation, recognising Leonardo's Investment in Young People across our UK business.