AEC Leaders Gather to Elevate Women in Building Professions
The Industry Leaders Roundtable Retreat, hosted by the Beverly Willis Architecture Foundation, was held in Washington, D.C on Thursday March 24th and Friday the 25th. The event proved to be a resounding success. Over the course of the two-day event, 21 leaders representing various industries gathered in person and virtually to reflect on the ever-evolving role of women in professional workspaces.
The theme of the program was “Flexibility: Chaos, Change, Opportunity”. This involved reflecting on how work life has shifted throughout the two-year on-going pandemic and the ways in which this has changed the workplace for good. According to Cynthia Kracauer, Executive Director at BWAF, the retreat highlighted the complete integration of women into the workplace and the firm-wide benefits. This includes expanding markets, improving recruitment, and retaining key talent. “We talked about the challenges of hybrid work, the specific challenges of women with children, and the anticipated detrimental effects on advancement in a hybrid workforce,” says Kracauer. "We presented commissioned research that began to document the economic effects on the female workforce in architecture and engineering."