Technical Women’s Leadership Forum – What are we waiting for?

The Women’s Leadership Forum (WLF) is one of the largest and oldest employee resource networks (ERN) at 3M. Yet until only recently, relatively few women at the bench (technical track) participated in this ERN. In addition, women reaching upper level technical positions such as Corporate Scientist or Division Staff Scientist, remained disappointingly low over the past several decades. In 2018, female scientists responded by creating a technical chapter (T-WLF) in order to specifically address the needs of technical women. Core WLF pillars of “I believe in Me”, “I believe in You”, and “We believe in Us” were reinterpreted to meet the needs of technical women. The journey began with the creation of deliberate efforts to 1- Retain existing technical employees with Career Development and Technical Men as Advocates committees, 2- Implement best practices and build a better pipeline with Outreach committee, and 3- Address the early gap for girls in STEM with Inspire committee. In short two years, team has accomplished to collaborate with executive management and amplified the voice of the female technical community, partnered with 3M’s Office of Intellectual Property to conduct surveys and focus groups, successfully granted funding from 3M to two non-profit organizations, highlighted successful technical women stories on internal internet, increased presence and engagement with recruiting events, and initiated global expansion. Today, 3M technical women are not waiting; they are part of making change happen.