Go Your Own Way: Women, Energy, and Positive Impact

Speaker A: I think I was lucky. I think it was probably cheap slash free to take me to lots of power stations when I was growing up. So that really sparked my interest from a young age. One of our panelists who spoke at our event was saying, you know, she went up a wind turbine and they have no female toilets. And she had, you know, it had taken her however long to get up there and then she had to go down again to use the loo. And it shouldn't be like that, uh, in this day and age.

Speaker B: Hello and welcome to the no Bull Marketing ideacast. I'm Becky Holland. Now, I know the title powerful Woman might sound a bit like a slogan for a gym class, but today's conversation is anything but superficial. We're getting right under the skin of what it's like to leave transformation inside one of the most important and traditionally male dominated sexual sectors in the world. Energy. Joining me are, um, Rebecca Farouk and Nick Garland from Morehouse Consulting. They're both experienced transformation specialists working across everything from net zero policy to nuclear power and EV infrastructure. But more importantly, they're passionate about making change happen not just from the outside, but from within. We talk about what it's like to be a woman in rooms where the decisions get made. We dig into how data, planning delays, gender norms and culture shape the pace of progress. And we explore the emotional load that comes with leading change, especially when you're also juggling parental leave, creaky doors and teething toddlers. It's practical, it's funny, and it's full of heart. So let's get into it. Let's just start right from the beginning. I'd love you guys to just kind of introduce yourselves and tell me a little bit about your journey. Like, what's brought you here into this world of energy consulting. Uh, and maybe I'll start with you, Rebecca, since you're nodding your head vigorously, which nobody can see on the audio, but she's nodding her head.

Speaker A: I'm excited about all of it, so I'll try and hold that in.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So for me, um, I think I was lucky, slash. I think it was probably cheap, slash free to take me to lots of power stations when I was growing up. So that really sparked my interest from a young age. Um, I'm one of four, so obviously my parents were looking for a cheap day out. So we went to many power stations, we went to hydro stations, we went to nuclear power stations. And I think at that age that really sticks in your memory as like such an interesting, strange, wonderful experience getting Dressed up in the ppe.

Speaker B: I didn't know this was a thing.

Speaker A: Yes, you can, you can go to all the nuclear power stations that are live. You can go to, you can go to Drax. You can go to loads of power stations and they're free.

Speaker B: Oh, wow.

Speaker A: And they have great education centers, great, great fun that you can have in them. Um, so doing that. And then I, um, I ended up studying economics and I ended up finding that the kind of money and power were like so closely tied together. You know, the regions that had oil were rich. And then the Industrial Revolution and how that drove through change. And like, my kind of love of, and economic history kind of tied me to energy. So I focused then on oil pricing in the North Sea with my masters, joined a consultancy because I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do. Kind of day one, said, I want to work in oil. Got an oil client. And then 15 years later, uh, I'm kind of still working in energy, interestingly,

Speaker C: like Rebecca, my dad worked in the coal industry in Australia. So my experiences were more going to a coal mine. My dad took me underground when I was like, I think eight or something, which is probably illegal now, but like, was allowed at the time. And so I grew up, you know, in Queensland and Australia, where coal is a massive component of the GDP of the state and sort of was interested in it, but went into law, um, and political science and was really looking to go down that pathway. And when I joined the workforce I went into environment policy. So I had a real sort of crisis coming out of law school and not wanting to be a lawyer and so went down that environmental policy route, which has led to some really interesting debates in the family. When you're talking about what's the role of coal, what's the future workforce look like, net zero, etc. So I then worked across a lot of the upstream resources in, in Queensland, coal seam gas, uh, coal, metalliferous. And then came over here and joined OFGEM and wanted to look at how a regulator works. So I led the switching program at ofgem.

Speaker B: So for anybody that doesn't know what's the switching program at ofgem.

Speaker C: Prior to ofgem's intervention, switching in the energy market took anywhere from a month to two months. So I'm fed up with octopus. I want to switch to Centrica. It's going to take you months and it's very good chance that it's going to fail, um, or it's going to get delayed. So OFGEM led an Intervention that was about switching at the end of next day and massively improving the data quality across the energy market.

Speaker B: So tell me, what do you guys do in Morehouse around transformation in the energy sector?

Speaker A: So we're an end to end transformation partner. Um, we're a management consultancy and actually we work across a number of sectors. Nick and I both work in energy and energy is one of our biggest practices. Um, but that can be anything from what's your strategy, what technology you're choosing, how are you taking people on a journey? Um, process improvement. We touch on all the kind of core services end to end, um, particularly within Morehouse. I'm a director working closely with Nick in energy and I look after our work in oil and gas, nuclear power and EV infrastructure, electric vehicle infrastructure, and

Speaker C: I work across the retail market, the networks and our um, energy government bodies. So Ofgem, Desnes, etc.

Speaker B: So just a small job. Morehouse is a B Corp certified B corporation and there are lots and lots of rules in place which are just about to get a lot stricter as well in terms of what you can and can't do. Um, and so you've made an active decision to work in the energy space. Like how do you, how do you differentiate what to work on, what to not work on? Are there like good guys and bad guys or how does that play out in your world?

Speaker C: My personal view is that I don't think there are good bad guys. I think there are organizations that are far more further along the journey than other organizations. And I really sort of cringe at some of those value judgments that people place on. Like you work for this coal company, you must be a bad person. Uh, no. Great, get in there, make a change, make a difference, be part of that transformation. I think personally, when it comes down to the B Corp point, it's got to be an assessment on each individual case. So is the work that we're going to do for a client about moving them further along that chain towards environmental and social considerations? If it's not, if it's about embedding a monopoly, I personally don't want to work on it and I don't want to try and convince myself, my team, to work on it. Um, I feel the same.

Speaker A: I think the energy transition in this country is going to be built on pragmatism. You can look at some of these companies and they may not be doing everything right, but lots of them are trying. The money from oil and gas is what will fuel huge amounts of infrastructure and huge amounts of change. And also, if you look at a company like BP and their leadership team, they are hugely diverse, uh, and they are almost industry leading in terms of the future female diversity in their leadership team. They might be seen as the bad guys, but actually they have a female cfo, half their leadership team are female. And that's phenomenal in this day and age in energy, it's unprecedented.

Speaker B: It's about the people, isn't it? Rather than necessarily being about the organisation, you've really got to look at the people and what the people are trying to do. And arguably, the more invested the company, the shareholders, nor the rest of the IT are in fossil fuels and things that are not sustainable, the harder it is going to be to turn, uh, that ship around. So if somebody's inside there ruffling the feathers and, um, you know, asking the difficult questions, then they need support because they're not going to do it on their own.

Speaker A: Yeah. And that's where diversity plays such a key role. Right. Because people are coming in, they're challenging, they're innovating, they're making things better and they're thinking differently.

Speaker B: M, you led a campaign around women in energy last year. Do you want to just tell me a little bit more about that, why it mattered and I guess, what was the behaviour that you were trying to change?

Speaker C: I think Morehouse is unique in that, within the energy team. We have a lot of women in senior leadership positions within the energy team and we felt that we could say something with authority about how, uh, important it is to consider women when you look at the energy sector and the future of the energy sector. I think where we saw maybe a gap in the conversation wasn't on getting women in to the industry. It was about how do we think about gender in setting what we do within the sector? Uh, it was that sort of second bit that we really wanted to have a conversation about. So, you know, my time at ofgem, not once did we look at gender, uh, when setting energy policy. And I felt that was no longer part of the civil service. I could have a bit of a conversation coming, start to have an opinion.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Like, there is a sort of line that you have to toe when you're in the civil service about not having public opinions. And turns out I've got quite a few ones.

Speaker B: Nick, you're in your own journey at the moment, so I believe you are very recently back from, um, parental leave and juggling toddlers and babies. And how. When did you come back to work?

Speaker C: So this is my second week and I am Highly caffeinated I would say. As you can all tell, I'm Australian, so co coffee is king in my household.

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. So a lot of the conversations around women in energy, I think focus quite heavily on parenting and part time work. But it feels like that's just narrowing the lens a bit to uh, talking about some of the challenges rather than talking about the opportunities. I get that guess that the diversity brings. Talk to me a little bit about that, if you would. And what are the risks of going down that route?

Speaker A: Just this is also something I reflected on in our campaign is still, it's still things like, you know, like uh, we do have different physicalities, we do have different health needs, we do have different mental health needs, we do have different natural preferences. But one about one of our panelists who spoke our event was saying, you know, she went up a wind turbine and they had no female toilets and she had, you know, it taken her however long to get up there and then she had to go down again to use the loo. And it shouldn't be like that in this day and age. That isn't a, that isn't a problem for her as a mother or as a parent. That's you know, physically as a woman just wanting a private toilet. That shouldn't, that shouldn't be a blocker. There's so much more to it than just. It's not woman as, you know, women as mothers or women as parents, however that looks and feels. You know, there's menstruation, there's menopause and the support and flexibility around that. There's. Do you physically feel safe being on a rig when you're the only woman or do you physically want to go to places where there's nowhere for you to change or there's nowhere for you to use the toilet or nowhere to change your tampon? You know, like that's, those things have to change and then you know, opens up people who are maybe more gender fluid or you know, identifies women and what they need and the support they need. Like that's, it's really, really challenging if you're, if you haven't having the right conversations, if people aren't opening the right doors for you, you know, how do you even kind of begin to make that, kind of make that mark in the sector?

Speaker C: I think the reason that we do focus on parenting is because the data shows us that the gender pay cap uh, falls off a cliff around the age when women start having kids. And so it almost becomes sort of we need to tackle the Gender pay gap. Okay, then we need to tackle this sort of issue around the cliff edge that we all fall off, um, when people start to have children. And I think that's a natural conclusion. But it's also really important that we sort of bring ourselves back to. But that is a period in people's lives. And the conversation doesn't have to be about women having kids. It can be about so much more than that.

Speaker B: Ah.

Speaker C: And linking it back to the gender pay gap, rather than it just being women have kids and therefore the caregivers, which just feels like a very narrow component of the conversation.

Speaker A: Yeah, because there's traits, aren't they? Like, women are less likely to ask for pay rise, women are less likely to go for a job that they are, you know, less qualified for. Again, nothing to do with a parent. Just comes to some of the preferences or some of the areas that science shows us where women play, and then, you know, all those little things turn into a really big pay gap.

Speaker B: Yes. And then, and then you wonder why you don't have that diversity at the top table and you're not having the right conversations and all the things that we talked about at the kind of the start of this conversation. Because ultimately the energy sector needs real transformation. And it's all right talking about net zero. We know it's critically important, but actually you need to narrow it down to some specific things, I think a little bit more. Otherwise it all just becomes this sort of massive issue. And I think there's that danger and thinking, well, you know, what difference can I, can I make? So I suppose, you know, my question would be, you know, what does real transformation look like right now? Are we changing fast enough? And like, and what's the role of the, of women in that mix?

Speaker C: So I personally don't think we're changing fast enough. I think transformation in the energy sector, uh, has to look like better use of our data. So I think the energy industry is appalling at, uh, consumption of maintenance of m innovation from the data that exists in the industry. And until we get to grips with much better ways of using the data that we have, we're going to be behind the curveball in that transformation journey. So it's. Yeah, if I had to pick one sort of soapbox area that I would like to see the sector work on, it's in that data space.

Speaker B: What do you think the biggest blockers to that, uh, is that around fragmentation or is that just people not collaborating? Uh, because there are lots of organizations out there that are working to support transformation in the sector. So where's it going wrong?

Speaker C: I think you're right. I think it sits in that fragmentation space and that allows parties across the industry to pass the buck. It's not my problem or, you know, I'll fix this little bit, but I'm not going to fix that little bit. And that leads to an opacity in the industry. That means that outsiders who are data experts find it so difficult to come in and go, okay, let's look at customer behavior. Let's look at, you know, connections. Let's look at whatever it is. It's so hard to get hold of the data to then make sense of it.

Speaker A: I can bring that to life a little bit as well. I mean, I think there's a. There's an energy supplier we worked with, huh, Who I will not name, but they had got a customer who was recently deceased. They were still invoicing when we said how recently deceased? They'd been dead 57 years. So they'd still been invoicing them and a bill had still been paid by obviously a partner or next of kin or whatever. But like, they were using that as an excuse, like, obviously not to offer this person a better tariff. Obviously, they've been dead. They've been dead over half a century and they're still invoicing them. Um, I think the other thing is that when you have big incidents, like if you think about Grenville, where the fire engines go will be where the meter location is. So, like, the data for that is so important. And if that's wrong and the fire engine goes to the wrong place, the effects can be absolutely catastrophic. And that's why, like, it's not. It's not like, uh, you know, some of it is around getting us to net zero. Some of it is just keeping people alive. Where my head went when we talked about transformation, it probably shows where me and Nick work in these different areas, because I just feel like we let kind of perfection and safety stand in the way of progress. And it takes us years and years to get shovels in the ground. And I don't think this is just an energy problem. This is a much wider infrastructure problem. But I mean, it has to change and it has to be looked at if we are really going to drive transformation in the sector. I think I wrote about this recently on my LinkedIn. But in China, they can build a nuclear reactor in four and a half, five years. From idea to it's connected to the grid. Five years ago, I moved to an area and tried to get an appointment with a local dentist. It's taken me four and a half years to get an appointment with the dentist. It just feels ridiculous to me that we can't make things happen in this country when we've got, you know, we've got money, we've got amazing smart people, we've got all of this ambition for something better, but we cannot move the dial on things.

Speaker B: Question to you, Rebecca, who is leading this charge on Net Zero, then, and what does leadership from women in this space look like specifically?

Speaker A: If you look at a company like BP and their leadership team, they are hugely diverse and these are people that are doing a great job, period, irrespective of their gender. They've driven a more inclusive and collaborative environment, but also they've driven operational excellence. So there's people like Carol Powell and Emma Delaney who've driven operational improvements and they have record returns in their respective areas. They're smashing it. We recently worked with podpoint, um, and the CEO there is a woman called Melanie Lane. And I think a lot of her messaging is around kind of balancing profit with purpose, which I really like. And again, just seen her drive operational improvements and a transformation that's been really driving financial stability, underpinning, um, kind of expansion and helping them grow out partnerships and, you know, all of these are amazing things. The other example from a power perspective I wanted to call out is Gwen Parry Jones, who is the CEO of Great British Nuclear. So she is such an amazing role

Speaker C: model for the sector.

Speaker A: I think she was, she's worked at Magnox, edf, British Energy. She was actually the first woman to become a plant director of a civil nuclear power station in the uk. So going from that and now CEO of Great British Nuclear, it's just an amazing role model that you can kind of look at and say, like, that could be my career, I could follow that path and it could look and feel like that. Um, an area that's very male dominated, you know, very engineering focused and not always one of these places that, you know, maybe didn't have female toilets all that long ago or PPE that suits a female body. Someone who's actually been an absolute trail blazer forging a path for other women. And then now there are several female plant directors in the uk, so you can see changes coming and it's phenomenal.

Speaker B: Yeah. So having those role models is really key, isn't it? And I think there's so much, obviously that needs to happen from a technical perspective and from a legislative perspective, but actually what's needed to create lasting change is behavior change. And I'd just be curious to know whether you feel that the kind of behavior changes that are needed in this transformation are being really taken seriously at leadership level and what the kind of blockers are around that.

Speaker A: I have a perspective, but I'll let you speak, Nick.

Speaker C: So look, I think there are some organisations that are doing a great job at, uh, this. I think you only need to look at Accenture in the news around removal of the EDNI policies and what that does in terms of taking the dial back. It feels like 10, 20 years and it's sort of, it's disappointing to see, uh, if we want to have a conversation about, like, where it's done well. I think it's done well in the organisations that resist. Like, I love to see that there's like, organizations that are refusing to roll back on their, uh, policies and they're sort of openly speaking about that. I'm a pragmatist. So much of this is not, not about what you say, it's what you do day to day. Are you recruiting diverse people? Are you making it so that they want to stay around as well? Because I don't care if you're recruiting a bunch of women or a bunch of other minorities. I care. Are you making it so that they feel empowered in the workplace, they want to stay and they feel that there's a pathway for them. Um, and what that looks and feels like is mentorship. It's for people looking to have children. It's shared policies around parenting, inclusivity. Yeah, I think it's really important that we start talking about what does it look like for dads and other, uh, caregivers to take leave as well, all the way through to what does it mean for. I'm going through menopause and I need some adjustments made for how I work

Speaker B: when it comes to kind of cultural and structural change. Morehouse is obviously, you know, a good example of things working well. But what, what's working well, do you think across the industry, are there things that you can hold up and say, well, actually, yeah, uh, there are examples here. I know you mentioned bp, Rebecca, but is there anything that's more an industry level? You think this is, this is, this is working?

Speaker C: Often these type of policies are seen as a cost to business rather than actually to grow. And I think where I have seen it done really well is say like octopus, where they actually went out and targeted, um, in their customer service teams, recruiting women who were, uh, stay at home parents who were then able to log in once the kids had gone to bed from their home to run the call some of the sort of call centers. And what that meant was it was great for customers because guess what, a bunch of us work and we come, um, home and we have the energy bill and we've got what's on our energy bill. I need to talk to someone. You then want to talk to someone out of normal business hours, but you're also talking to someone who has just done a day with the kids, maybe, or understands what you're going through. And so what they actually found was that type of structure was leading to better customer outcomes and leading to people going, I like Octopus as a brand. I like what it means. And it wasn't actually an overhead, it was an enabler for the growth of Octopus's business.

Speaker B: So coming back to your, um, own journeys, what's been the most challenging part of that? And are there any lessons that you would pass on?

Speaker C: I can talk to the challenging bits. And it's when, when you feel that you've been overlooked. You know, if we're talking about in the context of being a woman within the energy sector, it's when you feel that your gender has played a role in you not progressing further. Like, I often talk to, uh, people about the experience I had back in Australia, where only the women at my grade were asked to cover reception and the men weren't asked to cover reception. And I kicked up a big stink and was told it wasn't very good for my career progression to cause such a stink over something and I should sit down and shut up, basically. And my lesson from that was I didn't sit down and shut up. I made a stink and worked out who my allies were and who the sort of blockers were. And I would just really encourage people on their career journey, make a noise. Because even if it means that you aren't at that organization or you're not working with those people in the future, quite frankly. Good.

Speaker A: When I first came back from maternity leave, a couple of people I spoke to, um, who were very kind of trusted advisors, sort of said to me, you know, now is the time to be a good mum. And I was like, no, I've spent a year being a mum. Right now I want to focus on my career and I want to progress. How do we make that happen? And then I got some steer that was kind of like, no, it's time for you to be at home. It's good for you to be with your daughter. And I was like, this is Actually, my decision. This is no one else's decision. Like, I will make this decision for me and my family. Also, having someone shut a door in my face and saying, oh, no, it's not right for you. You're sleep deprived. You're just back in the business really motivated me to be like, f you. Like, I will do this and I will do it really quickly and I will do it really well because being a mother has made me better at my job, not worse. Uh,

Speaker B: If transformation in the energy sector, and I guess particularly with the lens of kind of women in energy, if it had a soundtrack, what song would you play? What does it sound. What does it sound like?

Speaker C: I think it's Go your own way by Fleetwood Mac, the ballad to like, to Rebecca's point, like, sticking it to the man. I'm gonna do it my own way. Thank you very much.

Speaker B: We are pretty much at the. At the end. Is there anything else around this kind of transformation that we're trying to achieve that you'd like to share with the listeners? Anything about what's keeping you awake at night or what we could kind of take away? As the. As a. As a final thought,

Speaker C: we talked a lot about women. It's about bringing men on the journey as well, because so many allies. Also, it's changing men's perception of women that is part of unlocking this. You know, a lot of men hold the power at the moment. Unless we get them m to see the benefit of having women in the room, the benefit to business, the benefit to cost, the benefit to, like, growth, we're not going to change their minds.

Speaker B: Fantastic. Thank you so much, Nick and Rebecca, for being on the show today. I've absolutely loved talking to you. We could keep going for. For hours, but I'm going to, um, just say thank you very much.

Speaker C: Thank you so much.

Speaker A: Thank you so much.

Speaker B: So that's it, folks, for this episode of the Noble Ideacast. Massive. Thanks to Rebecca and Nick from Morehouse for sharing their insights and for being so generous, candid and real about what transformation looks like when it's actually happening. Now in the next episode, we're shifting focus, although not entirely, because while today we talked about energy and gender, next time we're talking about soil and systems. My guest is Tamara Giltsoff, strategic consultant, regenerative agriculture champion, and co founder of Land Alive. We talk about why the soil might just hold the answers to our poly crisis. That's what happens when so many interlinked systems get their knickers in a twist. What it will take to redesign a financial system that serves life, not just profit. It's about reconnecting to place, rethinking the role of farmers, and building economic models that make regeneration viable at scale. And that's hard. You can get every episode of the Noble Ideacast wherever you get your podcasts, and on, um, bhp.com podcast. And if you like what you hear, subscribe, share. Uh, it helps more people find us, and that's what we want. And if you're wondering why I care so much about systems thinking and behaviour change, it's because I, and all the team at BHP, genuinely believe that creativity can unlock lasting change. When it's rooted in behavioral insight and built with strategic intent, creative thinking becomes a powerful tool for transforming even the most complex sectors, from finance to farming. Until next time, I'm Becky Holland. Thank you so much for listening, and have the most wonderful day.