Webinar: Women in safety, fire and security: reasons for and examples of initiatives to support gender equality in our professions

Fiona Perrin has been working in health and safety for nearly 20 years and in fire safety for almost as long and has recently graduated as a Fire Engineer.

Fiona has had a varied career which has involved consulting, media, heritage, constructions, local government and housing. She spent 12 years at the BBC where she could be found fire risk assessing international offices, large events, numerous TV sets and stunts all while giving Top Gear a wide berth.

Fiona now works at the Royal Academy where she has the special job of keeping the staff, visitors and the beautiful heritage building safe.

Fiona is a Chartered Fellow with IOSH and a Member of IFE. She is also the Chair of the IFE Women in Fire Engineering Support Group and advocates and supports women in the fire industry.

Andrea White is an independent fire safety engineer supporting designers and developers. She is proud to be an Incorporated Engineer via the IFE, a Chartered Building Engineer via CABE and an IFE-registered Fire Risk Assessor. Andrea has spent 22 years working in fire safety, including roles within enforcement, consultancy and the insurance industry. In 2021, Andrea founded the Women in Fire Engineering Networking Group, with the aim to support, develop and inspire other women. The Group now has over 600 members. Andrea is keen to increase the visibility of women within the fire safety industry and regularly presents and speaks at industry events. Connect with her on LinkedIn or find out more at www.awfire.co.uk/about-us/

Heather Beach founded the Women in Health and Safety network in 2015 and is Founder and Managing Director of The Healthy Work Company. The Healthy Work Company provides solutions which drive the wellbeing agenda to enable thriving in the workplace at all levels. Offering more than simply training, it delivers strategic support for your wellbeing programme. “We are driving the mental health agenda towards how human beings thrive in life – often through work, not in spite of it!” Heather can be reached on [email protected].

Charlotte Geoghegan is responsible for digital strategy on SHP and IFSEC Global and is Event Manager for Safety & Health Expo at Informa Markets. As a member of the Women in Health and Safety committee, Charlotte aims to amplify the voices of women in our profession. In 2021 she carried out a wide-ranging interview series on SHP, highlighting challenges women in our profession have faced. You can find Charlotte on LinkedIn here.

Letitia Emeana has been active in security since 2001.  She qualified with her ASIS PSP in December 2007, IT Governance CISMP 2014 and ASIS CPP in 2017.  Letitia is a multi-disciplinary security professional and leader with significant experience in Security Design, Security Technology and Security Implementation.

Letitia is the ASIS UK Chapter Chair & Global Security Capability Manager at Unilever and held previous Leadership positions at Tesla, Amazon, and Lloyds Banking Group. She is a passionate advocate for putting “People” at the heart of her work and works hard to promote diversity, equity and inclusion in its broadest sense and was core to the establishment of Women’s Security groups in Amazon, Tesla and Unilever.

Letitia’s background in global security gives her a broad appreciation of the multifaceted elements for supplier capability, corporate thinking, changing threats and new technologies. She is also able to connect this with the latest thinking on coaching, facilitation, and innovation to maximise the success of capability. She brings enthusiasm and motivation to a team, whilst being very much a servant leader with diversity rooted in her DNA. She enjoys learning from others and sharing thoughts on improvements by harnessing these strengths.

Letitia has a son, is a qualified FA Football Coach, Aerobics Instructor, decent golfer and runner and her brother is currently Assistant coach to USA Women’s Soccer National Team.