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PROFILE
Zweig Group’s 2022 ElevateHER cohort This year’s cohort has picked up where previous groups left off – taking on creative ideas to solve both historic and emerging challenges.
By SARA PARKMAN Senior Editor
E levateHER was founded by Zweig Group as part of its commitment to embrace, promote, and ensure equal opportunities for everyone in the AEC industry, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, or ethnicity. Many women in the AEC industry face obstacles that could result in an early exit from the industry. For instance, representation for women in engineering is not only lacking, but it trails the rest of the pipeline. Women hold only 34 percent of entry-level engineering and just 26 percent of first- level manager positions, compared to 48 percent of entry-level roles and 41 percent of first-level manager positions in the pipeline overall, according to data from McKinsey. Additionally, female principals make on average $25,000 less in annual base salary than their male counterparts, and their overall total compensation is 30 percent less. Female principals are twice as likely as male principals to say their career has not matched up to their goals. To address these issues, Zweig Group assembled a cohort
of AEC professionals from around the country. They met at the program kickoff in Spring 2022, and since then, they have been working on smaller project groups on self-chosen topics, creating a focused deliverable that will be shared with the rest of the industry at Zweig Group’s ElevateHER Symposium in September. Project topics run the gamut and include methods to support individuals in the industry at all stages and phases of their life, addressing conflict and implicit biases, designing career paths, awarding and incentivizing diverse projects and firms, and much more. The group topics are as follows: ■ ■ Empower Space. Self-advocacy, confidence, and assertiveness are meaningful tools that everyone can use to become an active contributor to their own success and increase their job satisfaction. Unfortunately, the opportunities to learn these skills are not evenly distributed in the workforce. By creating an easily accessible space that is curated to address common
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