What do you do when the support you need doesn’t exist? You build it!

This week I sit down with Julia Ward, Project Director at Xela Energy and founder of FLISS a free UK-based mentoring charity supporting women in STEM. Julia’s career spans chemical engineering, carbon capture, solar development, coal asset operations, batteries, and private wire renewables. And somewhere in the middle of all of that, she noticed a gap and decided to fill it herself.

This Wednesday Julia talks through all of it, the career pivots, the moments of clarity, the transferable skills she picked up in unexpected places, and what it actually takes to retain good people in a market that moves faster than almost any other. She also makes a compelling case for why everyone should have three mentors, not one… and what the difference between a mentor and a sponsor actually is.

In this episode:

• Chemical engineering to renewables, an 'unconventional' path
• E.ON’s graduate scheme and a solar placement in San Francisco
• What coal asset management taught her about project delivery
• How FLISS was born and what’s next for the charity
• The three-mentor framework and how to think about job moves
• Private wire energy (the model and the market)
• UK renewables predictions for the next 12 to 18 months

The Renewable Energy Movement Podcast is powered by Kigyo.

FLISS — Free Mentoring for Women in STEM: https://www.fliss.uk/