A woman’s voice in the OW industry
“HAVING worked in the Oil & Gas (O&G) industry, a traditionally maledominated sector, I sometimes found myself having to speak louder for my voice to be heard or having to prove myself more than needed,” said Myriam Samba, the senior business development manager for the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region of BlueFloat Energy, a purely renewable energy player.
The company’s head of government affairs, who has been working in the energy sector for 15 years, shared her experiences about facing discrimination while going up the ranks. The road had not been easy. Once, when working in an onshore field in Russia, people around her assumed that “I was the translator and not the field operation engineer.” The unspoken thought in that society was that women made better communicators than engineers.
Growing up in France, Samba was attracted to math, physics and chemistry during her high school years. This preference led her to enter engineering school. After graduating in 2008, she felt compelled to enter the energy industry because of its dynamism and international exposure.
After university, she joined Total Energies, which developed largescale O&G facilities globally. She worked on the entire life cycles of projects, including feasibility studies, front-end engineering design, construction and field operations. She worked on a production site in the Arctic tundra in subzero conditions, enduring polar nights.
After the 2015 COP21 in Paris, mindsets shifted as governments stepped up their decarbonization targets. She considers her own energy transition from fossil fuels to clean energy, specifically to offshore wind, as one of the milestones of her career.
Gender parity
Samba explained how the fossil fuel and wind energy industries differ. Wind farms convert kinetic energy into electricity, while “oil and gas” involves the drilling and extraction of hydrocarbons. The offshore wind industry appears to be less heavily male-dominated. BlueFloat Energy banks on gender parity as its workforce is composed of 45 percent women and 55 percent men. Diversity is one of the hallmarks of the company as it enters into the APAC and Philippine energy markets.
Though the reality of male dominance in a field has not daunted her, she believes that the underrepresentation of women in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education in universities has to be addressed in order to achieve gender parity in the energy sector. She believes in encouraging young women into entering STEM and by providing positive examples to increase motivation.
Samba disputes the myth that women will necessarily be better evangelists of environmentalism. Science is science, after all. She maintained, “Women, like men, do not possess specific qualities or strengths based on their gender alone. At BlueFloat Energy, we value diversity of genders, ages, origins, social backgrounds and personality types. Our work is a collective effort. Beyond gender, we aim for diversity as a whole.”
She is engaged in a number of initiatives to bring the message of clean energy to the next generation of ecological advocates. “Offshore winds for kids” campaigns for floating wind technologies among the young. To stimulate gender diversity, the company invites an equal number of boys and girls to events. Samba herself presented a webinar for the Women in Wind leadership program, a project by the Global Wind Energy Council and the Global Women’s Network for Energy Transition.
Enthusiastic to mentor young ladies who are working in the wind industries, she definitely advocates women helping women.
She will continue to contribute to the company’s development philosophy, one that is rooted in earning and maintaining a social license from each community where they operate. The company dialogues constructively with local stakeholders to ensure compatibility with existing activities and maximize positive impact on communities. She also emphasized the significant participation of women in government decision-making.
Samba noted that the Philippines has huge ambitions in developing clean energy. Following the road map established by the World Bank, it needs an estimated 21 gigawatts by 2040. She said, “Other governments can benefit from the good example of the Philippines.”