Workplace Norms That Work

We hear all the time about women in STEM feeling out of place and undervalued, but what does a truly inclusive work culture look like? A thriving, women-led engineering team discusses how we can find success in our current work culture AND be an agent of change.

Overview

Air Date: February 10, 2021

Season:  2021

Episode:  1

Speakers: Vanessa Raponi and her team at Spin Master

We hear all the time about women in STEM feeling out of place and undervalued, but what does a truly inclusive work culture look like?

For the kick off of the 2021 Persist Series, we heard from a thriving women-led engineering team at Spin Master, a Canadian global toy and entertainment company bringing us some of the most well-known kids’ entertainment, including Etch A Sketch, PAW Patrol, and Rubik’s Cube.

About the speakers

Vanessa Raponi, Product Development EIT at Spin Master
Founder of EngiQueers Canada

Vanessa Raponi is a Product Development EIT on the Remote Control team at Spin Master – an international toy company founded in Toronto. Essentially, she brings complex toy design ideas to life. She graduated from McMaster University in 2018 with a Bachelor of Engineering and Management, which gave a unique business perspective to her technical accreditation. As a queer woman of colour, Vanessa has been a passionate advocate for intersectional diversity in STEM for many years, notably founding the national not-for-profit organization EngiQueers Canada. EQ now services 30 university LGBTQ+ engineering organizations in 9 provinces, and is run by students from coast-to-coast.

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