As a player committed to promoting diversity, SPIE organises its international football tournament every year.
This tournament, which enables football teams from each country to get together, marks yet another SPIE event designed to encourage men and women to play together and smash gender stereotypes, and foster teamwork! Our female footballers reflect on the tournament, diversity and the role of women in the company.
Mélanie Paillard - Service purchaser, SPIE ICS
“Participating in the SPIE football tournament as a woman, means showing that women can equal men in this fairly masculine sport... and even surprise them!”
Laura Caldwell - Helpdesk supervisor, SPIE UK
“SPIE offers a range of activities for women to get involved with, and SPIE Football tournament is only a small part of it. I am part of So’SPIE Ladies, where we hold monthly meetings with the women in the company to show them that they can do any job they want.”
Claudia Saluzzi - Commercial project manager and education commissioner, SPIE Deutschland & Zentraleuropa
“The SPIE football tournament is a step forward in the right direction. Playing in a mixed football team gives men and women the chance to work together, to rely, to trust and learn from each other in order to reach the same goal.”
Nadine Martin - Market correspondent, SPIE Facilities
“This tournament was an opportunity for every football fan at SPIE to gather and play as one, regardless of their gender or place in the pecking order at SPIE. I’m proud to have taken part!”
“Through this football tournament, where women and men had to fight together as a team, I have realised how diversity is a core foundation in SPIE’s internal strategy to achieve successful international cooperation.”
Céline Bretel - Europe & Africa recruitment coordinator, SPIE Oil & Gas Services
“Beyond my passion for football, competing in this tournament is also a way for me to show how you can be in charge of a team during the day, a mother in the evenings, and put on soccer boots in your spare time. And all that, with the same pleasure!”
Anne Ketelaar - Process engineer, SPIE Nederland
“The tournament fosters gender diversity within the Group because it unites women and men together on the football pitch. SPIE creates a special atmosphere for women to work with men to achieve positive results.”
Charlène Boudet - HR officer, SPIE Belgium
“The tournament shows the men that women can also more than hold their own on the football pitch, as if proof were needed following the popularity of this year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup. Now everyone knows that SPIE’s female staff can also hold positions of authority or carry out technical work!”
Video: gender equality is as much at stake on the football field as on the company's sites and worksites.
