Two senior leaders from RES Honoured as Members of 2022 Heroes Women Role Models Lists

RES, the world’s largest independent renewable energy company, is pleased to announce that Karen Anne Hutton, Head of Repowering & Life Extension in the U.K, earned a place on the Women Future Leaders list and John Rohde, CEO in the Americas, was named an Advocate Executive as part of the 2022 INvolve Heroes Women Role Model Lists, supported by Yahoo! Finance. The lists serve to showcase leaders who are championing women in business and driving change for gender diversity in the workplace.

“Working in a male-dominated industry, I have spent my career encouraging women to join and progress in a growing industry that is making a huge positive impact towards helping fight climate change,” said Karen Anne Hutton. “The women I have worked with at RES have been incredible role models for me, and I owe much of my success to their support and encouragement.”

Karen Anne’s work to support gender diversity in the workplace has been extensive. Some efforts include:

• Founding member of RES’ Global Gender Affinity Network which promotes gender equality in RES across 11 countries and was recently awarded the Culture Change Award at the Scottish Renewables Young Professionals Green Energy Awards.
• Leading the Career Progression workstream which aims to eliminate the unfair barriers to progression that different genders face. Initial focus areas include:
• Gender Pay Gap Reporting (GPGRs): reviewing GPGRs to identify opportunities for improvement at RES, which is vital to attracting and retaining female talent
• Mentoring: advise on changes to the internal communications campaign which resulted in a 75% increase in female mentors and improved the gender diversity in RES’ internal mentoring programme.
• Exploring an internal sponsorship programme to supplement mentoring and address under-sponsorship of women and non-binary people, and a return-to-work programme which will support people of all genders’ return to work after an extended career break (and will particularly benefit women).

She also brings her activism outside of her workplace as a member of the RenewableUK Switch List, which is a directory of diverse speakers from the energy sector that helps ensure event panels and discussions have broad representation. Beyond that, Karen Anne is a regular public speaker at industry events and conferences across the U.K., Europe and Australia.

As an Advocate Executive, John Rohde was honored as an executive who champions women in business and is dedicated to creating a more diverse and inclusive business environment for women at RES. When John started as CEO in the Americas in 2021, he signed RES up to The  Business Coalition for the Equality Act, as well as expand the female representation on his team from one to three women among RES leadership within his first nine months.

“I believe that diversity and inclusion is not an option, but a requirement to remain competitive, stay in business and to attract the best talent, particularly to the renewables space,” said John Rohde. “I’m honored to be recognized for my commitment to supporting women in the workplace, and am excited to keep pursuing a more diverse future for RES.”

Rohde is an outspoken advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion, joining panels and organisations to speak publicly about inclusion and diversity to encourage others to do more. Some of his efforts have included:

• Joining the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee for the American Clean Power Association
• Encouraging the use of recruiting platforms that ensure inclusivity and diversity of candidates
• Demonstrating visible leadership on the topic of banning conversion therapy for the whole LGBTQ+ community
• Supporting the Human Rights Commission

Founder & CEO of INvolve, Suki Sandhu OBE, says, “I’m so thrilled to be celebrating this global group of trailblazing Executives, Future Leaders and Advocates for women in business. All the individuals within these lists are championing inclusion and, most importantly, leveraging their expertise and knowledge to drive inclusion initiatives and strategic change within their organizations.”

RES is honored to be recognized for their work in creating a more inclusive and equitable work environment and looks forward to inspiring other companies to put in the work necessary for improvement in the future.

About RES

RES is the world’s largest independent renewable energy company and is active in onshore and offshore wind, solar, energy storage, green hydrogen, transmission and distribution. As an industry innovator for over 40 years, RES has delivered more than 23GW of renewable energy projects across the globe and supports an operational asset portfolio exceeding 10GW worldwide for a large client base. Understanding the unique needs of corporate clients, RES has secured over 1.5GW of corporate power purchase agreements (PPAs) enabling access to energy at the lowest cost. RES employs over 2,500 passionate people and is active in 11 countries. Visit www.res-group.com