When Nahdia Pirzada joined GE HealthCare shortly after having her first child in 2007, the building she worked in had no space for mothers to pump breast milk. Pirzada pumped in the women’s restroom at the office. When the new mom traveled for work, she pumped and dumped.
“That just didn’t seem right for a company like GE HealthCare,” says Pirzada, vice president of imaging clinical applications at GE HealthCare. “So I reached out to the company’s Women’s Network and we got a mother’s room at our site in Boston. Now they have them in all U.S. locations, we offer shipment of breast milk for traveling U.S. moms, and we have 12 weeks of family leave in the U.S. for anyone with a new child.”
The Women’s Network offers a platform for its members to share their voice, and Pirzada has been an integral part of it ever since, including several stints as the organization’s leader. Created 27 years ago as a resource group to empower, energize, and elevate women to ensure equity, the Women’s Network offers female employees comprehensive programming, mentoring, and networking opportunities. It acts as a recruitment and retention tool for talented employees, as well as a source of rich, rewarding friendships for women throughout the global organization. Today the Women’s Network can point to several company-wide accomplishments, including increased female representation in senior roles and the expansion of family leave.
Positioning future female leaders by fostering an interest in STEM
One of the Women’s Network’s achievements is the GE Girls program, launched in 2011. By the time young women enter college or university, far too many have already opted out of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) classes. The GE Girls program was established to accelerate the progress of diversity in our technical workforce.
“GE Girls is a program designed to excite and retain interest of middle school girls in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), share GE HealthCare’s technology brand, and facilitate interactions between career role models and students. This initiative equips young women with the skills and confidence to pursue careers in science and technology and promotes inclusion in our workforce,” says Pamela Stater, customer operations executive at GE HealthCare. “The focus is on middle schoolers because they’re still exploring and in the process of building their confidence.”
The group partnered with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Milwaukee School of Engineering to develop what became weeklong STEM camps for girls aged 10 to 14. Over the past 13 years, in partnership with over 15 universities worldwide, there have been as many as 20 camps annually, serving more than 4,000 total campers.
GE HealthCare will open a new camp in India this year. Volunteer employees dedicate their time and expertise to help inspire the next generation of women STEM leaders. Every year, Stater says, the volunteers report being amazed by the creativity and enthusiasm of the girls.
Each camp has its own board made up of GE HealthCare volunteers who coordinate with local middle schools every year to put a curriculum together tailored to meet emerging STEM trends. Location also influences the agenda, with campers in Washington, D.C., for example, visiting Capitol Hill to meet with policymakers. Over the years, there have been more than 225 STEM activities developed for use by the camps, many of them created by local boards. The components highlight engineering processes, robotics, coding, and confidence-building activities. One of the most important messages is to instill in the girls that failure can be a stepping-stone to success.
“The idea is to explore possibilities and cool experiments that you can do as part of GE HealthCare. They’ve made Jell-O molds and then used an ultrasound to determine what’s inside,” Stater says. “The girls always love a little bit of self-care, so the camps have been able to spark interest in chemistry by experimenting with bath bombs, lip balms, and other fun topics.”
Not long after launching, the GE Girls program recognized a demand from the girls for ongoing involvement, so they started a camp alumni program. It offers social and educational activities throughout the school year, continuing into high school, as well as networking opportunities and continuous support for women.
“We’re using hands-on activities, mentorship, and a supportive community to encourage young girls and promote diversity in STEM fields,” Stater says.
Colleague sponsorship enabling career retention and growth
That mix of support and education is part of what makes the Women’s Network itself so successful. Pirzada says she’s seen the positive impact of the network in action. When her position at GE HealthCare in Massachusetts was eliminated in 2011, Pirzada found the perfect job, but it was at GE HealthCare’s Milwaukee site. With two very young children at home, leaving Boston and her extended family wasn’t a realistic option. A leader from the Women’s Network who had seen her leadership in action became her sponsor and reached out to the hiring manager, letting them know she was confident Pirzada could do the job from Boston.
Pirzada says getting the job — and staying in Boston — was a transformational moment in her career. A dozen years later, she says, it’s her turn to “send the elevator back down.”
“There is so much I took away from the Women’s Network, both from a personal and professional development standpoint, and I am now at that part of my career where there’s a lot of giving back,” she says. “Over my 17-year GE HealthCare career, the Women’s Network has provided me with a village of friends and allies, incredible women who foster a sense of belonging and empower each other to reach their full potential. My involvement with the Women’s Network is a key reason why I’ve stayed with GE HealthCare all these years!”
Find more initiatives like this one on GE HealthCare's Sustainability Report.
