As we mark International Women’s Day 2024, Arriva Rail London (ARL) is delighted to announce the appointment of Shaminder Uppal as its new Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (ED&I) manager, reinforcing the company’s commitment to fostering a diverse and inclusive workplace culture.

With a wealth of experience spanning social work, academia and local government, Shaminder brings a dynamic blend of expertise and passion to the role.

Part of her work will be around analysing statistics to understand exactly where ARL needs to improve the representation of ethnicity, disability, gender and neurodiversity. This will help form ARL’s overarching ED&I plan.

Whilst data will play an important part in shaping the company’s plan, Shaminder also understands the importance of encouraging conversations across the business: “There can be words and plans based on the statistics, but if they do not connect with employees at every level, then it does not have the impact we want. My role is to work with colleagues at all levels to ensure everyone is respected and celebrated for what they’re able to contribute.”

As we celebrate International Women’s Day, Shaminder emphasises the impact these events can have in instigating discussion about all forms of imbalance: “Even in our traditionally male-dominated industry, women are smashing glass ceilings. We have more female train drivers, and while there’s still some way to go, our senior leadership is more diverse than it ever has been. International Women’s Day is an opportunity to showcase this progress, but also to think about the challenges still experienced everyday by female colleagues.”

ARL is constantly improving to become an even more diverse and inclusive place to work where everyone feels valued, supported, and empowered to grow and develop. This is reflected in our leadership team, with women making up 50 per cent of our executive team, 35 per cent of our management team and 30 per cent of our heads of department. We look forward to leveraging Shaminder’s insight to continue this journey.