Photo: McLaren
In order to celebrate International Day of the Girl and encourage young people (women in particular) to take up science and engineering careers, McLaren and their long-time partners Plan International, which is a global children’s rights charity, made it possible for a teenage girl to become the carmaker’s CEO for a day.
Maisy, who is a youth activist from Wales and is just 17 years old, took over from McLaren boss Mike Flewitt and was even presented with CEO business cards and her very own McLaren CEO access pass.
She then led her executive team in strategic decisions while also collaborating with several of the company’s female business leaders, engineers, scientists and designers. This allowed her to gain an understanding of what goes into designing, engineering, building and marketing luxury supercars. She even helped to hand-build one of the vehicles, before putting on the McLaren badge as the finishing touch on an Artura hybrid supercar.
“My day as CEO of McLaren Automotive was full of incredible moments but being part of building a supercar was amazing, and that’s not something many people can say,” stated the company’s youngest-ever CEO.
“Having Maisy take over as CEO of McLaren for the day to celebrate International Day of the Girl has been both an enjoyable and valuable experience for me and the whole McLaren team. Her ideas, insights and intelligence – as well as clear passion – will help us move forwards even faster on our efforts to achieve even greater diversity and inclusion,” added the company’s actual chief executive officer.
According to Plan International’s own research, 1 in 4 (25%) girls aged 11 to 18 have wanted to try out a science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) subject or job, but have either been told it is for boys or were worried about how they would be perceived (negatively judged). The research also showed that nearly half of girls (47%) have heard either through media, friends or family that “girls are not good at STEM,” which is both heartbreaking and obviously not the truth.
She then led her executive team in strategic decisions while also collaborating with several of the company’s female business leaders, engineers, scientists and designers. This allowed her to gain an understanding of what goes into designing, engineering, building and marketing luxury supercars. She even helped to hand-build one of the vehicles, before putting on the McLaren badge as the finishing touch on an Artura hybrid supercar.
“My day as CEO of McLaren Automotive was full of incredible moments but being part of building a supercar was amazing, and that’s not something many people can say,” stated the company’s youngest-ever CEO.
“Having Maisy take over as CEO of McLaren for the day to celebrate International Day of the Girl has been both an enjoyable and valuable experience for me and the whole McLaren team. Her ideas, insights and intelligence – as well as clear passion – will help us move forwards even faster on our efforts to achieve even greater diversity and inclusion,” added the company’s actual chief executive officer.
According to Plan International’s own research, 1 in 4 (25%) girls aged 11 to 18 have wanted to try out a science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) subject or job, but have either been told it is for boys or were worried about how they would be perceived (negatively judged). The research also showed that nearly half of girls (47%) have heard either through media, friends or family that “girls are not good at STEM,” which is both heartbreaking and obviously not the truth.
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