Women@Renault has 1,000 members

• With its Women@Renault plan, Renault is aiming to develop female talents and attract more women to the company, to ensure the diversity that is key to its performance.

• To rally employees around the goal of hiring more women, Renault operates a community network via a Web 2.0 platform.
• The Women@Renault network, launched on June 24, 2010, now has 1,000 members, including 60 men, making it the company’s largest informal network.

By topping the symbolic mark of 1,000 members on February 18, the network has established itself in just eight months as the biggest Web 2.0 community at Renault. It hosts several local networks, including one for the sales function in France and two others in Romania and Brazil. And while the majority of members are still executives and women, 19% are supervisory and technical staff (ETAM), 6% are men and 12% are non-French residents.


Network members benefit from special training, notably on leadership. Creativity forums are organized regularly to gather ideas from members, as at the latest meeting in January focused on the topic of modernity and the automobile.


The network also organizes activities in which presence is required, including conferences of exceptional women serving as role models and debates at women’s lunches in the presence of 20 top women managers at the Renault group.


In 2011 the network plans to continue its international development, with the imminent launch of local networks in Spain, Turkey and Argentina and others under review in Morocco, Colombia and South Korea. This is an ideal way to further the cause of gender diversity at Renault – the key objective of the network.


Odile Desforges, SVP Engineering and Quality, and leader of the Women@Renault plan:

“This network should be the catalyst that enables women to achieve the place they deserve and let the company benefit from all their talents. Through the debates it encourages, the network should also enable each woman, whatever her country and whatever her profession, to feel stronger and more confident about her career at Renault and the way she balances her personal and professional lives.”

Véronique Lorre, 30, is the 1,000 ^th member of the Women@Renault network. She became a member thanks to the Rallye des Gazelles, for which Renault supports four employee teams.
“I have always been a fan of the Gazelles race. As a communication correspondent at the department that prepares the vehicles for the rally, I followed the whole operation. That’s when I found out about the Women@Renault network dedicated to women. The way it was presented to me stirred my curiosity and made me want to sign up.”