Acre Insights

What would the energy transition look like if women were equally represented at the top? It’s an important question when considering better decision-making and stronger business outcomes. In partnership with POWERful Women, Acre continues the blog series uncovering the stories, barriers, and breakthroughs shaping female leadership across the energy sector. Our next guest is Ying Juliana Ko, a project manager at DNV.

Ying has a background in energy engineering and outside her technical responsibilities, she is involved in DNV’s DNI (Diversity and Inclusion) committee, where she contributes to initiatives that aim to create a more inclusive work environment.

How did this D&I initiative start? 

It all started as we aimed to achieve certain targets for the business. The difficulty, however, is not just in hiring people, but retaining them. The entire business must make a shift to be more inclusive and to start listening to different voices. We went about this by creating programmes that invited people to talk about different topics.
 
When I first joined DNV as an intern, I was the only woman in our local office. I often entered a room comprising only of men discussing highly technical topics. The lack of experience at an intern-level naturally affected my confidence, but I was lucky in that my manager’s higher up was a woman, which meant that my performance and development would also be seen and evaluated through a female perspective. This made a big difference to me, and my confidence as I started my career. Representation is not only about being present in meeting rooms but creating a sense of belonging and trust that different perspectives will be understood and evaluated.

As I have grown and progressed internally, I gained the confidence to be part of this transition.

What challenges did you face while you were progressing? 

Once a male colleague told me that I should communicate with more confidence and assertiveness in order to convince others about my ideas. I remember thinking, why do I have to convince others about my ideas? Being a woman often means really focusing on preparation and clarity. You first need to be 100% certain about the technical details and then communicate in a confident way. Your ideas must always be supported by data, otherwise they do not earn a seat at the table. And then, of course, you need to be consistent in order to maintain credibility.

As a man you don’t always have to work so hard on the preparation, factchecking, and delivery. It’s much easier to throw ideas about and fine-tune them later. You will still be heard.

How do you think this can change? 

Change needs to happen on multiple different levels. The companies need to be intentional about hiring and promoting diverse talent. It needs to be reflected on the targets, the process, and leadership accountability. Companies have to create more opportunities for women as well as showcasing that women belong in technical and leadership roles. The more we normalise it, the more it inspires others to follow. Finally, creating an inclusive environment is just as important as hiring diversity. If the environment is not welcoming, then you will not get the retention needed, despite hiring efforts. 

This isn’t without challenges. Sometimes this is a process of change but sometimes you might have to make physical changes too; an entrance, bathroom, or other facilities. It can take time. 

What advice would you give to a young woman starting in the energy sector?

Focus on building strong foundations. Stay curious, and don’t be afraid to ask questions. I’d also suggest that you try and build a network early on; peers, mentors, sponsorships, etc. 

Why is gender equality important in the energy transition? 

As we move forward in the energy transition, it’s important that we bring more diverse perspectives into the process. Approaching net zero is not just a technical challenge, it is also a social, economic, and very political. In many ways, we are really challenging the very foundation of the modern era, which requires collaboration across disciplines and stakeholders. 

Inclusive teams tend to be much more innovative and stronger in problem solving, which is exactly what we need to accelerate climate goals. Increasing women’s participation is not only a matter of equity but really is a strategic advantage for the industry and our shared goals.

Acre is committed to driving meaningful change within the energy sector, focusing on appointing impact-driven leaders that can create a more inclusive and sustainable industry. Our interest in this topic stems from a belief that diversity in leadership is essential for better decision-making, stronger business outcomes, and achieving a fairer energy transition. Through this blog series, in partnership with POWERFul Women, we will continue to explore the challenges, successes, and strategies around female representation in energy leadership. Each interview and insight will shed light on what’s working, what needs to change, and how the sector can accelerate progress for the next generation of leaders. Please reach out if you are interested in learning more.  

A year ago, the conversations at Climate Week NYC were heavy with bad news. They circled around cuts to US federal agencies, the fallout from tariffs and a growing backlash against ESG. This September, the mood was different. Across big conferences and the smaller coffee conversations where people tend to be most candid, our team heard from clients, candidates and partners who sounded ready to get on with the work.

That optimism came with a new question attached: who is going to do it?

The answer we kept hearing was broader than it used to be. Sustainability still needs its specialists. But as it moves from a standalone function into the core of how organisations operate, it also needs the people who fund it, model it, measure it, stress-test it and tell its story. Here is what that looks like in practice. 

1. Sustainability now has to pass the investment committee

One partner told us financial modelling had become one of the most valuable skills on their team, and they were far from alone. Bankability, commercialisation and return on investment came up again and again. Sustainability projects are now judged by the same questions as any other business case. What does it return? Which risks does it reduce? What value does it create?

AI is feeding that process more data than ever, across supply chains and investment decisions alike. Leaders were clear that they need financial talent who can interpret the numbers and turn analysis into a decision, rather than relying solely on the volume of data now accessible to them. 

2. Risk models were built for a climate we no longer have

Weather events once treated as once-in-a-century are arriving far more often, yet much of the risk modelling organisations rely on still rests on historical assumptions. Reworking those methodologies takes specialists who can get inside the models, question their inputs and rebuild them for current conditions. Demand for that expertise is growing.

3. Water shows why siloed leadership won’t work

Water was one of the week’s recurring themes, and it illustrates how tangled these challenges have become. Understanding a single site’s water impact can mean understanding local geology, supply chains, risk forecasts and rising demand from data centres all at once. No single function owns that problem. The leaders who will handle it best are the ones who can bring finance, operations, supply chain, investment and strategy into the same room and build a plan that balances competing priorities.

4. Data centres are a people challenge as much as an infrastructure one

The debate over AI and data centres was impossible to escape. Investment is pouring in, and talent is scarce on both the investment and operating sides. The conversations that stood out to us, though, were about communities. Data centres raise hard local questions about energy, water and environmental impact, and the organisations building them need people who can engage residents early, take their concerns seriously and work through interconnected problems before they harden into opposition. Community engagement and stakeholder expertise is fast becoming a critical hire.

5. The transition happens locally

Much of the work discussed in New York, from renewable installation and building retrofits to weatherisation and climate adaptation, is delivered on the ground by people with practical skills and local knowledge. A national strategy only goes as far as the workforce in the places where projects land. Leaders need to understand those local talent pools before they commit to a project, not after.

6. Sustainability needs better storytellers

If one theme cut across every conversation, it was this: sustainability has a communications problem. Consumer brands launching more sustainable products need marketing, communications and public affairs talent who can make those products land. Investment firms need people who can explain climate risk to investors in terms that change decisions. Across the sector, organisations are looking for connectors who can translate between technical specialists and the senior leaders who sign off on the budget.

What this means for hiring

The message from Climate Week was that sustainability talent is not the niche it once was. The most in-demand profiles we heard about pair a core discipline (finance, risk, engineering, communications, community engagement) with enough climate literacy to apply it. For employers, that widens the pool considerably. It also means rethinking where to look and what to look for.

If you’re building a team for the next phase of the transition, we’d be glad to talk it through. Get in touch with Dan at dan.perez@acresearch.com or the wider team at usa@acreasearch.com. 

When we last reviewed the Health and Safety Competency Framework in 2019, it was before COVID, before the rapid emergence of AI, and before many of the changes we are now seeing in how and where organisations operate. Businesses are growing quickly and moving into new markets whilst operating across increasingly complex global supply chains and responding to changing legislative, societal and reporting expectations. 

At the same time, our understanding of what it means to keep people safe and well is broadening. The profession is increasingly expected to consider not only physical health and safety, but psychological health and safety and the wider factors that influence wellbeing at work. Along with this, organisations are asking more of every function: how are you enabling the business to perform? This question is as relevant for Health and Safety as any other function. Health and Safety has risked being perceived as primarily a compliance activity - something organisations have to do, rather than something that enables them to do great work. 

>> Read the full report here 

The opportunity for the profession is to change that. This doesn't mean technical expertise matters less. It remains fundamental. But technical knowledge alone isn't enough to create impact. Today's Health and Safety professional needs to understand the organisation they operate within: its ambitions, pressures, people, performance measures and priorities. They need to understand how work affects people physically and psychologically, and be able to apply their expertise pragmatically, influence decisions, enable others and help the organisation consciously manage risk as it grows and changes. Put simply, our role is not just to make work safe. It is to help organisations do great work safely.

And that requires us to keep evolving too. The purpose of revisiting the framework in 2026 was therefore not simply to update a set of competencies. It was to challenge ourselves again as a profession: what does it take to be truly effective and make an impact in Health and Safety today - and what will we need for the future? Our mission hasn't changed. We want people to go home safe and well. But as the world around us changes, we cannot become complacent about the capabilities required to achieve it.

This framework has always been shaped by the profession, for the profession. The first iteration was developed in 2015, followed by a significant review in 2019. In 2026, we returned to the profession to test what still stood up, what needed to evolve and what might be missing. We deliberately sought input from a broad range of Health and Safety professionals, drawing on the Acre network, previous contributors, professional networks, forums and social media to extend participation beyond those already close to the framework.

These participants made up an active working group which had a global footprint. The working group was invited to review the existing framework and contribute through a survey and/or structured interview. We asked four deliberately simple questions: What's missing? What do you disagree with or believe is over-emphasised? Which three competencies matter most for Health and Safety professionals in 2026, and why? What should the framework encourage more of over the coming years? The structured interviews allowed us to probe those answers more deeply, before drawing together the recurring themes and using them to challenge and reshape the framework.

Throughout the process, we maintained one important lens: this is a non-technical competency framework. When themes such as AI and emerging technology arose, for example, we considered the underlying capability a professional needs to navigate them - curiosity, continuous learning, judgement and the ability to critically evaluate what is useful and appropriate - rather than creating competencies around individual technologies that may quickly change. What was perhaps most striking was how much of the previous framework stood the test of time.

This wasn't a case for starting again. Instead, the research highlighted where emphasis needed to shift and where some capabilities needed to become much more explicit. A revised framework was then shared with the working group for further validation, with the final round of feedback incorporated into the 2026 edition. The result is a deliberately simple structure: three Foundations that apply throughout a career, followed by Business Partnering and Leadership levels.

>> Read the full report here