Winners 2019

Charlotte is responsible for the workload, planning and people of both JLR’s interior trim development workshops at Gaydon and Whitley. She won this important role after steadily moving through the ranks of Jaguar Land Rover trim development, which she joined as an apprentice in 2008. While an apprentice she worked hard to achieve qualifications from Warwickshire College, including a BTEC in manufacturing engineering. Her ambition is to expand the remit of the trim development workshop to produce more sustainable interiors, as well as building relationships with suppliers.

The satisfaction felt in the early years of being an automotive engineer comes in knowing you’re responsible for one element of a new production car. In Louise’s case it was the design and delivery of the electric charge port housing and illumination system on the Jaguar I-Pace, an achievement she calls her “biggest to date”. She joined Jaguar Land Rover in 2012 as a graduate engineer after gaining a master of research degree from the University of Birmingham. In two years she moved to become lead engineer first for fuel systems, then charge port housing systems. She’s now senior lead engineer working on tailgates, in charge of delivering the entire tailgate system on a new Range Rover product from concept stage through to physical vehicle validation.

Marta has held a number of key positions within Jaguar Land Rover since joining as a graduate engineer in 1998, including project manager for the Jaguar I-Pace and manager of the advanced product creation team that seeks a better understanding between design and engineering ahead of new model development. Marta became a senior manager four years ago and moved to her current role recently, leading the engineering delivery of new programmes. Her masters degree was in materials engineering, which started her career as a materials engineer.  Marta has worked in a wide range of engineering functions, from electrical engineering, to programme management and more recently body engineering. She’s co-founder and co-chair of JLR’s Women in Engineering network, which now has 500 members. She wants to be seen as a role model for female engineers. “I want to showcase that being a mum and being a technical leader and team manager are not mutually exclusive, and that you can actually excel at all three,” she said.

After an initial stint during her undergraduate placement year, Natasha joined Bentley on its graduate programme in 2015 after acing her materials science and engineering degree at the University of Manchester. She also won the Cort medal from the School of Materials after achieving the highest performance in her final-year examinations and assessments, and in 2017 she became a fully fledged materials development engineer. Natasha was nominated by Marine Godot, Bentley’s functional manager for materials development, who described her as “exhibiting behaviours well beyond those expected of someone of her level”. Natasha's knowledge of wood processing and finishing has seen her deliver marquetry and open-pore wood veneer projects for Bentley’s Mulliner division. She also plays a leading role in projects looking at the integration of digital content into luxury interior finishes.

Bentley’s interiors are globally renowned and part of that is due to the hard work and skill of Louise, who lists her technically impressive ‘diamond in diamond’ quilted seat pattern available on the new Continental GT as one her recent design achievements. She also developed a cross-functional process to bring design and engineering closer at the start of each seat design programme. She joined Bentley as a styling intern in 2012 following an internship at Audi within the exterior design team. She graduated from Coventry University in 2010 with a first-class honours degree in automotive design before travelling to Sweden to start her Masters at Umea Institute of Design. Louise’s goal is to become head of interior design.

Ella joined McLaren’s road car division in 2016 as quality process engineer after graduating with a first-class masters degree in materials engineering from the University of Manchester. She has since impressed the company enough to be promoted to materials engineer. She’s responsible for all investigations into materials used in the company’s sports cars and supercars, helping engineers spec the appropriate materials at the design phase. "Ella has particularly impressed with her knowledge of corrosion effects in aluminium body panels,” McLaren wrote in nominating her, adding that “her technical skills are matched equally with her interpersonal and team-working skills”. Ella’s aim is to build a materials engineering department within McLaren Automotive.

Michelle started at Jaguar Land Rover 18 years ago as an advanced modern apprentice working at the Castle Bromwich assembly maintenance department, where she won ‘apprentice of the year’, and she has since risen to an impressive level. She stayed at the Jaguar plant and is now the first point of contact for all chassis engineering issues on the Jaguar XF, XE, XJ and F-Type built at the plant. Her manager Peter Gouldthorpe calls her an inspirational leader of the future, adding: “When Michelle is involved in a project it's in good hands. She often works extra hours for no reward other than seeing the job done correctly.”