March is Women’s History Month, and this year, Ford is celebrating Women Who Drive America Forward by putting the spotlight on four leaders. Their stories can be seen at https://www.ford.com/women-who-power-america-forward, and each week, a new video will be posted featuring discussions that cover everything from mentorship to stereotypes in the workplace.

Get to know:

• Sandy Fershee, lab director, D-Ford Detroit, who leads the team of innovators who pivoted from designing vehicles to designing COVID face masks for first responders and distributed 22 million of them to communities that were hotspots for COVID.
• Adrienne Bennett, master plumber, president and CEO, Benkari LLC, who owns her own business, and currently is working on the renovation of the Michigan Central Station into a high-tech auto innovation hub by Ford Motor Company.
• Queen Anunay, the deputy fire chief of a major metropolitan city and the highest-ranked female in her department.
• Raquel Garcia, Executive Director, Southwest Detroit Environmental Vision, a community outreach program that works to provide a cleaner, healthier and safer environment for the residents of southwest Detroit, Michigan.

Watch the 33-minute panel discussion today, in which Lori Costew, chief diversity officer and people strategy, leads the women in a discussion about the passions and challenges that led them to the roles they have today.

Although these women all have very different jobs and origin stories, each one talked about the mentors who opened doors in their professional careers and the responsibility they felt to take the time to inspire and motivate young people, and especially young women, to grow their potential.

“When you encounter young women just coming on the job and they’re looking at you like, ‘You’re a chief! I want to be a chief!’ Everything I do is under the microscope for the good, and sometimes for the bad, but I’m inspired when I see a young woman look up to me as a possibility. What I do makes her future possible,” said Queen Anunay.

Shorter videos focused on different topics will be posted on LinkedIn and YouTube throughout the month of March. The series includes:

March 1: Chapter One: Meet the Women Driving Change

March 17: Chapter Two: Career Advice for Young Women

March 25: Chapter Three: From Mentee to Mentor: These Women Tell It Like It Is

March 29: Chapter Four: Crushing Stereotypes in the Workplace

The video for Chapter One is a short introduction of the four women, and we hear from them about how they overcame expectations about what they could do in order to move their communities forward.

The women also talked about what drives them to continue to fight against stereotypes – and what connects them.

“Everyone needs to be included, everyone makes a difference. We’re each other’s teammates, and even when times are tough, I know we’re going to get through it,” said Raquel Garcia, Executive Director, Southwest Detroit Environmental Vision.