First Woman in the world to manage a blast furnace
April 2013, Turbine Floor, Sembcorp Utilities UK, Teeside
b.1971, Gloucestershire
In 2004, Atkinson became the first woman in the world to manage the cast house of a blast furnace – becoming at the same time one of the most high profile women in UK industry in the last two decades. In her early days in the industry, she was one of only a dozen women amongst 1,700 men on site. The CBI honoured her as Britain’s top female engineer in 2007 and in 2010 she became the youngest Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering.