Lynn Tomkins, director of UK operations, Semta

Mar 1 2010 by Peter McCusker, The Journal

Morpeth businesswoman Lynn Tomkins has risen to the top in the male-dominated world of engineering and was recently recognised as UK Boss of the Year after being nominated by her staff. Peter McCusker reports.

MANY bosses would give their right arm for the following testimonials from their staff.

“She is extremely focused, dynamic and very hardworking and she brings these attributes out of her staff when sometimes they do not at first think they have them. She actively seeks to develop others to their maximum potential.

“She is very supportive to staff not only in their work life but also in their personal life if this is required. She is always there to help out wherever she can.

“She makes each individual feel his/her work is important and that they are valued. Lynn is widely trusted, seen as direct and truthful.”

Lynn Tomkins, director of UK operations for Teesside-based sector skills training body Semta, says she couldn’t believe it when her PA Joanne Iceton informed her she was through to the final shortlist in the Executive PA Magazine Awards Boss of the Year – and had to sit down.

Self-effacing Tomkins, who blushes slightly when we talk about her achievement, said: “My first reaction was to wonder what on earth they had written about me.”

Tomkins got even more of a surprise when she picked up the top award from a shortlist of five at gala dinner evening in London late last year.

The shortlist had consisted of four men and the achievement has a certain resonance with the success she has achieved in her working life.

Tomkins, while happy to acknowledge her accomplishments, is far more comfortable talking about what she does rather than who she is.

She has worked at Semta for over 12 years and is now one of the nationwide skills’ bodies most senior members of staff responsible for identifying training needs in some of the UK’s most important sectors.

Semta is one of the UK’s Sector Skills Councils (SSCs), which are employer-led organisations responsible for tackling the skills and productivity needs of industry sectors.

Semta was among the first organisations to gain its licence as an SSC in 2003 and is now one of the largest, representing 76,000 businesses and two million employees throughout the science, engineering and manufacturing sectors.

SSCs aim to increase the competitiveness of the sectors they represent, by providing labour market intelligence, identifying skill needs, and influencing the UK’s education and learning infrastructure to ensure it meets sector demand, while also raising the demand for skills from the employers in the sector.

Semta represents the aerospace, automotive, electrical, electronics, marine, mechanical, metals and bioscience sectors.

In the automotive sector for example, Semta is currently heavily involved in discussions with Nissan and other partners in the North East on establishing the right training framework for the electric battery and car markets.

In 2008 when the bottom fell out of the car market, Semta worked with the car manufacturers on determining skills training programmes to help cope with the downturn, which at one point saw Honda shut down production for three months and concentrate on staff development.

Semta is currently focusing on widening its business to university links to include more smaller companies and is encouraging employers to increase the number of apprenticeships and deliver business improvement techniques.

Tomkins is complimentary of the Government’s current emphasis on encouraging investment in engineering and manufacturing while being realistic enough to accept this is partly as a recoil from the over-reliance on banking in financial services in the noughties.

She says: “The North East is very good at leading the way in advanced manufacturing.

“Companies such as BAE Systems and Nissan have excellent reputations for the quality of the work they produce and the training methods they employ. These types of businesses are really, really important to the region’s future.

“Engineering graduates are very desirable as they are good with figures and adopt logical methods to problem solving.

“In the past many of them would go into finance, but that appears to be less the case nowadays.”

Tomkins has been encouraged by recent figures which show the number of women entering the engineering sector has increased and says this is partly down to the increased prominence given to positive female engineering role models in the school and college curriculums.

She continues: “While there are less than 20% of women in the engineering sector that is not down to men blocking the way to women.

“Women choose their careers elsewhere. I believe women put up their own barriers.

“Women can do the jobs in the sector and the Government has made money available for the sectors where women are under-represented.

“Engineering is a really good place to be – no matter what sex you are.”

Tomkins says her rise to the top in this male-dominated world has been mostly free of gender stereotyping but does recount one occasion when that was not the case.

“I was working late in our Billingham office when a man came to the door saying he’d come to take an electrical regulation exam.

“He’d got the wrong date but when I told him it was next week he was convinced there must have been someone else in the building because there was a good car in the car park.

“He couldn’t comprehend how a woman might be driving a decent car and, even though I was wearing a pin- stripe suit, he still thought I was the cleaner.”

Tomkins reckons being brought up in the no-nonsense North East has prepared her for the world of engineering.

“I am very lucky to come from the North East. I think it makes you tough and you are less likely to notice it.”

Tomkins is a familiar sight in the Westminster corridors of power and works with people at the highest levels of their respective industries on the boards of the eight SSCs.

The automotive SCC, for example, comprises Trevor Mann, Nissan senior vice president for manufacturing Europe, the vice president of Ford Europe, and senior union figures.

It’s a far cry from where she began her working career in an aluminum stockists in Congleton, Cheshire, before progressing on to warehouse manager.

On returning to the North East she joined the SSC for environmental and agricultural employers before joining Semta in 1997.

She is passionate about driving forward the skills agenda.

She says: “There is a need for employers and employees to develop high-level skills and our job is helping empower companies and workers to achieve that.

“Our job is to give specialist planning advice to companies on the qualifications people need to take and advise them on the providers available in their area and what money is available to support them in achieving that.”

Away from work Tomkins sits as a non-executive director on the board of Hexham racecourse and is a part- owner in a couple of horses which are trained at Malton by Peter Niven.

She goes to all of the meetings at the Tyne Valley course, never betting more than £10 on a race, and occasionally getting to watch one of her horses, which are named Little Miss Fuzzle and Golden Future.

The Boss of the Year testimonial and achievements in Tomkins’s career to date reflect her success, and the name of the second of her horses suggests she will be a good bet for success in the years to come.