WINNER | Simran Mohnani
SIMRAN AIMS TO BE A ROLE MODEL FOR OTHERS
Chemical engineer turned climate intrapreneur, Simran Mohnani hopes her MBA will provide young women interested in engineering and innovation with a role model as she aims to tackle the world’s biggest challenge – climate change.
Simran, 28, is one of the latest cohort of young engineers to be awarded a Sainsbury Management Fellows scholarship to study for an MBA at one of the world’s leading business schools – Stanford Graduate School of Business.
As a young Maltese-Indian girl, Simran fell for the stereotype that engineering was not for women, having not had access to role models that matched her background and passion for large-scale innovation.
It was only while on an overseas STEM educational trip that her interest in this field was first sparked – a decision that has led to a first-class Chemical Engineering degree from the University of Bath, an ambassadorial role with One Young World and a career at Deloitte working at the intersection of business, engineering and sustainability.
“Growing up, my favourite subjects were Chemistry and Mathematics. As were most women who excelled in science, I was pushed towards more ‘caring’ careers, such as medicine. I didn’t have any role models in engineering so it just wasn’t on my radar.
“But while at high school in Malta, I won a competition to represent my country at the London International Youth Science Forum, which focused on science as an innovation and economic progressor across borders. I remember being immersed in labs making artificial blood, generating hydrogen from algal biomass, and utilising carbon capture facilities within the Department of Chemical Engineering at Imperial College London. This was my ‘lightbulb’ moment – Chemical Engineering could enable me to apply my love for biochemical processes to bring innovative solutions to society at large. I flew home and immediately changed my UCAS applications.”
After graduating, Simran has worked across a number of projects at Deloitte, including designing bioreactors for cultured meat to reducing waste at the Cadbury chocolate factory and working on the rollout of a Covid-19 vaccine at Deloitte.
Simran added: “Working on a project as big as the vaccine rollout made me realise the transformative change I could have even as a junior engineer rather than just being a cog in a machine.
“Building paperless factories for accelerated vaccine production unlocked my passion for sustainable manufacturing, led to me managing the circular manufacturing team across EMEA, and made me realise I wanted to be part of tackling social and environmental injustices at the systems level; being part of a collective to build a better world.”
Simran will be using her scholarship to study at Stanford University in the US, after first thinking about pursuing an MBA three years ago. She is particularly keen on picking up new skills around finance, investment and enterprise – with a focus on advancing cleantech (climate hardware) solutions through academic spinouts.
“As chemical engineers we can do a lot of good,” Simran said. “Like giving people access to clean water and keeping people safe across the planet.
“The climate crisis is really a ‘people’ crisis, and now more than ever it is a ‘survival’ crisis. We need to bring the public sector, private sector and finance together to tackle these issues.
“I’ve personally witnessed the effects of rising sea levels in the Mediterranean and the disproportionate impact on women’s education in times of catastrophe. As a brown, female engineer this has translated to working at the forefront of innovation in combatting our world’s biggest crisis – climate change – while in parallel advocating to close the gender STEM skills gap.
“I’m hopeful I can be part of the change to challenge stereotypes and get more people like me in STEM.
“Innovating across R&D, manufacturing and consulting has enabled me to see the extent to which UK engineering and business are entwined in scaling climate tech – with the government itself admitting that one of our biggest net-zero blockers is a lack of capital towards climate deeptech. We need people who understand the science, business, and tech angles to increasingly be at the forefront of our economic decisions. This is what has motivated me why I have been motivated to study for an MBA: to learn the financial frameworks behind taking green inventions to market competitively, at pace and at scale.
“The International Energy Agency has said we have all the solutions we need to reach Net Zero by 2050 – but almost half are stuck in the early-stage prototype or demo phase.
“Investment into climate tech has tripled since 2021, so we now need to spin these innovations out commercially. The question is: How do we get from research to demo to development to demonstration to deployment?
“I remember the first time I found out that 50% of my island could be lost due to climate change. I want to be a part of saving that.
“It has never been more key to accelerate cross-Atlantic collaborations in mobilising joint climate action and Global North capital flow towards the Global South. For me, the MBA will be about developing a high-potential network of our future CEOs, policymakers and entrepreneurs that I can leverage in combatting humanity’s biggest crisis, bridging the gap between the success of climate academic spinouts in the US and current shortfalls in the UK, and scaling the greentech businesses of tomorrow.”
Find out more about the Sainsbury Management Fellows’ Scholarship.