Series 11 – Episode 5 – Working to engineer a better world

Almond was recently announced as the new Chief Executive and Secretary (CES) of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET).

He has worked at the IET for 21 years, having held the position of Director of Finance since 2006 and becoming interim CES last summer following Nigel Fine’s retirement.

He is an IET Fellow and takes on the IET as a world-leading membership and learned society, driving forward its charitable purpose to engineer a better world and growing a worldwide membership of 155,000 people across 148 countries.

The IET is a world leading professional membership organisation aiming to inspire, inform and influence the global engineering and technology community, as well as wider society.

It supports and develops engineers throughout all stages of their career, aims to influence industry to embed engineering excellence and professionalism into everything they do and works to inspire the next generation of engineers.

“Anyone who is interested in science, engineering or technology is welcome to join us, you can just visit the website and it’s a relatively easy signup.”

On his appointment, Almond said: “It is a tremendous pleasure for me to take on this role to lead the IET – it is a fantastic organisation and as a diverse home for engineering and technology, I know the importance of sharing our knowledge to help make better sense of the world and solve the challenges that matter.

“I’m really looking forward to continuing to work with our diverse network of members, volunteers, and colleagues, building on our many achievements and further establishing the IET as a leading voice within the engineering and technology community and to wider society.

“My focus for this year includes driving forward our influence, knowledge and expertise to show the role that engineering and technology plays in the future of our society and planet, specifically in solving societal challenges.” 

In this podcast, Almond talks about routes into engineering, whether that’s an apprenticeship or via university, some of the ways the IET is encouraging the younger generation into STEM and what he’s most looking forward to in his new role.

To hear more about engineering a better world and much more, you can listen to Electronic Specifier’s interview with Ed Almond on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.