Women in TapRooT® (W.I.T) – Second Annual Meeting
History of W.I.T.
The high-risk sectors that TapRooT® RCA is built for have been historically male dominated, but the tides are changing. Modern day is seeing an uptick in women in this industry, transforming the field for the better, and creating a new need for groups like Women In TapRooT® (W.I.T.).
Amy Souders, W.I.T. founder, describes her experience with a previous women’s group, saying “I was really pleasantly surprised by being a part of a women’s group. We had a lot of fun together, we learned a lot, and I developed great connections that helped me throughout my career. So when I came here, and I attended our first one or two summits, I noticed there were a lot of female attendees. But I noticed that they were often with other coworkers or maybe on their own at the Summit.”
This was where the idea for W.I.T. was born. “I know how awkward it can be if you go to a conference and you don’t know anyone or you don’t have friends, it can be a little lonely. So I thought about my experience with the previous women’s group and thought, well, that could be a fun thing to start here, too. And so we decided to do it at the last Summit, and it was a small group, but we had a lot of fun!”
Last year’s Global TapRooT® Summit hosted the first ever W.I.T. meeting, officially launching the group as a part of our culture. Souders describes, “It was very informal, a sort of networking, getting to know you event. You can meet some new like minded people who use TapRooT®, enjoy the Summit together, and that’s what we did. We did some networking, had some food, and had a good time.”
Future of W.I.T.
After last year’s success, Souders has a lot of hope for the future of the group, especially now as we approach the second annual meeting of W.I.T. this September. “You can tell just by coming to the Summit year after year that it has become a more diverse group of people attending, and we are hoping to encourage that trend with this Women in TapRooT® group.”
Souders expects that the group will only grow in the future, as more and more companies begin to prioritize a diversity of perspectives in the workplace, and more and more women thus gain a foothold in the industry. “The more women we see get into the industry, the more young women will see this as a career opportunity and can build upon that path.”
Prioritizing a diversity of perspectives does more than create more opportunities; it makes a difference in a workplace’s safety and investigation skill as well. Souders describes the importance of the female perspective specifically, saying, “Women tend to have a lot of empathy, and they tend to be great at getting the details of things, and these can be critical parts of an investigation… Having a different perspective in the middle of an investigation can be extremely important, so it can be vital to include more people and more diversity to this industry.”
Our goal is always to keep the door open for the safety field to grow and change for the better, and W.I.T. is an opportunity for us to do so right now.
Summit 2025
Our second W.I.T. event will take place on Tuesday, September 30, from 5pm to 7pm in the Knoxville Sunsphere. We look forward to welcoming all women who use TapRooT® to enjoy the networking and friendship opportunities this event aims to provide.
“I think it’s a fun event!” Souders says, expressing why Summit attendees should come, “It’s a great way to meet people, a great way to develop some familiar faces in a crowd, so when you’re looking for someone to sit next to at your next session, you have that opportunity, you’ve met someone the night before, and you have a friendly face out there. It’s also a fantastic opportunity to talk to women who have incredible depth in their experience. Even just our TapRooT® instructors have worked in multiple different industries, all over the world, for decades. There’s a wonderful opportunity to learn from people who have been in a similar industry or have been in similar experiences to what an attendee might be experiencing.”
The aim of the group, Souders explains, is to create a space where women can do precisely what the TapRooT® System has always aimed to do: gather expertise from which to learn and grow. “I know our group will always be something where we are supporting TapRooT® users and helping them to connect and learn from other TapRooT® users. Wherever the group is interested in taking it, we are willing to develop it and follow. I’m looking forward to the feedback we get from this year, and I want to continue the group and see what direction it takes us.”
Check out our recent blog article, Witness to Change, to read more about Women In TapRooT® and the changes women are bringing to the Root Cause Analysis industry.
If you are interested in joining Women In TapRooT®, contact Amy Souders at souders@taproot.com.
Click here to learn more about our Global TapRooT® Summit:
