#ItoWomen – Amy’s Story
From climate change science to sustainable transport – Amy Bridge’s story of how personal passions led to a role in transport tech
Amy Bridge is Head of Customer Success at Ito World, leading teams in their delivery of innovative transit data and software solutions globally. For Amy, project delivery is as much about maximising every opportunity to deliver measurable ‘real world’ passenger benefits as it is about ticking the contractual requirements of the project.
As one of the 25% of Ito World employees who are women, Amy is part of a growing group of women in tech and transport businesses that are clearly mission driven – helping to create inclusive solutions for all users of public transport.
Operating in the male-dominated universe of technology, data, and transport, Amy has shared her story as part of #ItoWomen, the company’s latest initiative, to showcase the career paths and histories of women across its teams. The aim is to help inspire more women to move into STEM-based careers, and to promote a more balanced and inclusive workforce.
“I was drawn into the world of sustainable transport right at the start of my career, from a personal passion and scientific background in climate change.
“On the face of it, people might not associate transport with climate change as strongly as they do other factors, but it accounts for around one-fifth of global carbon dioxide emissions. Transport is critical to us all – almost without exception, everyone travels in one way or another, or needs goods transported to them, even if only for short distances.
“How we do this has a fundamental impact on our environment and on public health. Working in the transport industry offers a real opportunity to effect significant positive change in this regard – and that’s really where I developed my strong passion for it from.”
On graduating from university, Amy joined a charity organisation promoting sustainable transport use. It was here she developed a strong understanding of the UK public transport system, which in turn helped her land a role in a transport management company providing back-office solutions. Amy’s career became increasingly technical in nature, and over time transitioned to data and software related roles, despite having no formal tech training.
Amy’s deep transport insight and knowledge, combined with a passion for getting people out of cars and onto more active and sustainable modes of transport ultimately brought her to Ito World. At Ito World, Amy uses her technical understanding of the product design and architecture, coding, and testing to mediate across departments from engineering to design to delivery – and ultimately ensure successful project outcomes.
“I absolutely love working at Ito, I couldn’t be any prouder to work here. In previous companies I’ve worked at, there were no women in the tech teams, even amongst a group of 30 or 40 colleagues. It is really refreshing at Ito to have as many women as we do, and to have the level of focus and commitment to diversity from the company as a whole. Everyone’s voice is genuinely valued at Ito World, and I have not always encountered that elsewhere.”
Diversity isn’t just important for internal morale and innovation, but equally so to the partners and clients Ito undertakes projects with. One of the large-scale projects Amy has been leading on is the Bus Open Data Service (BODS), a collaboration between Ito World, the Department for Transport, and KPMG UK.
Amy has been working closely with the project leads from both organisations – both of whom are also women – and together they have built a highly diverse project team, in every respect of the word, which all three leaders value immensely and believe adds strength to the delivery.
As Amy notes, “The services we build – ultimately – are serving the general public. By having diverse delivery teams, we naturally weave in constant considerations for everyone’s needs throughout all aspects of the project in a way that is hard to compensate for otherwise. Not only is this the right thing to do, but the projects are much more successful in their outcomes as a result too.”