Bentley’s studio design manager on pride in the workplace

Tom Dawes is a design manager in Bentley’s Studio Engineering team, fulfilling a dream held since the age of five as he idolised the R129 Mercedes-Benz SL. As well as translating designers’ dreams into feasible road cars, he fills his time – often out of hours – with the Bentley BeProud employee network which he co-founded in 2020. We chatted to him ahead of Petrol & Pride, a vibrant new event at the British Motor Museum on July 25th which he and his Bentley colleagues are supporting.

Car Design News: Tell us about your journey into car design.

Tom Dawes: It was my dream all the way through school to work in car design. I was equally interested in the art and engineering sides of it, so the challenge was to find my niche that accommodated both elements. I joined Bentley on industrial placement in 2014. I spent my first eight years in the engineering team delivering bumpers, which gave me real background in getting a car from sketch to production. It’s also an area of the car with high visual impact, so I was really immersed in studio design. My perfect niche lay within the Studio Engineering team, which is where I've been for over two years. We act as the bridge between design and engineering; my job is to make sure that design visions translate to the road.

CDN: How does the current evolution of the car affect your role?

TD: The legislative roadmap for cars is a moving feast, especially as we transition into the era of BEVs and autonomous driving. Driver assistance systems are always a big topic for design – how we harmoniously integrate cameras, radars and sensors into the car in a way that looks as pleasing as possible. We want complete surface harmony, to not take away the character of the car, but equally we've got to get these elements in. An example of Bentley’s response [to evolving technology] is our rotating interior display which acts as our digital detox. Bentley has amazing heritage and it's about celebrating it in a way that takes all the things that are truly important to our customers, and make Bentley what it is, while moving them forward.

CDN: Bentley is equally forward-facing with its DEI approach; does this contribute to the creative process?

TD: It’s one thing having a diverse team but what we really need is people having the courage to speak up and bring forward their ideas. A lot of what BeProud tries to do – just like the other networks and our broader DEI strategy – is around unlocking the potential of people we have. We've got 4500 people at Bentley and about 650 of those are actively engaged in the five colleague networks we've currently got, with a lot of intersectionality between those. BeProud has given people the opportunity to feel like they can truly be themselves at work and volunteer their ideas rather than hold back because they're concerned about judgement. One colleague said something really lovely to me as we attended Manchester Pride last year – that being in the network “changed me from being someone that I thought I had to be, to being someone I really am”. It’s everything we could have hoped to achieve with BeProud.

CDN: How important is BeProud to Bentley employees at the moment?

TD: We know there's still a need to support people in the community. And not just because of the way things currently are; lots of people that work for Bentley are still affected by events in the past: growing up in school, the AIDS crisis in the eighties and nineties. A lot of people still carry shame or a defensive feeling, which is what we're trying to help unlock. Right now, certain parts of the LGBTQ+ community are having a really tough time, but I remain hopeful. We've got the full support of our board on making sure that our colleagues feel valued and feel a sense of belonging when they come to work in Crewe. We've had five years of BeProud and I'm really excited to see where we are in another five years.

CDN: Do your networks encourage employees to work (or stay) at Bentley?

TD: The network is stronger than ever. Benjamin McCormick, who now co-chairs with me, joined as an apprentice. BeProud was one of the things that really encouraged him to stay at Bentley. My experience in school was of people turning away from me because I'm a gay man, so I went into the work environment with a defence in place. I wasn’t ‘out’ during my first year at Bentley. In fact, there was an InterEngineering report around the same time that said around half of the wider engineering sector who are LGBTQ+ were not out at work. Some colleagues who have marched at Pride with us say “today has changed my life”. That's exactly what we'd hoped – that people have that moment that flips a switch so they're able to be themselves.