A TEENAGE girl from Newport was given the opportunity to be the chief executive of McLaren Automotive for International Day of the Girl.

Maisy, 17, was invited to be chief executive for McLaren for a day on Monday, October 11 through the company's partnership with children’s rights charity Plan International.

The company said it hoped Maisy's day as chief executive will help to encourage young people, especially young women, to work in the science and technology industry.

Maisy led her executive team in strategic decisions and collaborating with many of the company’s female business leaders, engineers, scientists, and designers.

She was told every aspect of the process of designing, engineering, building and marketing supercars and helped to hand-build a McLaren supercar, by putting the badge on a McLaren Artura.

Maisy also met brand ambassador Amanda McLaren at a new 'McLaren: Driven by Design' exhibition at Brooklands Museum which features a full-scale LEGO 720S supercar, before seeing some of McLaren’s top secret future supercar designs and taking a passenger test run in a McLaren GT.

Maisy said: "My day as chief executive of McLaren Automotive was full of incredible moments but being part of building a supercar was amazing, and that’s not something many people can say.

"Plan International is about smashing stereotypes, changing attitudes, and unlearning lessons because a lot of girls think they should be playing with dolls and not cars, and that’s not right.

"This partnership between McLaren Automotive and Plan International is inspiring young women to consider STEM careers and achieve their full potential."

This was part of International Day of the Girl which seeks to celebrate young women in power but also to challenge the discrimination and prejudice that are still barriers for women to succeed.

This year, the theme for International Day of the Girl is to challenge false information online.

Plan International commissioned a poll of 1,000 11 to 18-year-old girls in the UK that shows 25 per cent of young girls have wanted to try out a science, technology, engineering, and maths (STEM) subject or job but have either been told it is for boys, were worried about being negatively judged, or were unsure since they only saw boys doing it in the media.

They also found that 47 per cent of those polled have heard through media, friends, or family that ‘girls are not good at STEM’.

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Mike Flewitt, chief executive of McLaren Automotive, said: "Having Maisy take over as chief executive of McLaren for the day to celebrate International Day of the Girl has been both an enjoyable and valuable experience for me and the whole McLaren team.

"Her ideas, insights and intelligence – as well as clear passion - will help us move forwards even faster on our efforts to achieve even greater diversity and inclusion. 

"Maisy also got to see the incredibly exciting and diverse range of talents we depend on to produce our supercars and I hope, in the process, she has helped to dispel stereotypes associated with the automotive industry from a gender and skills perspective.

"Our work with Plan International is for the long-term and I’m delighted that one of the key decisions Maisy led on as chief executive was our pledge to work with Plan International on McLaren’s commitment to holding workshops with 100 girls over the next 12 months, scaling up to 1,000 globally by 2025 to encourage greater take-up of STEM careers.

"That is a legacy Maisy and everyone at McLaren can be very proud of."