Today – March 8 – is International Women’s Day. This global day honors the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women.
As part of the celebration, we’re highlighting just a few of the outstanding women who bring excellence every day to their work with ARO and the Precision & Science Technologies (PST) group at Ingersoll Rand.
What do you enjoy most about your role?
I love that I get to mitigate issues for our customers by driving quick resolution to their immediate pain points and planning for long term solutions to their problems with the help of my colleagues in Engineering. I get to dive into the Voice of the Customer data to find opportunities for improvement to our products. I am also able to be the voice of quality in our New Product Development to ensure that quality is built into every piece of our new launch development process.
Describe your career path and how you arrived in this role.
I am a chemical engineer by degree and spent 8 years in various production and operations management roles within the chemical manufacturing industry for both commodity chemicals and specialty chemicals. I then transitioned to a regional Quality Manager role within the chemicals industry followed by a stint in the medical device component industry. Every position I’ve held has allowed me to grow in the skillsets that made me successful in the roles to follow.
How has your time with ARO helped you grow, personally or professionally?
I am not a manager or supervisor in my current role, so I have had to work at influencing my peers and those above me to believe in the quality initiatives I have pushed for. This has taught me that buy-in is key and can make or break any successful project.
What advice do you have for underrepresented groups and early talent?
Treat your peers, subordinates, and managers as the adult humans they are – meaning have grace for their mistakes because they are human but also treat them with respect and see their potential by setting the bar high enough for them that you make them better people when they meet or exceed your expectations.
What do you enjoy most about your role?
Every day is a surprise, with no routine and many existing challenges.
Describe your career path and how you arrived in this role.
I started my professional career in 1996 at the Ford Motor Company at the age of 16 as office clerk and by 2002 was nominated as a product analyst for their R&D and marketing areas. Ten years later, I moved to the DuPont Corporation for performance coatings and agriculture solutions in operations areas and later in product strategy & marketing. In 2012, I moved to Case New Holland as a product manager for Latin America for agricultural equipment. I joined Ingersoll Rand in 2018 as the Latin America Product Manager for the PST/ARO business.
How has your time with ARO helped you grow, personally or professionally?
Building trusted relationships among Ingersoll Rand groups has helped me to deliver high quality project deliverables. I also have learned that small details can drive improvement professionally, as well as in our personal lives.
What advice do you have for underrepresented groups and early talent?
Respect, Honesty, Commitment, and Passion. Everything done with these four ingredients is realized. There might be big stones on the roads, but little by little we can learn how to overcome them and make our way more smooth so that we can achieve our main goals at the end of the road.
What do you enjoy most about your role?
Storytelling – I might be one of the only people who enjoys organizing and analyzing 20,000 lines of data to find a couple big insights that can make a difference in our business. I love using the creative part of my brain to fast forward the audience through the learning path and share those insights discovered to tell the story in a visually compelling way to all the people who might not like data as much as I do.
Describe your career path and how you arrived in this role.
I started with ARO as a marketing intern in college. When the recession hit in 2008, I took a full time role as a global marketing analyst at Owens-Illinois just as they were beginning their journey of building a marketing competency in a manufacturing focused company. As result of that timing, I gained executive leadership interaction, a broad-based marketing experience, exposure to global teams, and Lean Six Sigma certification. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to return to the ARO culture so when they had an analyst role open up, I made my way back to Bryan, Ohio. Shortly after, I gained the pricing leader piece of my hybrid role given my analytical skills and LSS background to guide process improvement.
How has your time with ARO helped you grow, personally or professionally?
From a straight developmental perspective, my pricing role took me out of my comfort zone but taught me to take a logical approach to decision making and have a strong back bone, because let’s face it – a lot of difficult conversations happen in pricing but need to happen to ensure we maintain profitability.
I think the single most important learning in my time with ARO has been the value of culture – I’ve worked multiple places and never experienced culture like we have at ARO. People are committed to the team and when you know people feel accountable for doing the right thing for the business rather than the easiest option or best solution for them, it is a game changer! That culture also fostered a collaborative approach to analytics, combining the actual data with the veteran experience within ARO for far more impactful insights and decisions. We can build a story with data but tapping the knowledge on our team helps us to color it in and this is the first time I have been able to experience that level of partnership.
What advice do you have for underrepresented groups and early talent?
You are the sole manager for your career development – it is far more important and a much higher priority to you than to anyone else. I don’t mean to give the impression that other people don’t care about your development because I think at ARO, of all places, people really do care, but it isn’t going to be a top of mind priority for anyone but yourself. Don’t wait to be thought of for a role or opportunities to be brought to you. Build a network, have conversations, find a mentor, always say yes to training, take pride in your work, gain as much experience as possible – whatever works for you! Take ownership and blaze your path.
What do you enjoy most about your role?
Solving problems with my team. Defining our strategy. Creating value for our customers. Execution, execution, execution!
Describe your career path and how you arrived in this role.
I am an engineer by training and worked in a technical role at Intel. I switched to a more commercial role while still in the high-tech sector, then found a strategic planning opportunity at ITT. The company moved me to ITT-China where I was fortunate to develop General Management experience in the industrial sector and build international business experience.
How has your time with ARO helped you grow, personally or professionally?
The company has exposed me to a wide variety of challenges in flow technology markets. The PST conglomerate has multiple business units serving many market segments with a diversified product portfolio. It is very rare for a GM in any organization to get complete exposure to the business. By giving me full P&L responsibility (covering sales, marketing, engineering, operations, and supply chain), PST has helped me develop the comprehensive range of skills needed to be a business leader.
What advice do you have for underrepresented groups and early talent?
As a woman and as a minority, my advice to underrepresented groups and early talent is: