Q: What advice would you give to a woman wanting to pursue a career in STEM2D? A: Don’t ever give up and grow your mindset. Just continue doing what you love and don’t pay too much attention to the ones saying you are not able or good enough to pursue this career. Find a group of people that can support you mentally and coach you technically. Pursuing a career on this area, means you have chosen to work on a challenging problem, you are pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone as you are open to discover and explore it. Then all you need is to persist and put more thought into it.

Q: Why do you believe it’s important to have more women working in STEM2D? A: The gender Parity cause and inclusion of the creativity thinking and know how that women brings at the discovery phases. A story that happened with me, it was when my manager asked me to provide a feedback about a new product development: a panty liner. Certainly, I found a strange question, but soon I discover on the research and development of this product no women were involved on the project team. Another nice example is the seat bells story when they were invented. Seat bells were modelled based on single attributes of men. As a consequence, several women and children had severe accidents. This was the result as their physicality was not considered.

Q: What is it within STEM2D that you find fascinating? A: The intellectual curiosity and the willingness individuals have to learn and explore a problem solution thru experimenting and the ability to overcome and adjust on its ideas to make a successful different in the society where they operate. Fail Fast and Learn Cheap is what fascinates me.

Q: What inspired you to pursue a career within the STEM2D field? A: My early education on STEM environment and Indiana Jones movies ? I was “born” in a chemistry lab, where with 4 years I got my first chemistry kit. At 6years old I attend my mother’s PHD, I have to say I got a bit scared when I watched it, and probably the reason I didn’t pursue a degree on this specific area. At the primary school I visited often science museums, where the appetited increase at the stage I visit an exposition about paleontology and human evolution. After gathering further inspiration from Indiana jones movies, I had the passion to pursue research, as the “why” question is my driver to identify and explore innovative solutions still on my current working environment

Q: Please share your background, current role and career path thus far A: I have more than 15 years of experience in retailer and Fast-moving consumer goods industry. I worked in a variety of roles since joining Johnson & Johnson in areas such as planning, ERP system integrations, and Business Process Owner of Demand Planning and S&OP. Currently, I’m working actively in a manufacturing function, in Innovation and Analytics, where I have a fundamental role in defining the analytics partnership and integrating further to living a culture of Innovation empowering people to prototyping and experiment ideas to create value in Johnson & Johnson. My career started in my native city of Lisbon in Portugal, pursuing new challenges in Milano and Cremona in Italy, where she covered roles in accounting, customer service, and Project Manager for Integrated Business Planning. Master’s degree in Business Management and Public Administration, I am currently located in Zug, Switzerland; with her husband and 2 children.