What does TI’s Cecelia Smith have in common with veteran astronaut Dr. Ellen Ochoa?
Aside from being successful leaders in their workplaces, they are also advocates for diversity and inclusion and role models for girls and women pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).
The duo served as keynote speakers at a Catalystbusiness forum on Tuesday, June 16, at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD). They shared their thoughts about how TI and NASA are promoting inclusive environments and making them stronger by valuing the diversity of employees.
Cecelia, vice president and general manager of our Mixed Signal Automotive (MSA) business, says inclusion is about making every employee count and giving them opportunities to develop.
“When you build a team where every person counts, you will fuel innovation, create a culture of execution excellence, and improve financial performance,” she said during the two-hour session, titled “Disrupt the STEM default: Fueling innovation through inclusion.”
TI and Catalyst hosted the event to help leaders from companies find new ways to attract and retain more women in STEM careers. Speakers shared strategies, successful initiatives and personal experiences for driving innovation and business results through inclusive leadership. The event also included several panelists from Dell and the NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC).
Catalyst is a worldwide nonprofit organization whose mission is to expand opportunities for women and business.
Breaking down barriers
Cecelia is proof that barriers are breaking down for women in the workplace. And she credits companies like TI for leading by example with strong ethics and values such as integrity and commitment to respecting others.
“The words matched the actions of those I interviewed with,” she said of a job interview at TI 20 years ago.
Cecelia started working at TI in 1995 as a systems engineer. She previously worked as an applications engineer for a company in California, where managers told her she was not the right person for a supervisor role that she was vying for. Cecelia learned that the managers were afraid she was going to get pregnant, have another child, and leave the company.
“I was a working mother of one, and we were planning on a second child. This experience got me thinking about leaving engineering and doing something different,” she said.
Then she heard about an opportunity at TI for a systems engineer and thought it sounded like a great fit.
There was one potential complication: “I was seven months pregnant. After what I had been through, I was sure they weren’t going to hire me and I didn’t want to waste everyone’s time,” she said.
So, in full disclosure, she told TI she was seven months pregnant. The hiring manager was still interested, saying TI simply wanted the best and brightest people working on the toughest problems. He encouraged Cecelia to come to Dallas for an interview.
“During that interview process, I saw how TI strives to create an environment where each person can succeed,” she said. “TI had all the things I wanted in a company.”
Today, Cecelia does her part to create an inclusive environment in her organization by “leading from the front,” which means communicating her expectations of her team, being personally accountable for assessing every employee’s strengths, and finding ways to help them grow.
“I want to find out what each person brings to the table, tap into our high-potential candidates, and understand what each person’s specialty is,” she said. “I want to give them assignments that excite them, help them stretch and test their potential.”
See Cecelia's Keynote Address at the Catalyst business forum:
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Diversity of thought
Both Cecelia and her keynote counterpart, Ellen Ochoa, director of the NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC), both talked about how teams made up of people with different backgrounds are more likely to come up with different solutions.
“Different perspectives and world views allow for innovative solutions that any one thinker would be challenged to come up with,” Ellen said.
As the first Hispanic woman to go to space, the astronaut talked briefly about her career at NASA and the agency’s plans to take people to Mars.
She focused her remarks on the center’s practices for inclusion, such as benchmarking with companies like TI, establishing an Inclusion & Innovation Council for top leaders, and starting employee resource groups and training programs for employees and managers. As part of these efforts, managers have been asked to examine their own biases.
“We want to make sure we are a strong, successful organization well into the future – which means attracting and retaining great talent,” she said. “Innovation is important to JSC. We need innovative solutions and need to get the most out of every employee. We compete for jobs with big aerospace firms and really need to be a very attractive employer to get the kind of talent we need.”
Sam Dwinell, vice president in Human Resources at TI, said the company was honored to work with Catalyst and collaborate on the event.
“This was a chance to talk about what’s working for these great companies. People are achieving results in the diversity and inclusion space with a variety of strategies – some big, like company-wide initiatives, and some small, like the day-to-day actions of passionate leaders,” Sam said.
Fran Dillard, director of Diversity and Inclusion at TI, added: “It means a lot to bring these businesses and leaders together to have a very important discussion. At TI, we believe we can play a vital role in diversity and inclusion at STEM companies.”