(284b) Beyond the Technology: All the Stuff I Wish I Would Have Known Sooner

As one often reflects on a career, it is common to make the statement, “I wish I would have known that sooner.” As scientists and engineers a great deal of effort is put in place to be excellent technically, for obvious and necessary reasons. Yet often when a “failure”, or better put a “learning” occurs, it frequently is not the technology that failed. As a leader it is critical to navigate yourself and your team through these “failures” and persevere and learn from them. The first important step in that process of learning is to spend time introspecting to diagnose the failure and then be humble enough to admit the root cause, which is often not the technology in which we have spent years becoming an expert in. As part of the privilege of being named the AIChE Management Division award winner, the winner will give a presentation highlighting several of these beyond the technology learnings and failures in hopes that they can be leveraged to help the audience along their leadership journey.