With the 2019 backdrop of K trade Fair in Düsseldorf, Women in Plastics sat down with Denise Beachy, Global Business Vice President, Performance Solutions, DuPont Transportation & Industrial (T&I).
Denise has had an exceptional career, covering diverse fields from healthcare to transportation. Having accelerated through a typically male-orientated industry she shares her insights with us. We discuss her experience with role models, mentoring and how she navigated her dynamic career from Michigan to London, to Switzerland and now in Wilmington, Delaware.
Appointed over six months ago, Denise’s current role sees her managing the global and regional business organisations for the Healthcare, Adhesives, Lubricants & Fluids and Parts speciality portfolio at DuPont.
Her longstanding career, spanning over 20 years, began at Dow Corning, a silicone company. For five years she ran the microbiology quality assurance lab, at a plant that was making finished medical devices for the healthcare sector.
Denise admits “I would struggle a little bit at the beginning due to the fact that I was a biochemist living in a world dominated by chemical engineers."
As Denise was competing with chemical engineers, chemists and those with finance backgrounds she says, “there were a lot of managers, in fact most of them thought I would never leave the plant.”
With no intention to become the CEO of a company, she explains: “I knew that I could do more.”
“Having her endorsement and support was really critical”
Female or male role models can be vital in progressing your career.
Denise recalls two female role models and “a couple of men” who have been instrumental in defining her career.
The first, halfway through her career, was the head of manufacturing at Dow Corning. "For her to be a woman in that role already was very unusual."
She wanted Denise to work on the manufacturing side of the organisation instead of the commercial side. “We had a big debate because she said we really need women in manufacturing and you’re a great leader. I think you could do this.”
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Although Denise chose to stay on the customer side of the business: “having her endorsement and support was really critical.”
The second was a former CEO at Dow Corning for 10 years.
She got the CEO position in a very unusual way, Denise tells me.
At the time the company was experiencing issues related to silicone breast implants they had produced. As a result, the CEO needed a colleague with technical expertise to help him.
As a result, “she jumped two levels in the organisation when he retired, and it never would have happened if we hadn't had this issue.”
This proves “she was always capable but getting the exposure like that was vital. She then took the company in 10 years through a tremendous growth trajectory.”
Denise held various management positions within the Dow Corning enterprise, including global key customer manager for Dow Corning’s Life Sciences Industry for its Unilever account in London. Following that she spent three years leading Dow Corning’s Natural Resources Product Line and was business vice-president for Dow Corning’s Strategic Feedstocks business.
Before moving to Dow and DuPont, Denise was appointed President and Chairman at Hemlock Semiconductor Group. A fellow peer challenged the decision: “I was supposed to have this job.”
Denise says: “By that point I had proven myself enough that I didn't have to force myself in. I didn't have to push, I started to get pulled.”
“We need the diversity of thought to break through the problems and to come up with solutions”
During her time at Hemlock Semiconductor Group, Denise decided to begin mentoring as a way of giving back. By doing so she became the executive sponsor for the Dow Corning Women's Network.
“I've learned that it's absolutely critical for us to identify women that are motivated and really want to do more in their careers. And we are trying to sort out how we make connections with them to help them through these ceilings or paradigms that we face in the industry.”
Her advice? “When I’m mentoring, I advise women, especially early in their career, to just think five years ahead because sometimes it gets overwhelming.”
The “middle career” period
Following the creation of the new DuPont, the company is in the process of creating new initiatives and focusing on diversity and inclusion.
“If we can put programs into place that are thinking differently about how we manage people through the different periods of their careers, you're actually creating a better environment for all of the employees.”
“But we specifically need to focus on the mid-career period because we can hire and bring people in from the top, but we still have a gap in the middle and you see it so clearly when you look at the numbers.”
“I remember clearly people saying if you leave when you have children you're never going to get back in and it's not true.”
Unconscious bias can often play a role in making assumptions about women at certain points in their career that can select them out, such as when relocating. It's possible to advance professionally even if women are not mobile geographically at those moments in their careers.
Denise was able to overcome this obstacle as she chose to make it clear she was willing to travel and take international assignments, although it was a discussion she had to “force.”
With a lack of recognition around notably women in the industry this could be detrimental to attracting the next generation of female talent.
“The pool of women going into these fields from a University standpoint is already disproportionate.”
Denise adds the influence needs to start earlier in education, and as early as 13-14 years old: “What subjects are they taking and are they selecting themselves out already, because they don’t see a place for themselves?”
Denise concludes: “We're recruiting actively and have been successful. But I think we're missing it still in the middle career, even though we're actively promoting. I say that for the industry, and I think DuPont is representative of the industry.”
