Jessica Rannow, FY17 President of the Society of Women Engineers, moderates a panel on the future of engineering at WE Local Amsterdam with panelists Sue Oliva, VP Customer Services & Support EMEA at Juniper Networks; Aurora Sere-Schneider, Head of Vehicle System Architecture at Continental; Emmanuelle Vervoot-Servens, Sr. Manager Global Operations & Engineering – Industrial Cable Assembly at TE Connectivity; and Joan Wills, Power Systems Technical Executive Director at Cummins.
Moderator:
Jessica Rannow
President, FY17, SWE
Jessica Rannow has had a prominent career in the supply chain industry. She currently is a project manager with AmerisourceBergen, a global pharmaceutical sourcing and distribution services company, where she develops and implements multimillion-dollar supply chain projects. She is currently working on initiatives to track pharmaceutical products through the supply chain to support the Drug Supply Chain Security Act. Throughout her career, she has had the opportunity to work for other influential companies, including JCPenney, Cardinal Health, L Brands, and Cummins.
Rannow’s success has been recognized by the Society of Women Engineers through the Distinguished New Engineer Award in 2009 and the Emerging Leader in Logistics and Procurement Award in 2011. She was named one of Business Insider’s Most Powerful Women Engineers of 2016 and is part of the 2016 Columbus Business First’s Forty Under 40 class.
Since her first year as an industrial engineering student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Rannow has been an involved and active member of SWE. She has served the Society as director of professional excellence, and before that, she held two terms as Region G governor. She has filled many other leadership roles in section, region, and Society levels throughout her more than 20 years of membership.
Rannow lives in a historic district of Columbus, Ohio, with her husband, Jens Griesshammer. She is actively involved in the Columbus community through Junior League of Columbus, Kappa Alpha Theta Columbus Alumnae Chapter, Wisconsin Alumni Association of Central Ohio, Golden Retrievers in Need, German Village Society, and volunteering for the Mid-Ohio Foodbank. She serves on the University of Wisconsin-Madison industrial and systems engineering advisory board.
Panelists:
Sue Oliva
Juniper Networks
VP Customer Services & Support EMEA
Sue joined Juniper Networks in September 2013 as Vice President of Customer Services and Support for EMEA, having previously spent most of her career at Sun Microsystems and more recently at Oracle.
With more than 25 years’ experience in the IT industry in both customer services and sales, Sue is well known and respected for both her knowledge of the IT industry and her business and organizational leadership, and has considerable experience of delivering financial results and operational excellence across geographic boundaries. Recognized for her management style and people-oriented approach, Sue has successfully driven many customer services initiatives and change management activities, motivating teams to strive for continuous improvement and innovation.
Having lived and worked in the USA, UK and France, and managed organizations of over 2000 employees across EMEA, Sue has proven herself an accomplished leader in an international environment, focusing on employee motivation and customer delight as key drivers of financial success.She has also been very active in sponsoring the advancement of women in the IT sector, driving communities, encouraging career development and acting as a mentor. Sue has a BA Honours degree in Management Studies and French from Leeds University, England and currently resides in France.
Aurora Sere-Schneider
Head of Vehicle System Architecture
Continental
Since December 2014, Aurora has served as the head of Technological Development at Continental Corporation, managing and leading the Architecture Department to drive the development of future systems and technology concepts. Aurora represents the future mobility architectures within Continental and engages the customers and suppliers. She also adapts the Continental vehicle system architecture approach to new customers and the changing market. Furthermore, she is involved with many cross-unit information exchanges between departments to identify actionable areas and simultaneously supervises 28 employees. Prior to her current position, she spent time as Manager of Business Development within Conti Temic Microelectronic GmbH — a subdivision of Continental Corporation. Aurora planned and coordinated projects for defining product diversification. Aurora is a native of Romania and trained at the Technical University Traian Vuia in Romania, where she specialized in Applied Electronics and Industrial Robotics. She is a citizen of Germany, residing in Nuremburg, and participates in badminton, jogging, and yoga. She also enjoys learning about emotional intelligence and systemic literature.
Emmanuelle Vervoot-Servens
Sr. Manager Global Operations & Engineering – Industrial Cable Assembly
TE Connectivity
In May 2016, Emmanuelle was appointed Sr. Manager Global Operations & Engineering for the Industrial Cable and Cable Assembly Organization of TE Connectivity. In this role, she is responsible for driving process and organizational improvements to gain speed and flexibility in Operations and Engineering and support growth plans for our Cable Assembly business.
She is also Chairwoman of the EMEA Communication Committee of the TE Women in Networking (WIN) as well as actively engaged in the TE Inclusion & Diversity initiatives. Emmanuelle was born in France and she studied Polymer Chemistry at the University of Bordeaux. In 1990, she moved to The Netherlands and graduated from the University of Liege in Belgium. She joined AMP in 1995 as Materials Engineer, after completing her post-graduate degree in Materials Science from Eindhoven University of Technology in The Netherlands. In 1999, she started at FCI (now Amphenol) where she enjoyed various positions – from Materials Engineer, Global Sourcing Manager Resins to Project Manager. In 2010, she (re)-joined TE Connectivity (previously AMP) as Sr. Project Manager. In 2012 she was promoted to Global Engineering Manager for the Datacomm Division. Emmanuelle and her husband Paul have 3 kids (11, 51 and 18). Besides work, she enjoys wine tasting & cooking, skiing and playing musical.
Joan Wills
Power Systems Technical Executive Director
Cummins
Joan is currently Power Systems Technical Executive Director leading product development and support for Cummins Power Systems and engine system products ranging from 38L to 91L in engine displacement covering a power range of 850kW to 2.75MW. Joan also leads Technology Planning and Component Business technical collaboration across the Global Power Systems Technical Organization, sponsors site leadership for UK and Charleston-based Power Systems sites and is Program Leader or Sponsor for VPI programs moving 19L to 78L products to Tier4 Final emission regulations.
Previously, Joan has held roles as Chief Engineer and Program leader for Cummins range of TierIV High-Horsepower engines. Joan led Technology Strategy and Planning for Cummins working for the Chief Technology Officer and with global Technical Leaders to set long-term technical investment direction. In her early career, she spent 14 years developing and leading the development of control systems for automotive applications including diagnostic and control algorithms for various subsystems of diesel and spark-ignited engines. She has developed controls and diagnostics for engine and aftertreatment systems including an initial introduction of key diesel aftertreatment technologies. She holds 19 US patents for her work in developing diesel aftertreatment controls and diagnostics, the technology which is currently in use in products multiple products. She currently serves as invited Ambassador for the US Department of Energy C3E (Women in Clean Energy) initiative as well as being an active member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Futures Council on Energy.
Joan lives in Columbus, Indiana, with her husband and 5 children ages 6 to 16 yrs. In her free time she enjoys running, cooking, gardening, coaching youth soccer and spending time outside with her family.
As a technical leader Joan has a track record of seeking out the most difficult and meaningful issues then assembling and enabling diverse teams to solve these challenges. As a member of the SWE Panel on “Beyond Robots and Jetpacks: The Next Decade of Engineering” Joan will share thoughts on future opportunities in the engineering field, possible trends we should be ready for as engineers and leaders as well as thoughts on attracting and developing diverse talent and forming capable teams to solve our toughest future engineering challenges.
