In this podcast, I speak with Emily Nichols. She is a professional engineer with two technical degrees and more than 15 years of experience in manufacturing and innovation, on the shop floor, in management, and as a consultant. But, technical skills are only part of her story. Emily’s workshops on leadership, communication, and creativity have been enthusiastically received in North America and South Africa.
Throughout the podcast, Emily talks about a key issue – speaking up, but she doesn’t just mean having your voice heard at the table. Emily speaks about the importance of having a voice in different ways such as communicating with those you work with and why human skills such as empathy and connection matter so much in problem-solving. She also speaks about how important it is to speak up and educate the marketplace around the importance of having diversity from a support perspective and a technical perspective.
Emily references a book in the podcast, The Weapons of Math Destruction. The Weapons of Math Destruction talks about the algorithms that we create take on the natural human biases we give. Diversity is important when actually designing products so we don’t perpetuate the biases we already have.
About Emily Nichols
Emily Nichols is a professional engineer with more than 15 years of experience in manufacturing and innovation. For products that range from granola bars to automotive paint, she has optimized the formulations and maximized production efficiency. She has a huge variety of experience from PepsiCo, Ingredion, PPG, and Henkel. Emily is now re-launching herself in public speaking and educating the technology sector. You can connect with Emily on LinkedIn and Twitter and you can connect with Emily on her website: https://emilynichols.ca/.
