Susan Certoma | POINT2POINT | Southwest Power Pool Board Director, Executive Leader & Strategic Advisor
A Day at Work… There is no typical workday. There is always a new challenge or initiative which requires action on a timely basis. This drives me to become more creative, yet also practical in how to bring a team together to innovate solutions. Technology is pervasive and continuously progressing at an amazing rate of change. It requires me to spend time every day learning about emerging technologies and applying them to solve problems.
Surprising but True… The impact you can have on the world. Women have a unique ability to combine emotional quotient with engineering to achieve amazing results. It is a powerful mixture since it combines influencing people along with leveraging science and technology. This type of career is not predefined. It will be up to them to shape their careers – it can take on so many forms. Technology and data are the key to everything. There are endless possibilities.
Beginning Interests… I always enjoyed science and math, but I also loved literature and communications. I wanted to be able to use all of these skills in my career. In addition, the job had to be in a high energy, fast moving and creative industry in which people work collaboratively to achieve optimal results. As someone who is curious about everything, I also wanted a career that would require me to constantly learn new things. Defining objectives, critical analysis and designing solutions for problems which others claim are impossible to solve are exciting for me. The more complex the problem, the more interesting it becomes.
Advice… Be open to new opportunities – my career has taken some of the best turns because I was open to meeting people and never afraid to take on roles that were new.
