STEM professionals often make their first career advances by demonstrating deep expertise in specific technical domains, and that can provide years of opportunity. However, if your ambition is to lead teams, departments, or divisions, working in a multi-disciplinary and likely multinational environment will provide a different kind of challenge. You’ll face questions such as:
- When am I ready to try for a leadership role?
- What are the new skills I may need to develop?
- Which common pitfalls should I avoid?
- How do I communicate effectively about my personal ambitions?
On 14 February at 13:00 CET, participants heard from Patrizia Carpentieri, Principal Consultant at Arup, as she addressed these questions with practical tips from her own experience. Our session host was SWE Global Ambassador Arpita Swer, Embedded SW Quality Test Engineer at Colibrium Additive – a GE Aerospace company.
Attending live allowed participants to ask Patrizia questions and join informal breakout discussions.
Meet the Speakers
Patrizia Carpentieri, Principal Consultant at Arup
Patrizia Carpentieri is a Chartered Civil Engineer in both the UK and Italy, with over 10 years of international experience spanning Greece, France, Spain, Canada, Turkey and UK. Throughout her career, she has developed a deep expertise in managing and delivering complex design/construction projects and she developed niche skills in blast engineering by designing resilient buildings and infrastructure able to mitigate terrorist threats.
More recently, Patrizia has successfully transitioned from a specialist to a leadership role. In fact, she transitioned from a Principal Blast Consultant role to a Senior Project/Design Manager for data centres, where she leads multidisciplinary teams across different organisations, manages clients’ relationship and oversees the data centre design.
Outside of work, she is also a dedicated volunteer with Breaking Barriers, a charity that helps refugees with engineering backgrounds secure employment opportunities in the UK.
Arpita Swer, Embedded SW Quality Test Engineer at Colibrium Additive - a GE Aerospace Company
Arpita is a multitalented professional with 16 years of experience in Software Testing, working with global leaders in India and Germany. She has worked in very innovative and diverse domains and products. Currently, she works for Colibrium Additive a GE Aerospace Company, focusing on technology advancement, collaborating with global teams to improve software quality and designing Test Automation techniques in Metal Additive engineering. Passionate about quality testing and advocating for women in the field, she excels in cutting-edge technologies and continuous learning.
Arpita holds a B.E. in Electronics Engineering. Outside of work, she enjoys socializing, traveling, star gazing, cooking, dancing and volunteering. She has a diploma in Indian Classical Dance and was active member in Youth For Seva (Hyderabad Chapter) from 2010 - 2019. The pandemic heightened her awareness of women's roles in testing. She led the WomenInTesting initiative of The Test Chat Community from 2020 - 2022, has chaired conferences, and volunteered at EuroStar2022 and AutomationStar2022. Arpita successfully launched the Axiom Summit 2022 with the support of The Test Chat community. Additionally, she is one of the SWE Global Ambassadors, further advocating for women in engineering and technology.
