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‘Our world requires innovation. Innovation needs science. Science demands diversity.’

A conversation with Jayshree Seth, chief science advocate and corporate scientist, 3M
By Ramona Schindelheim
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In this episode of Work in Progress, I am joined by Jayshree Seth, chief science advocate and corporate scientist for global manufacturing company 3M.

Seth’s role at the company is two-pronged. As a corporate scientist, she uses her engineering skills to solve complex problems and, in her words, “find solutions that stick.” (It is 3M after all!)

As the chief science advocate, she works with people of all ages – including young girls and women and individuals from underrepresented populations – to help them develop a passion for science, one that might lead to a career and help fill a global skills gap especially in the skilled trades.

She says there is a negative perception of the skilled trades that is hurting recruiting efforts despite the fact the majority of these jobs demand some kind science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM) skills.

“Skilled jobs are STEM jobs The advances are so rapid that the skills needed also evolved. But whether it’s chip making or ship building or solar panels or wind blades or EVs to 5G, the role of STEM skills is there in all of them. Whether it is with associate degrees in skilled trades or whether it is advanced degrees and all the way to graduate degrees, they’re highly skilled in science and engineering and they’re needed,” explains Seth.

“Our entire STEM advocacy platform is about creating a solid pipeline of STEM talent. We are active across the entire ecosystem, which is from early encouragement, exposure, empowerment, education, economics, and equity across the spectrum. It’s important because we also want to make sure that we are getting enough diversity. Without that diversity, we are not gonna be able to solve the problems that we face, not just our company but our country.”

Seth says she hopes to install a passion for STEM in the young people she reaches out to through 3M’s STEM awareness programs. Although her parents expected her to go into engineering, like her father, she didn’t develop her own passion for it under she was deep into her training.

“Believe it or not, it was in graduate school. I never quite appreciated why I was doing it, because I always thought, I want to help people, I want to improve lives, I want to make a difference. And I wasn’t sure how I would do that. Then I was working on my Ph.D. project and I saw the human context in it and I realized I could make a difference,” she tells me.

“You need to make sure people see the passion and in other people having a satisfying career in these fields. That’s why when I’m talking to students. We want to show that your potential is exponential. You can blaze trails, you can shape your careers, you can bring your interest.

“I talk about bringing my interest in humanities and social sciences into STEM. And that’s the whole idea of breaking these preconceived notions and dismantling the stereotypes and archetypes that people have of these certain fields. It is so important.

“The reason why it’s important is that science needs that diversity. Science needs you to be you. Our world requires innovation. Innovation needs science. Science demands diversity and diversity warrants equity.”

You can hear more of how Jayshree Seth and 3M are encouraging young people to follow a STEM career pathway in the podcast. Listen here, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Episode 280: Jayshree Seth, Chief Science Officer & Corporate Scientist, 3M
Host & Executive Producer: Ramona Schindelheim, Editor-in-Chief, WorkingNation
Producer: Larry Buhl
Executive Producers: Joan Lynch and Melissa Panzer
Theme Music: Composed by Lee Rosevere and licensed under CC by 4
Download the transcript for this podcast here.
You can check out all the other podcasts at this link: Work in Progress podcasts

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Dana Beth Ardi

Executive Committee

Dana Beth Ardi, PhD, Executive Committee, is a thought leader and expert in the fields of executive search, talent management, organizational design, assessment, leadership and coaching. As an innovator in the human capital movement, Ardi creates enhanced value in companies by matching the most sought after talent with the best opportunities. Ardi coaches boards and investors on the art and science of building high caliber management teams. She provides them with the necessary skills to seek out and attract top-level management, to design the ideal organizational architectures and to deploy people against strategy. Ardi unearths the way a business works and the most effective way for people to work in them.

Ardi is an experienced business executive and senior consultant who leverages business organizational transformation through talent strategies. She uses her knowledge and experience to develop talent strategies to enhance revenue and profit contributions. She has a deep expertise in change management and organizational effectiveness and has designed and built high performance cultures. Ardi has significant experience in mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, IPO’s and turnarounds.

Ardi is an expert on the multi-generational workforce. She understands the four intersecting generations of workers coming together in contemporary companies, each with their own mindsets, leadership and communications styles, values and motivations. Ardi is sought after to assist companies manage and thrive by bringing the generations together. Her book, Fall of the Alphas: How Beta Leaders Win Through Connection, Collaboration and Influence, will be published by St. Martin’s Press. The book reflects Ardi’s deep expertise in understanding organizations and our changing society. It focuses on building a winning culture, how companies must grow and evolve, and how talent influences and shapes communities of work. This is what she has coined “Corporate Anthropology.” It is a playbook on how modern companies must meet challenges – culturally, globally, digitally, across genders and generations.

Ardi is currently the Managing Director and Founder of Corporate Anthropology Advisors, LLC, a consulting company that provides human capital advisory and innovative solutions to companies building value through people. Corporate Anthropology works with organizations, their cultures, the way they grow and develop, and the people who are responsible for forming their communities of work.

Prior to her position at Corporate Anthropology Advisors, Ardi served as a Partner/Managing Director at the private equity firms CCMP Capital and JPMorgan Partners. She was a partner at Flatiron Partners, a venture capital firm working with early state companies where she pioneered the human capital role within an investment portfolio.

Ardi holds a BS from the State University of New York at Buffalo as well as a Masters degree and PhD from Boston College. She started her career as professor at the Graduate Center at Fordham University in New York.

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