WDS's Lucie Frideling speaks with Sarah Greilsamer, Business Solutions Analyst, Caterpillar, who shared her journey and advice for women interested in careers in data.
Despite growing up in Geneva, Sarah studied and began her career in the United States, working for SaaS companies where she was responsible for analyzing clients' media performance. After holding various positions in different companies, Sarah returned to Switzerland, to Geneva, two years ago to join Caterpillar's Analytics team within the Global Parts Pricing group.
Sarah's academic background has always been marked by her love for mathematics as well as for human relations and the desire to help others, which led her to work with data. For her, a significant part of the work in the data domain also involves effectively communicating results to an audience that is often not familiar with technical concepts.
Within Caterpillar, Sarah is active in several Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) where she serves in leadership positions and advances Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion of minority groups. She firmly believes that human resource managers should actively seek out underrepresented candidates by broadening their recruitment criteria.
Sarah emphasizes that to succeed in the data field, it is not necessary to have a data scientist degree. Simple tools like Excel can be used very effectively. Her advice to women in this sector is not to be discouraged, even if they often find themselves as the only woman in a room full of men.
During recruitment processes for data scientist positions, Sarah highlights the importance of curiosity, analytical skills, logical thinking, and self-confidence in facing the unknown. According to her, during technical interviews, it is crucial to be able to explain one's reasoning even if one is not an expert in the tool in question.
As a Business Solutions Analyst, Sarah is responsible for defining the various requests received, managing them, defining problems, and finding solutions by connecting engineers and analysts. She particularly enjoys her work because she collaborates with people from diverse cultures, based in the United States, Japan, or Singapore, which brings her great professional and personal enrichment.
If you'd like to connect with Sarah, you can find her on LinkedIn.
