Suma drives innovation at Honeywell Process Solutions India

Suma has some salient advice for women looking to join Honeywell. The keywords she lives by are “aspire, involve and evolve”.

These are important qualities for someone who drives innovation and advances solutions in the oil and gas sector as the Innovation & Strategy Leader at Honeywell Process Solutions in India.

“I take the team through the journey of ideation to revenue,” Suma explains. “This requires close interaction and collaboration with technology research and development teams, business and marketing teams. I enable them to think through ideas sourced from customer needs and business alignment leading to revenue generating products.”

Key skills needed for Suma’s diverse role

In her role, Suma says she needs to be informative, collaborative, and constantly aware of present and emerging technologies.

“It’s imperative for me to understand the larger canvas of our existing portfolio of products, ecosystems, customer base, competitors and market space, and simultaneously weave the details to propose a new idea,” she comments. “This role also demands taking the team along, to create new relevant ideas all towards generating a revenue impact.”

An exciting time to work in oil and gas

With industry steering towards the fourth industrial revolution, Suma is enjoying her work and the way it is driven by the convergence of digital, biological and physical innovations.

“Companies are experiencing rates of digital disruption that will reshape the common operating procedures. Oil & Gas 4.0 is where our industry meets fourth industrial revolution and this adaption is expected to happen broadly and swiftly,” she comments. “This digital era of fourth industrial revolution, or Industry 4.0, provides us with a huge opportunity to adopt disruptive technologies for the oil and gas industries.”

Feeling supported and thriving within a great work culture

As well as feeling excited about the direction of her industry, Suma feel supported by Honeywell India.

“Honeywell has a strong ecosystem of knowledge sharing and collaboration not only within the teams but across businesses. The extended support from leadership also enables success for challenging roles like mine,” she says. “Honeywell encourages women in technical leadership and empowers us to take on new responsibilities.”

Feeling empowered by her employer helps Suma smash her goals and she believes Honeywell’s uplifting work environment is particularly good for new Honeywell employees.

“New employees need good support from the ecosystem at their workplace. This is exactly what I have fortunately received. I feel empowered and supported by my manager, as he has provided me with guidance to succeed in this role.”

Advice for women looking to join Honeywell

The best piece of career advice Suma has internalized herself is recognizing the importance of adaptability and upskilling.

“Adaptability basically means being resilient, and nurturing skills like embracing ambiguity, to deal with change with a positive mindset,” she says. “Another top tip is exercising emotional intelligence, as that aids in filtering one’s emotions in a constructive manner.”

And lastly, Suma offers some wise advice to all the futureshapers out there: “Encourage yourself to set goals based on your passion and aspire to achieve those by working towards them. Involve and engage yourself to gain expertise with the aid of support systems available across the organization – this approach then enables one to evolve as an effective professional.”