Ellen Pietrowitz-Phillips is the President LEM Plastics and Supply, A woman-owned fabricator and distributor of raw material plastics, sheet, rod, tubing, and film. Their build-to-print fabrication services the aeronautical division, space division, medical products, radio engineering, and more, providing components for everything from the International Space Station to the production line at Budweiser. On today's episode, Ellen shares with us her experiences, good and bad, as a woman in...

On today's episode of the Women And Manufacturing podcast, host Lydia Di Liello welcomes Helen Mitchell, Senior Director of Conferences and Events with The Professional Pricing Society in Atlanta, Georgia. Hellen and Lydia discuss how The Professional Pricing Society's conferences and online courses offer tremendous value through actionable insights, new skillsets, and networking opportunities for new and seasoned business professionals from all industries. Learn more about your ad choices....

Today’s guest on the Women And Manufacturing podcast is Ashleigh Walters, President of Onex Inc. and author of Leading with Grit and Grace: A Journey of Organizational Culture Change. Ashleigh and WAM host Fran Brunelle discuss her experiences in managing a manufacturing company and shares some extremely valuable insight on lean principles, her culture of continuous improvement, and “The Wildly Important Goal.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this episode of Women And Manufacturing host Lydia Di Liello welcomes Ivana Bertuzzelli, Vice President of Portfolio Analytics at Intech Investment Management. Ivana invites us all to “sit back and enjoy the show” as she explains the complex world of investment management. As Ivana explains, we invest with the hope that we are going to make money by buying low and selling high, and too often that is our only definition of performance. Ivana helps us understand that the true meaning of...

On this episode of the WAM Podcast, we welcome Whitney Koch, Marketing Communications Specialist with Welker inc., in Sugarland, Texas. Whitney shares with us how she transitioned from a high school teacher to writing technical copy and finally managing the digital marketing efforts for a 3rd generation manufacturing company. Whitney explains how small to medium-sized companies can handle their digital marketing in-house, including the various platforms she uses to get the job done. Learn...

For our first episode of the year, Women And Manufacturing is proud to welcome Wendy Feldstein to the podcast. Wendy works for Crestron Electronics, a global leader in audio-visual automation and integration. In this episode, Wendy takes us through the incredible parallel origin stories of Crestron, her father’s company, and her journey to her current role as Vice President of Design. From the company’s humble beginnings in her family’s basement, with Wendy bending resistors and capacitors...

Elysabeth Alfano is CEO of VegTech Invest, a fund that invests in alternative proteins and the food revolution. VegTech is the creator and advisor to the world's only plant-based innovation ETF.  Elysabeth is a plant-based expert who speaks worldwide about the need for change in the global food supply system including speaking recently at the UN Global Leaders Compact Summit. On today’s episode, Fran and Elysabeth discuss the need for change in the global food supply system to address global...

On this episode of the WAM podcast, our host Lydia Di Liello is joined by Pamela Tropiano, RN, BSN, MPA, CCM who is the Vice President of Healthcare Services at Molina Healthcare of Ohio. Pamela brings with her a deep understanding of the challenges facing complex and underserved populations including Medicaid and Medicar,e both from the direct clinical practice and payer side. During their interview, Pamela and Lydia discuss a variety of healthcare topics including how health plans work with...

How do you bridge the disconnect between manufacturing companies and their potential marketing success? Emily Wilkins, Founder and CEO of Marketing Metal, explains why her company is successful, while other marketing agencies struggle to meet manufacturing companies in the middle. From hesitancy when handing over marketing to inexperience in laying out goals and misunderstanding why marketing is needed at all, the reasons for disconnect are seemingly endless. Emily explains the importance of...

Bed and Breakfasts offer an attractive alternative to bland hotels when traveling for business. Host Lydia Di Liello welcomes sister-in-law Laura Di Liello to the show today to discuss the ins and outs of running an inn and how staying at an inn can help you return home less stressed. Laura started her career as an electrical engineer in the automotive industry. Her experience traveling around the world and staying in countless hotels led her and her husband (also an electrical engineer) to...

Guidewheel is a global software company on a mission to empower all the world’s factories to reach sustainable peak performance and their CEO Lauren Dunford is on a mission to show everyone how Guidewheel is making this a reality. Lauren sits down with WAM Host Frances Brunelle to share how even the oldest manufacturing equipment can take advantage of Guidewheel’s technology to achieve peak performance. Their simple, non-invasive sensors clip over the power supply of any machine or auxiliary...

Isn’t pricing just setting and defining the value of a product? Unfortunately, it is not that easy. Antonella Sinito, the pricing operations manager at 3M, is here to explain why this approach is incorrect, and why pricing is actually all about improving customer experiences and simplifying processes. Tasked with creating data processes for 18 Latin American countries, each with different languages and unique currencies, Antonella is an inspiring guest who shares her journey of reshaping the...

Kara Branch is an engineer who has always been the only Black woman on all the teams she’s ever worked on and has experienced many challenges as a result. When one of her daughters decided she also wanted to pursue a career in engineering, Kara decided she wanted better for the next generation and so she founded the Black Girls Do Engineer Corporation. Today she joins us to tell us more about the fantastic work she is doing. Kara only founded the 501(c)(3) nonprofit in 2019 and has she...

Have you considered the role that social media has to play in manufacturing? Many experienced members of the manufacturing community maintain that social media is not necessary for their businesses. After all, manufacturers are B2B companies that sell to other manufacturers. This kind of thinking, however, ignores the much larger role that social media has to play in terms of branding and storytelling. Here to help us shed light on this topic today is the wonderful Charli K. Matthews,...

Culture eats strategy for breakfast. This is a quote from legendary management consultant, Peter Drucker, that implies that it’s the culture of your company that determines your success, regardless of how effective your strategy is. Today, Lydia Di Liello speaks with Jessica Navascues, a purpose-driven C-suite executive and a devout servant leader who uses this quote as the basis for her philosophy that making company culture part of your DNA is critical for every organization. Jessica has...

Manufacturing can be so many different things. Everything you use in your day-to-day life is essentially manufactured. Are you wondering daily how your favorite things are being made? Or wondering where they come from? Why are we not talking more, especially to young women, about the possibility of careers in manufacturing? Our guest on the show today is passionate about manufacturing, and her name is Devon Winter. Devon is the Vice President and COO at F. W. Winter Inc. & Co, the...

As companies grow from national to international, private to public, so does their tendency to apply increased layers of bureaucracy and rigid hierarchical structures, often accompanied by a death knell for innovation. In this episode Frances Brunelle, The President of Accelerated Manufacturing Brokers inc. speaks with Sheryl Corrigan, the Director of Environmental Health and Safety at Koch Industries, about what sets their company apart from other companies of its size. Sheryl explains how...

Two years into the pandemic, the way that nearly all workers think about the social contract they have with their employers has changed in profound ways. For the hourly wage earners who power the economy, the desire for a flexible schedule, preferred shifts, and competitive pay rates is now more important than ever. In today’s episode of the WAM Podcast, Lydia Di Liello sits down with Cathi Canfield to discuss her role as Vice President of Brand Solutions and Marketing at EmployBridge, a...

Today’s guest believes that if you love the workers and workplace before the work, everything else falls into place. Robin Ritz is the creative visionary and the owner of InCord, North America's largest custom netting fabricator, providing the best in custom netting products to customers worldwide since 1995. From the start, Robin has had a passion to make her company an exemplary workplace and as a result of her efforts, InCord has been voted one of Connecticut's top places to work for over...

Host Lydia Di Liello is joined by the dynamic professional powerhouse and former Senior Director of Nike, Sarah Walton! During her 15-year career in Corporate America, Sarah worked in 10+ functions, proving herself to be an asset to any team, which successfully landed her roles at some of the largest global brands, including Target. In the episode, Lydia and Sarah discuss Sarah’s decision to part ways with the corporate world in pursuit of a more flexible schedule and new passions, including...

Today’s guest is an IT project manager at Oro, a business that builds customer-driven, powerful, and connected open-source software for B2B digital transformation. She is also a woman and a Ukrainian refugee. In this episode, Kate Yanshyna joins us to discuss all that she’s been through and how the company culture at Oro has supported her throughout. Tuning in, you’ll hear how she came to work for Oro, how the company evacuated Ukrainian employees when the war broke out, and how much support...

While manufacturers are increasingly engaged in at least some level of social media participation, many are not optimizing it to reach their fullest potential! Today, Fran Brunelle sits down with Lauren LaDell, a.k.a. The Spindle Chick, to talk about why social media matters for manufacturing companies. Lauren is the National Sales Manager at Motor City Spindle Repair, a 25,000 square-foot spindle remanufacturing and ball screw manufacturing facility in Dearborn, Michigan, that specializes in...

Manufacturing is an amazing career choice and people seem not to understand that they can have a wonderful life taking up a career in this industry. Our guest today is passionate about informing kids and their parents that just because you go into a trade and start working right out of high school, does not mean that you lose the opportunity to go to college. More often than not, employers like herself want to invest in their employees and companies. Today, we welcome to the show, Kristin...

Over 95% of what goes on in our brains is beneath our conscious level of awareness. Someone who understands this well is today’s guest, Suzen Fiskin. Suzen is a professional speaker and a pioneer in the world of coaching. With an extensive education in neurolinguistic programming (the foundation of Tony Robbins’ work) and hypnotherapy training, together with her marketing and people skills, Suzen began a new career in coaching in the early '90s. For 30 years, she has been working with clients...