A Journey of Self Discovery: International Day of Women and Girls in Science

By: Juliana Neves Nobrega

I grew up in the big city of São Paulo, Brazil and as part of a family of strong women (as many Brazilians are). I had an amazing professional mom who worked in non-profit organizations. Growing up, women who are working and being awesome was not something I thought about – I just knew.

Fast forward a few years and my love for horses naturally made me think my next step was to become a veterinarian. I studied intensely and was accepted by a veterinary university that opened many doors for me, but what was next? Regulatory Affairs was something I had never heard of before. However, I landed an internship and planned to stay for three months at a Regulatory Affairs/R&D department of a pharmaceutical company. It was then that I discovered what was behind it – the requirements, the science, the strategy… and I loved it. I ended up staying for more than two years and met two amazing, strong women who were my first professional role models (my mom being the absolute first one).

My professional journey continued in a traditional, linear way – University, internship, hired as junior associate. I slowly continued developing myself in the Regulatory Affairs world. I grew, assumed leadership roles and changed companies. My first boss once told me “Leadership can be quite lonely,” and I was starting to understand that. Words like community, trust, allyship and unconscious bias were not part of my vocabulary back then – but I had to learn many lessons.

I later embarked upon an adventure which landed me in Germany. For the first time, my professional future was a question mark – am I still a veterinarian? Can I even work in a country where I don’t speak the language fluently? Can I work in a country where I’m not an expert on their regulations?

I found an opportunity to work at Elanco in a junior role, but the position was a step back. I discovered that the opportunity to take care of labelling in a corporation the size of Elanco was a result of complex cross-functional collaboration, and it turned out to be a great challenge! I learned that career paths don’t necessarily need to be linear with continuous upward progressions. Taking our many transferrable skills and changing paths can broaden one’s horizon in a way that I had no idea about.

Today, after more than 15 years of working experience, I’m still learning. I discovered that what matters most are the colleagues and community you lean on.

As part of this ongoing leadership journey, I have compiled a few key learnings to share:

• Our career doesn’t have to be linear. Many of our role models had unique career paths.
• Communication is essential. This is not necessarily about public speaking, but about understanding who we are talking to and connecting with them.
• Find (or create) your community. Your development is individual, but you don’t have to go through it alone.
• Confidence. Learn about yourself, your skills and your achievements. Empower yourself to speak when you need to, take challenges and ask questions. We are all afraid to make mistakes and very often miss opportunities because of that. Imposter syndrome is real, but what that voice in your head is telling you is probably not!
• Talk about mistakes…we make them. Fix it, learn with it and get over it. Don’t fixate on the mistakes.
• Shape your opportunity with others.

On this International Day of Women and Girls in Science, I’m full of hope for our future. I know that the next generations will have many strong female role models who are transitioning from the era of princess movies to a new world where women are scientists, politicians and anything else they want to be. Most importantly, they are not afraid to speak up.