McCombs: I faced a couple of key challenges that are very similar to what most women would face in medtech and in business in general, and I put those in two categories. One is balancing and managing work and life responsibilities. The second is to have the confidence to advocate for ourselves, and also overcoming bias that may either be clearly perceived or not. I've been very fortunate on the work-life front. My husband has taken on the role of lead parent for our family since our first daughter was born. When I returned to work after my maternity leave, I was actually given more responsibility.

There were people who believed in me, saw my potential, and didn't see this as an opportunity to take my foot off the gas, but rather [they had the attitude of] ‘let's go faster, see what Beth can do.’ In terms of advocating and encountering bias, I wasn't always wanting to advocate for myself. It was more about doing the work and letting the work speak for itself. Again, I was very fortunate to have had enlightened mentors at work and leaders above me who provided a lot of opportunity. It can be hard to be both female and young in engineering, because you can be underestimated.

There were times where I felt that there were certain comments about my appearance versus my work that would take me off my game sometimes, but there were people that would speak up around me and say, ‘this isn’t appropriate.’ Over time, I was able to find my own voice and really speak up for myself and now I'm in a place where I can speak up for others as well. I think it is just important for us to call out those issues when we see them, whether it's as ourselves as women or as allies so that we can nip it in the bud and create the culture that really supports and develops everyone.

BD’s CTO Beth McCombs Discusses Key Initiatives – AI/Gen AI; DE&I Strategy; Succession Planning

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