Priya Nair

I lead customer support and training for North America at AspenTech, an immersion company, and I'm based out of Houston. My team and I work with some of the biggest names in the energy industry, including Fortune 100 companies. What we really do is make sure that the software running in their plants is something their engineers can trust and use without any hiccups. We help them learn the technology, troubleshoot any issues that come through, and provide trainings to ensure they understand the technology and can run their plants efficiently and get maximum profit. I've been incredibly blessed to have been with the company for almost 11 years now across three continents. I started in Asia, then my career took me to Europe, and now I'm here in the U.S. managing this team in a leadership capacity. Earlier, I did the work myself, which meant learning a whole lot about the energy industry. I started out by studying software engineering back home in India and graduated in 2015. With each move, it was like starting over in some way with a new culture, new team, and figuring out where I fit. Early on, I realized that as I tried to adapt myself, it took me a while because this is one of the most male-dominated industries in general. It was really hard to show up authentically in a way that every room was not prepared for. Now I'm very proud to lead a big team that includes PhDs and domain experts, and we cater to this demanding but rewarding industry. Beyond my day job, I'm a speaker and writer who uses my voice as a platform to bring awareness to the women around me and make sure they see somebody represented talking about the struggles they might be going through. I mentor younger women coming up in tech, and two of my mentees are now in senior positions from where they started. It feels like a full circle moment, and honestly, I wish I had something similar when I started off 10 years back. It's my way of giving back, and I want to continue doing this.