Having spent the past 20 years in technology across various industries, where female executives are still woefully underrepresented, Elizabeth Floegel knows a thing or two about breaking barriers. As Head of Commercial Technology for Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, the biotech company based in Tarrytown, she’s the only current female senior IT professional to hold an executive position. Prior to coming to Regeneron, she was the only female executive on the IT senior leadership team at Baxalta, the biotech company in Illinois, where she oversaw the global commercial technology strategy.
Floegel graduated college in the late ’90s, with a public relations degree, but pivoted to technology because she wanted a piece of the Y2K economy. “Technology moves quickly and there are great ideas whose potential is not yet realized…I want to be a part of the future, of figuring out how to make these technologies serve people,” she says. Today a veteran in the field, Floegel uses her unique position to help elevate more women: “I champion diversity, challenging the lack of female leaders in technology, recently promoting and hiring women into key roles.”
What was the best advice you ever received?
“Feedback is a gift, good and bad alike. Listen to it, learn from it, and keep moving.”