Focus on two experts

The R&D and Innovation Expert Ladder is one of the key tools ZEISS uses to secure its technology and innovation leadership because a specialist career path allows forthe deepening and broadening of expertise in key technological areas. More than 1,100 employees have already embarked on this kind of career path. Women currently account foronly 10 percent and their number is not increasing very fast.

There are however some successful female experts who can act as role models for other women at ZEISS. One of them is Dr. Nancy Hecker-Denschlag, expert for intra-operative visualization in the Advanced Group, a research department at ZEISS Medical Technology in Oberkochen.

Having gained a PhD in physics and having worked part-time for several years, she was promoted to Principal (level 3 on the Expert Ladder) in June 2024. The deciding factors for this were her in-depth technological expertise, her leadership on ideas and her ability to tap into her broad internal and external network of experts to find solutions to technological challenges within Meditec.

Nancy is passionate about her project entitled Gender Gap in the Expert Ladder, which she is heading up on behalf of the Senior Expert Team. “We would like to emphasize that the gender gap is an issue that affects everyone, and we aim to make the gender gap visible to ensure that we at ZEISS are fully aware of this topic.,” says Dr. Hecker-Denschlag. It is also about developing new solutions to be proactive. “Women at ZEISS have the opportunity to pursue a specialist career but we have to think about why they are underrepresented,” says the physicist.

There are leading experts like mathematician, Irena Grgic, in other specialist areas. She works in C-IT Development Operations (DevOps) and was promoted to Senior (level 1 on the expert ladder) in spring 2024. Grgic and her team run the DeepVision platform, an AI project that uses artificial intelligence to interpret images and videos. “I also founded ZEISS Inner Source, an internal community of IT experts that provides software solutions from their respective areas for the entire company in 2023 with colleagues from the ZDP and CRT departments,” says Grgic. The IT specialist proactively worked toward her admission to the expert ladder: she spoke to her line manager about wanting to become an expert. The role as a senior offers her several advantages. “I have more leeway, can drive creative topics forward and find it exciting to take part in the interdisciplinary exchange with others at ZEISS,” says Grgic.

It is in the company’s interest that people with different experiences and perspectives participate in the innovation process. This also applies to the roles that experts take on in their specialist careers, as Dr. Hecker-Denschlag explains, “I am an American. My perspective on the world is different from that of a European or Asian person. The same applies to men, women and diverse people. We all have different ways of addressing issues which we encounter in our research and product development and these differences are the key to success.”