Setting the Foundation for Navigating the Business and Technology World
Disha Patel, MPhil Management Studies, Judge Business School (2002) reflects on how her time at Lucy prepared her for success in the business world.
Disha Patel, Director of Digital Technology and Innovation at Amgen, was recognised for advancing gender equity.
In addition to her role as Director of Digital Technology and Innovation at Amgen, Patel plays an active role in Women Empowered to Be Exceptional (WE2), an employee resource group with chapters at Amgen sites around the world.
Patel currently serves as the global vice chair for WE2 and she is working to create the WE2 community at Amgen Ohio. “I am a firm believer in servant leadership and paying it forward,” she says. “The opportunity to be engaged with this group early on and see how it has evolved into a durable capability within our organisation to help support, encourage, develop and advance women is wonderful.”
Throughout her more than 16-year tenure with Amgen, Patel has taken an active role in Amgen’s diversity, inclusion, and belonging (DI&B) efforts through a variety of internal and external programs. “I have a front row seat to seeing and influencing how we are developing and promoting women, and women of colour, within the company,” she says. “I am encouraged in our journey as a whole for Amgen in DI&B, and over the past few years our ability to actively discuss topics like unconscious bias, psychological safety, and what it means to be an ally, not to mention the number of career promotions and lateral moves that are occurring, it’s a step in the right direction.”
From 2006-2016, Patel was a strategic advisor to School on Wheels, which volunteers to provide free tutoring and mentoring to children from kindergarten through to twelfth grade living in shelters, motels, vehicles, group foster homes, and on the streets in Southern California. Patel is a proud Lucy alumna (MPhil Management, 2002) and currently serves on the Lucy Cavendish College North American Committee.