Susanna Fragoso | Hardware Development Manager | Amazon

 

Susanna is a Hardware Development Manager at Amazon, who joined in 2020 after over a decade as an engineer in Oil and Gas. She leads a team of engineers to develop and test automation solutions to make the packing process safer for associates, reduce package waste and increase efficiency.

Shortly after joining Amazon, Susanna discovered the Amazon Women in Engineering (AWE) London chapter had become inactive. AWE is an employee resource group with a mission to make Amazon the best place to work for technical women and non-binary individuals. She set out to get the community up and running again through organising virtual events during a period when most were working virtually. The objective was to revive the community and create safe spaces for conversation and education, and enable access to resources, networking, training, and mentoring opportunities supporting career development.

Susanna has built an active AWE community in London with 200+ members which hosted a coffee chat series (45 participants), our first social event since re-launch (30+ attendees) and a livestream event with guest speaker, Anita Bernie, Managing Director of MDA UK (40+ attendees). In addition to internal events, Susanna put out a call for volunteers to support First Lego League Challenge aimed at students aged 4-16 which had 20+ sign ups. Since taking on a core role in AWE, Susanna has expanded the core team with a co-lead, 2 volunteers and an executive sponsor which has helped the community to become active and engaged.

Susanna is a passionate STEM advocate. Since joining Amazon, she has been a panellist at an external event to promote Dematic’s Women’s network for International Woman’s Day and celebrate women in “male-dominated” fields like Engineering and Commercial. She was also a panellist at an Amazon event aimed at current students. Over 200 students across 3 countries attended the panel discussion!

Susanna presented a talk at an internal conference for Amazon’s software builder community titled “Conducting a symphony: getting things done through establishing good relationships”. Her talk has been viewed over 350 times and received an average score of 4.89 out of 5 during the conference. Additionally, she presented a Lunch and Learn to 20+ interns located across Amazon locations in 5 countries titled “Packaging Innovation & Nuances of Networking”.

Susanna is passionate about self-development. She recently started a Senior Leader Degree Apprenticeship and is one of the 18 participants selected globally for a 5-month leadership development program. She is involved in mentoring programs and was recognised as a certified mentoring program manager following the completion of a full programme with 80+% member satisfaction. Susanna meets monthly with a colleague based in Mexico for peer mentoring sessions and another colleague based in North America to brainstorm ideas on improving DEI community outreach.

Susanna is working towards becoming a Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE). Currently, she is working on becoming involved in a program aimed at secondary school students across the country to encourage the next generation to pursue careers in STEM.