Ambitious, talented employees show results when given challenges to overcome. But not all of them measure accomplishment by their team’s success as much as their own. The people who do are leaders. And that is how Kelly Quesada is viewed at Amgen.
Quesada began at Amgen’s West Greenwich facility in 2003 as a validation engineer for a three-person team that supported Amgen’s largest expansion to date, the $2 billion BioNext project.
Two years later, she was promoted to manager, at which point she led a team responsible for new and existing analytical instruments, equipment and systems. Under her guidance, implementation of new technology increased automation, reduced costs and decreased the turnaround time for test results, giving a major boost to Amgen’s competitiveness industry wide.
Now senior manager in the department, Quesada’s leadership is described as playing a vital role in quality control in her 40 Under Forty application, in addition to being a key factor in the success of numerous Amgen projects.
Quesada attributes her success to an ability to access the talents of a diverse staff, one that allows her to see herself as a “transformational leader.”
But she is more than that at Amgen’s West Greenwich location. For the past two years she has served as a leadership coach to Amgen’s Building and Leading Teams. She also has helped build the Amgen Women’s International Network, which champions success of women in science and technology. With her input, AWIN strengthened its vision, expanded its reach, amassed numerous awards and identified goals for a five-year strategic plan.
She also gives of herself outside work. She was the keynote speaker at the Tech Collective’s 2009 GRRL (Girls Reaching Remarkable Levels) Tech Expo, where she shared her own life experiences with more than 400 female high school students, helping them see a path to success that they may not have perceived until hearing this leader describe it. •
