Mixing Business With Engineering

Growing up in Des Moines, Iowa, Brooke Achenbach was interested in chemistry and math, so when it was suggested that she pursue chemical engineering, it made perfect sense to her. At the University of Illinois, she earned a degree in the subject.

That specialization led to a job at an agricultural chemical facility. While there, Achenbach gained an appreciation for the business side of the operation—the “bigger-picture side,” she says—even more than the technical work she was doing. She went back to school, this time at the University of Iowa, where she earned her MBA.

Achenbach left agriculture—and Iowa—for a while, taking positions at candy and pet food companies and a leather tannery before returning to ag and her home state to work in the ethanol industry. “I liked the link to ag and the Iowa culture,” she says. “We have family here; my in-laws have a farm. And agriculture is a stable industry with a good future.”

In 2007, she found a job with Syngenta as the project manager responsible for design and construction of a vegetable seed processing facility in Pasco, Washington. “Then I moved into a transformation role, working on cost-savings projects and strategies for the seeds supply chain,” she says.

From 2011 to 2013, Achenbach worked on the strategy and design of the “Customer Service Excellence” project. “We were looking, from a customer perspective, at the ordering experience—from the point of the initial order to the point of delivery—to make customer service better. We looked at everything from the human processes to the information systems.”

After a year as a soybean supply chain manager in 2013–2014, Achenbach has moved into marketing for the first time in her career as economic seeds lead.

That Syngenta is helping her grow in new directions is just one of the characteristics of the company that Achenbach appreciates. “Syngenta is a company that works hard at defining its purpose and having a culture that revolves around it,” she says. Achenbach believes operating in that deliberate way is important. “We ask ourselves, ‘What are we doing?’ And more importantly, ‘What are we doing right?’”