Diane Bryant was like any other ordinary teen; on the cusp of adulthood but unsure of her future and the path she should take. It was on one fine day in college when a classmate complimented her on her superior math skills and that’s when she seriously considered taking up engineering as a career option.
As she recalls it, Bryant was sitting in her Calculus class when a classmate chatted her up, singing praises of her number-crunching skills and asking her about her major in college. Upon her uncertain reply wherein she claimed that she hadn’t yet decided on a major, Bryant’s classmate encouraged her to opt for engineering as it was clearly her forte.
She had also heard that engineering was one of the few fields that offered a high starting salary. Bryant recalls that since she had spent most of her life in poverty, she really strived to elevate her financial status through education. After that particular encounter in her Calculus class, she immediately went to a student counselor to declare her major in hardware engineering. After that life-changing, fateful day, she never looked back.
After the impulsive decision, Bryant’s career really took off . After she completed her studies, her talent and expertise took her to companies such as Google, Intel, and NovaSignal, a medical tech start-up where she now serves as the CEO.
The math whiz had endured a long and winding road in her pursuit of success and excellence, from facing homelessness during her high school years to handling sexism at work.
After she turned eighteen, Bryant’s father told her that as per his rules, she was to leave her family home immediately. In the years that followed, she lived in her sister’s apartment, her car’s backseat, and her friend’s homes until she eventually enrolled in a college and found an affordable apartment nearby.
To make ends meet, Bryant had to work multiple jobs as a waitress and hostess during her college years. On one fine day, a kind couple, upon knowing that she was pursuing a degree in engineering, offered her an internship at Aerojet, a missile and rocket propulsion manufacturer. That internship opened doors for the now-successful businesswoman and also gave her the opportunity to join Intel.
When she joined intel in 1985, females in tech only account for a tiny percentage of the workforce; only around 5.8% of female engineers worked in the U.S.
Up until her departure from Intel in 2017, Bryant had worked for the chip manufacturer for many years in many different capacities, and eventually adjusted to the notion of being the only woman in a boardroom. After a year at Google as Google Cloud’s COO, she joined NovaSignal in 2020 as the company’s CEO and chairman. Her moving journey from poverty to working in Fortune 500 companies to navigating a startup is inspirational for women all over the world.
