Female engineering: Between East and West in business development

Born in Taiwan and educated in Canada, Jenny Liu has plenty of practice with finding common ground. It seems appropriate that a Business Development Director hasa cosmopolitan background, and Jenny Liu certainly fits that description. With her childhood spent in Taiwan beside grandparents from China, she was taught early to embrace and celebrate cultural differences. At age 13, she immigrated to Toronto, where she stayed through college. After majoring in finance and statistics at the University of Toronto, she began work at the Royal Bank of Canada. Jenny credits the heavily regulated finance sector for her skill with precision work, saying it’s “good to learn a very systemic approach to things.” This knack for detail has served her well as the Director of Business Development at KLINGER Die Erste. She furthered her education in Taiwan, additionally earning an MBA in Business Management.

From Toronto to Taiwan: A Global Path to Leadership

While Die Erste began a joint venture with KLINGER in 2021, the companies had interacted for some time before that. Jenny remembers well her first meeting with KLINGER CEO Daniel Schibli, in Shanghai during 2019. “He was excited about a seminar he had just attended by a Nobel winner,” she recalls. “The presenter shared evidence that despite our differences, all the population of Earth are actually 99.8 percent alike. That made quite an impression. It strengthened my belief that we as human beings have more in common than we think.”

Despite her rigorous education, Jenny had to put in additional work to develop proficiency in the valve industry. “I didn’t have an engineering background, so the beginning was hard,” she shares. “There were many nights I picked up standards and product specifications to study and understand. Customers had problems that they needed solved, and I needed to find solutions. So with that drive, the experience accumulated.” This urge to embrace continuous learning has never faded, as Jenny commutes around the globe and collaborates with subject experts across all markets. It has become a calling for her, that patching together of various abilities to create a seamless whole of expertise. “I feel both my strength and my mission, was to bridge the gap between the West and the East in the supply chain, and to fill in the gap between sales and product engineering,” she explains.

Empathy and Precision in International Business

As Jenny discusses the nuances of international business, the topic of empathy comes up repeatedly. Her leadership role frequently finds her balancing not only differing skill sets, but also differing cultural perspectives: “In sales, there are endless possibilities, but the engineering side is a lot more black and white. The mindset is different. It has to be mathematically correct, it has to have evidence.” Acknowledging both sides through active listening is key, demonstrating to both the customer and to her direct reports that the challenges experienced by both sides are valid and will be addressed. Sometimes, she acknowledges, the end result is that projects are technically feasible but not competitively feasible. “Empathy helps us build deeper trust in complex international business settings,” she says.

Breaking Boundaries for Women in Engineering

This unconventional path has served Jenny well, offering her a breadth of experience across a variety of academic approaches and professional mindsets. Further, her bicultural foundations provide even more agility when building consensus and creating connections. When asked how she would advise women entering engineering, it is perhaps no surprise that Jenny points to a path reminiscent of her own journey: “Don’t set any boundaries for yourself—remove the boundary when you’re looking for possibilities. There could be so many people giving you advice, but try everything that you like to try, because we only live once. We’re used to thinking one way, and if we continue doing that, we just keep getting the same answers. Don’t regret for doing, but do worry for not doing. Every path traveled nourishes.”