Can you love rockets, dresses, data pipelines and pop concerts, and still become a CTO who shapes meaningful technology?
The answer is a clear yes.

Meet Carolyn O’Brien

In this episode of Tech Inspired, TechFace Managing Director Priska Burkard speaks with Carolyn O’Brien about women in STEM tech leadership.
Carolyn is a German‑American engineer and CTO of Weytec. Weytec is a Swiss “hidden champion” building human‑centric control room tech used in transport, energy and security.

Carolyn’s path runs from aerospace engineering at MIT to being one of only two women in a 250‑person mechanical engineering cohort at ETH. She then spent 14 years in med‑tech startups, completed an industry PhD and today leads product and platforms across hardware and software.

Belonging in STEM

You’ll discover how an all‑girls rocketry team called “The Valkyries” sparked Carolyn’s belief that women in STEM tech leadership fully belong in STEM, and why that early community still shapes how she leads.
You’ll hear how she handled the shift from gender‑balanced MIT lecture halls to being “the foreign woman in a dress” at ETH, and how she refused to drop her identity just to be “one of the guys.”

Carolyn also shares why she chose an industry PhD to get into rooms she was previously excluded from, and what it took to move from hands‑on mechanical engineering to managing DevOps, IT, UX and platform teams.

Your next career step

We explore how to be honest about what you really enjoy at work, avoid becoming the “office mommy,” and decide whether your next step is deep expertise or people leadership.
We also touch on the future of tech, from AI to evolving infrastructure, and why staying curious and regularly learning uncomfortable new tools might be your biggest career advantage.

Hit play to hear how Carolyn builds a career on purpose, resilience and growth, and to ask yourself: what could change if you stopped waiting for permission and started backing your own potential?

Connect with Carolyn O’Brien
https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolyn-o-obrien

Information about Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Dorothy-Hodgkin