Claire McGahan
Account Executive
The Stepan Company
Please meet this week's WOTW, Claire McGahan! Claire is currently an account executive at The Stepan Company and she is a member of their surfactants division. She has been at Stepan for 13 years, and she started her career at Stepan straight out of college. Claire has a business degree with a chemistry minor, and she was first introduced to Stepan through seminars that her college offered from chemical companies. Throughout her tenure with Stepan, Claire has had a variety of roles include sales trainee, market focused (HI&I) direct accounts, consumer national accounts, geography based territory, and now global consumer products. Claire stated that there are pros and cons to having your entire career at one company. Some of the pros are that Stepan cares for, and invests, in their people, and she has been able to build a strong network with her colleagues over the years, become an expert on Stepan's product lines, and work on self-improvements, but one of the cons is that she always feels like she is competing with the 22 year old version of herself and trying to overcome memories of young Claire. Claire grew up with parents who owned a family business and this had a big impact on her work ethic. She gained early exposure to entreprenuership, sales, and work/life balance tactics and her dad taught her that sales skills is something everyone needs.
Claire is also the Program Chair for Women in Chemicals. She joined Women in Chemicals via a cold email to the info@womeninchemicals.com address with ideas for future programing and some of those ideas have been implemented since Claire sent the email. Claire is a new mom to Maeve, 2, and noted that she has grown tremendously through this experience, especially in patience and empathy. Returning from maternity leave was overwhelming, but she had a manager who was very supportive, and she learned the importance of asking for help throughout this process. Maeve attends WIC events when she has sick days and WIC leadership loves the attendance and Claire's patience and grace while juggling her Women in Chemicals responsibilities and her mom responsibilities.
We wrapped up the interview with recommendations from Claire. Claire's favorite quote is "luck favors the prepared" and she reminds herself of this daily. She also recommended podcasts - How I Built This - Wisdom from the Top and The Money - The Katie Show.
Women in Chemicals will be onboarding a Programs Coordinator who will report to Claire, and the role will officially start in 2024. If you are interested, please reach out to info@womeninchemicals.com
This episode was sponsored by:
