Carol and Michele Piccaro

CEO & Account Executive

U.S. Chemicals - a Woman Owned Business

Please meet this week’s WOTW, Carol and Michele Piccaro- mom and daughter duo. Carol is President and CEO of US Chemicals- a Woman Owned Business and her daughter Michele is an Account Executive. After graduating college, Carol joined a temporary employment agency and spent over two years working for two bond traders. Carol had no prior knowledge of the chemical industry. She got her start in the chemical distribution business at her Dad's company (now her company) as a Junior Account Executive. Michele graduated with a degree in information systems and operations management. She worked at a startup in NYC before moving to Seattle to work as a product manager for Amazon's Fire TV team. She left Amazon after four years and decided to join the family business.

Carol discussed how she felt when she made the decision to join her family business and what it meant to her when Michele and her son decided to do the same. Carol and Michele shared with us what they have discovered about one another since beginning to work together as well as how they view one another now that they are colleagues. They go into great detail about how they balance their mother-daughter relationship with their professional relationship. Prior to joining US Chemicals, Michele worked for Amazon and talked about how the chemical and tech industries are both heavily male-dominated, but she is grateful for organizations like WIC to provide visibility to females in the industry. She shared with us that she is eager to embrace her technical and innovative mindset within the chemical industry to help modernize it for change. Some closing advice from Carol and Michele are "It's okay to fail!", because some of our greatest learning comes from our mistakes. They also told us about the importance of doing a few things great, and not trying to do average at everything.

This episode was sponsored by: