Celebrating the women of TELUS Agriculture & Consumer Goods: Dr. Sherry Hannon

For 2023, the United Nations’ theme for International Women’s Day is “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality.” With women making up less than a third of the world’s workforce in tech-related fields, the theme calls on all of us to close the digital gender gap and celebrate women who are championing the advancement of transformative technology.* Diversity sows the seeds of innovation. Elevating different voices and ways of thinking can help unlock better data insights, decisions and solutions for all. In fact, analysis by McKinsey & Company found that companies in the top quartile for gender diversity on executive teams were 25 per cent more likely to have above-average profitability than companies in the bottom quartile.**

As Research Team Lead and Chair of the TELUS Agriculture Animal Care Committee based in Canada, Dr. Sherry Hannon translates cattle research into decision making that improves animal health, client profitability and industry sustainability. Learn about her journey in tech and how she is driving innovation and transformative technology in our industry. What is your role? I manage a team of 20 amazing people, focusing on the smooth implementation of cattle research, the maintenance of animal care standards in our research and data quality control. What do you like most about your job? I love the variety in my work (research on animal health, feeds and nutrition, performance enhancement, individual animal management, marketing strategies and more). I also love to see the results of our cattle research translate into decision making that is directly applied and which helps to improve animal health, client profitability and industry sustainability. What do you think is the biggest misconception about what you do? I feel that when people hear the words "cattle research" they think of something really invasive to the animals, rather than thinking about how formal randomization of animals to different experimental groups and standardized processes can be used to determine if a factor (e.g. different diet or alternative production strategy) can improve the health, growth and efficiency of the cattle and the economic margins for producers. What advice would you give to women who aspire to a role like yours? I would encourage women to not settle for the status quo, and to always be looking for new ways to develop self, skills and experience. Continued learning is what keeps people engaged. I started my career as a companion animal veterinarian and progressed to a large animal epidemiologist, and now to a people leader. The sky's the limit for new knowledge and personal growth!

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