<p><i><strong>Delphine Coutrot is an eclectic product owner and a trained chemist. Within SLB, she contributes to the group’s projects in sustainable energies for a sustainable future, for her children and everyone. She knows that her unfailing curiosity is her best asset in her missions. And, as she confides to 50inTech, one day fly away to other dreams.</strong></i></p><p>Delphine Coutrot grew up and studied in Lorraine. She’s a geek at heart, but chemistry is her founding passion. She was considering a career in cosmetics and obtained a doctorate in chemistry and molecular physicochemistry at the Faculty of Sciences of Nancy.</p><p>Ultimately, an internship in England, where she worked on polymer chemistry, marked her debut in the scientific world. She wanted to become a researcher, but had to accept several short postdoctoral contracts: 12 months, 24 months, 18 months… Her hopes for a stable position, at the CNRS, or as a university teacher, were dwindling.</p><p>As disappointed as she felt then, nowadays, she sees her past struggles as signs of fate! Of course, science appealed to her and she showed skills; yet, she couldn’t help but wonder about her choices: her family mainly worked in the business sector and she liked the commercial and pragmatic aspect of things. Had she let her rebellious side keep her away from another life, more in tune with herself?</p><p>Eventually, family atavism caught up with her, and in her early thirties, she returned to school and undertook a master’s degree in business administration, in Montpellier, where she still lives today. Her end-of-study internship opened the doors to a company specializing in carbon nanotubes. There, her past studies didn’t escape her hierarchy, who saw in her knowledge of chemistry a huge asset for the company, ensuring both credibility and the ability to explain complex concepts to their clients. They entrusted her with the development of a network of business partners for this highly technical product.</p><p>The company offered Delphine a permanent position … in Canada. However, with three children schooled in Montpellier and her husband teaching at the city’s university, she couldn’t move. Therefore, she declined. Yet again, fate intervened. In the wake of this refusal, she responded to the job proposal from a startup which was looking for a very particular profile: the mission was to manage the commercial development of a chemical analysis software app… She ticked all the boxes. She’s hired immediately after the first interview. One year later, the company was acquired by<strong> Schlumberger, now known as SLB</strong>!</p><p>Her integration path, her missions, the challenges and perks of being a small team within a giant group: let’s&nbsp;<strong>Delphine Coutrot, scientist, mother and Product Owner at SLB</strong>, talk of her journey so far, and the way ahead!</p><h2>Product Owner at SLB … and a Scientist</h2><p>I’ve always been one to adapt and be flexible. I love challenges and change doesn’t scare me.</p><h3>Onboarding from Within</h3><p>As I was already working in the company at the time of the takeover, I experienced a double onboarding in a very short time:</p><ol><li>When I was hired in the initial company. It was already a mature startup, with around 50 employees. I joined a team of five people. The integration process was very smooth, thanks to the availability of the whole team, from the project manager to the developers.</li><li>When SLB acquired the company: the startup was fast growing and our workforce was around 80. Yet, finding ourselves, overnight, in a company of nearly 100,000 people worldwide impressed us all. However, the process took place over two years, rather smoothly, if not with the inevitable rough patches here and there. Our former leaders were still part of the company, and we were assigned an onboarding manager. It really helped to understand and assimilate the processes of SLB, and to familiarize ourselves with the company.</li></ol><h3>Moving Towards the Energy Transition</h3><p>Over the years, while working on the same product, I was given the opportunity to explore all its aspects and to undertake all missions related to it: business development, customer training, documentation … right up to software development itself (I can tell you about Python…). And as the need was there, I even passed a certification to do software testing…</p><p>Upgrading my skills led to new responsibilities: supervising a comprehensive set of software, developed by and for SLB’s fluid and rock analysis labs.</p><p>Three years later, I joined the team that was setting up digital development processes. A vast field of action that covers multiple areas: marketing, security, operations, legal…</p><p>In the meantime, energy transition and decarbonization were becoming major topics in our sector, and SLB was getting deeply involved in emerging projects. When the group created a new position within our center around these subjects, my background as a chemist made me an obvious choice. I was working on hydrogen, geothermal energy, tidal turbines… At first, I divided my time between these missions and my position as a product owner for surface geothermal energy. When the initial project grew, I switched entirely to this project.</p><p>Today, I’m still a Product Owner. With my team, we develop a software application that allows you to accurately size geoenergy systems in buildings for heating and cooling purposes. Decarbonization reduces CO2 emissions … and electricity bills…</p><h3>PO Is a Multifaceted Job</h3><p>We’re a digital development center specializing in wells. I work hand in hand with geologists, physicists… Coming from chemistry, I’ve added geochemistry to my skills. Nowadays, and without pretending to be a specialist, it’s essential that I understand bits of geology, as is having the basics of statistical and mathematical models, air conditioning, heat pumps, etc.</p><p>I would describe myself as the interface between the users of our software and the product development team. Without being sharp, having a minimum of skills to understand these areas and being curious about all these subjects allow me to be more efficient.</p><p>To calibrate their products properly and best serve the end user, Product Owners must have a global vision of the product, its purpose, its meaning. To draw the roadmap (features to be developed, deadlines, priorities, etc.), I meet the users, our customers, identify and collect their needs, then formalize them before returning to the development teams with all this information.</p><p>The user is at the center of any product development, and in my opinion, the user experience (UX) will take an increasingly important place in POs’ missions.</p><p>Software doesn’t exist in itself, it exists to meet specific needs and our mission is to develop the right tools to meet the needs expressed by users. We must work in synergy with UX design specialists. I need direct contact with the user, to get my hands dirty and to be involved in areas such as prototyping, user interface, user testing. No need to become an expert, just be interested and curious. I love being a perpetual student; I always have!&nbsp;</p><h2>Solving the Conundrum of Being a Career Woman and a Mom&nbsp;</h2><p>We’re a small team, no two days are the same. When there are needs, we don’t ask questions, we roll up our sleeves and go to work</p><h3>Mutual trust is the key to teamwork!</h3><p>Trust within the members of our team, alongside diverse, but complementary skills, strong characters, but a real open-mindedness and great listening skills, these are our strengths. Sometimes we get a little fired up, but it’s always constructive! Working autonomously, within a small team, even in a very large group, is a privilege.</p><p>That said, we don’t live in a vacuum and we work closely with the&nbsp; core team, in Clamart. We have regular meetings to ensure good alignment between all the teams who have projects in common.</p><p>At SLB, we can evolve, explore new career opportunities, or even completely change jobs throughout our career. We just need to be brave enough to speak out. I have always been proactive; I don’t expect my superiors to try to guess what I want: I speak for myself, stand up for myself … and it works!</p><h3>Balancing Work and Life</h3><p>As a woman, I have never experienced gender discrimination. Yes, I had a few confrontations during my career with male colleagues, but I was able to put them in their place! I have a strong character: man or woman, I’m not easily intimidated and I know how to push back and be listened to! Competence always wins! Of course, everything depends on the corporate culture and SLB is a group where diversity is considered a plus and part of our identity.</p><p>On a human level, I have had many enriching experiences here, it’s hard to choose! An anecdote, however, which isn’t an anecdote: at some point in my life, I realized that I was working too much. It was causing such an imbalance that I couldn’t even make appointments with my children’s pediatrician. I had to put a stop to the madness! I needed to slow down, and I confided in my superior. Yet, he was a man everyone around me found impressive, with tons of presence and charisma, to the point of being intimidating. And just when he wanted to offer me new responsibilities, I was refusing! He was astonished, because my desire to move forward and contribute to the success of the company, to the launch of innovative products on the market, made me say yes all the time. But he listened anyway. And he came back to me with a solution that suited me.</p><h2>The Way Ahead for Tech … and I&nbsp;</h2><p>My honesty during this episode of my life earned me the trust of my superior. This trust led us through all the projects we worked on together thereafter.</p><h3>Reading the Signs</h3><p>This man marked me enormously by his ability to think outside the box. Since then, he’s left SLB to set up his own business, in a field that has nothing to do with ours: a passion lived in him and he followed his own star, that’s fantastic. In a way, he showed me a possible path.</p><p>When the pandemic happened, as painful as it was, habits changed and remote work transformed the lives of working people, myself included, and in my opinion, for the better. Admittedly, I spend a lot less time in my car … but if anything, it made me crave nature even more. I want to get out of the clutter of the cities, traffic jams… I need new adventures, in another region, to return to earthly values … to a more airy, less digital life. I love technology, but there is a time for everything, and I know a day will come for me to live another life.</p><h3>Five Years From Now</h3><p>In five years, two, ten? One day, I too will change paths. I’ll put on the clothes of an entrepreneur, and return to several of my initial loves: chemistry, cosmetology.</p><p>I don’t have huge ambitions: I want to live well in a place that I like, doing something that is close to my heart. I dream of a large estate, with plenty of rooms to accommodate my children’s children, my tribe. Picking lavender … or other things… A sweet life, a simple life, a peaceful and quiet life!</p>

Product Owner and Master of her Destiny: Alchemy and Sweet Passion

Julien Londeix