Emily Dickens
Name: Emily Dickens
Current Job: Head of Product Development at Octet Scientific, Inc.
Favorite restaurant in town? I love Guarino’s in Little Italy. The patio in the back is beautiful and the food is amazing. My mom’s side of the family is all Italian so the restaurant makes me nostalgic for Sunday pasta dinners at my grandparents growing up.
Favorite thing about Cleveland? The accessibility. Starting from my first year at Case Western Reserve University I was able to attend sports games in downtown Cleveland, explore restaurants in different neighborhoods, and attend events in different parts of the city. Now I live just a walk away from all the sports stadiums, East 4th, the Flats, and Playhouse Square.
Q: Emily, you did a few internships at big companies before joining Octet Scientific. Why did you join them? Why did you decide to choose a startup as your first job versus a BigCo? I had great experiences at the larger companies I worked for and learned so much. Those experiences gave me a really solid foundation, but I wanted to gain a different experience. I have always been passionate about the energy storage industry and knew I ultimately wanted to end up there for my career. I also had a growing interest in entrepreneurship through my experience as a ThinkEnergy Fellow at the Great Lakes Energy Institute and through my initial classes for my Masters of Engineering and Management. I told this to my undergraduate advisor, Rohan Akolkar, who connected me with Onas, CEO and Founder of Octet. I started as an intern the summer in between my final year of undergrad and my final year of my master’s. Throughout my time, the company gained traction with funding and results on our prototype chemicals which was really exciting to be a part of. I continued to work for Octet while finishing my masters. During that time, my responsibilities grew, and I truly loved everything I was doing.
I really resonate with the mission of Octet to enable sustainable and safe energy storage. I believe in Onas as a founder and got lucky that we work so well together and share many of the same values. I also get to use everything I have learned in my education and experiences towards something I truly love. The excitement, challenge and rapid learning experiences have made this decision 100% worth it.
Q: Emily, you were a varsity soccer player at Case Western. How did playing soccer help your professional career? My parents always like to tell this story about my soccer career. After every soccer game they would always ask how I thought I played. When I was young, without fail I would respond, “I played great!”. While the blind self confidence of an elementary schooler is amusing, I grew and matured in my soccer career and began to critically think about my performance. I then began to think of how I could improve on aspects of my performance. I began thinking how my strengths, weaknesses and self-improvements could help the team win. Finally, I began to think about how to elevate my team members to use their strengths for the team as well. All of this came through difficult conversations with coaches, understanding mine and other people’s limits, and working with a large range of personalities on teams. I believe navigating all of this through an athletic career is very similar to what you have to navigate in a professional career and I am extremely grateful to have had the experience.
Q: You are from Chicago, why did you decide to stay in Cleveland? I loved growing up near Chicago. It’s a great city with so much going on, but Cleveland is truly up and coming. Cleveland has grown so much even in the past 5 years I’ve been here. Its cool to be a part of a growing startup within a city that is growing so much itself as well. The opportunity with Octet was also too unique and exciting to pass up. While working for any startup brings its own risk, I have had a great support system in Cleveland with mentors from CWRU, GLEI and the growing entrepreneur ecosystem around here. All of these factors gave me confidence to start my career here.
Q: You were originally hired as a head of product development at Octet. However working at a startup, I assume you wear many hats. What were you hired to do vs. what are all the other additional responsibilities you have? My primary responsibility is to best understand how our product works and which products meet our potential customers needs. While Onas designs the molecules, I lead efforts in testing the molecules, working with potential customers to define their needs and iterating on our products to find the best solution for them. However, as you mentioned, working at a startup makes my role a much more dynamic one. I’ve taken deep dives on the technical side from building up our electrochemical testing lab to deciding necessary equipment to setting up the hardware to optimizing our throughput for testing. On the business side I help with pitch decks for investors, I’ve lead customer discovery campaigns, and other business development efforts. Each day is different but brings its own excitement as we continue to grow.
Q: Obviously, COVID has put a damper in a lot of activities most young people do during the summer in Cleveland liking going to bars or concerts. What have you been doing for fun to keep busy? As many people have been, I’ve been connecting with friends and family over zoom, sharing recipes, books, tv shows and movies to keep busy. There are a couple of friends I have been spending time with this summer and we have tried to stay creative in our “quarantine activities”. We’ve gone camping, explored the metro parks, gone to outdoor wineries and breweries, and most recently apple picking. Playing soccer in college there are a lot of summer/fall activities I was unable to participate in because my weekends were always busy. Cleveland has a lot of great outdoor activities that have been fun to explore. I am a very active person as well so I’ve been running a lot as an opportunity to get into the fresh air and explore different parts of Cleveland.