2022 Engineering Leader Under 40: Kathryn Kreitzer, 39

Kathryn Kreitzer, 39
Head of Product Management & Development NAM – Drives
Danfoss
Loves Park, IL, United States
BS Electrical & Computer Engineering, Marquette University

Why Kathryn is an Engineering Leader

Kathryn Kreitzer passionately pursues continuous improvement in product engineering and manufacturing to help customers apply the best products for total lifecycle cost. She looks for ways to optimize performance and brings a truly collaborative mindset to all of her projects. She is well respected by her peers inside and outside of Danfoss.

Achievements, Advancement & Career-related Industry Contributions

Kathryn is a driven leader with a strong successful history in the variable frequency drives business environment. Her demonstrated successful skill set includes sales leadership, product management, engineering, quality, operations, six sigma problem solving and process improvement, influential leadership, and foreign business culture. She is a leader for positive change management and passionate for diversity and inclusion advancements. Recently she has joined Danfoss as the Head of Product management and development for NAM drives. Kathryn brings with her a comprehensive drives background of just under 12 years from ABB. A brief highlight/summary of her drives experience is below:

• 2010-2013: Quality and test engineering for U.S. manufacturing and production localization lead for high power drives manufacturing
• 2013-2015: Expat assignment focused in high power drives sales and product management
• 2015-2019: U.S. HVAC drives portfolio product manager responsible for product lifecycle responsibility including market introduction of ACH580 portfolio market introduction
• 2019-2022: HVAC drives sales including OEM and channel responsibility
• 2022-present: Danfoss product management and R&D design responsibility for North America

Non-work-related Activities & Hobbies

As an avid runner who enjoys traveling, Kathryn is currently working to achieve running a half marathon in each state. During the past year she was able to complete Tennessee and Mississippi. It is a great way to maintain fitness and incorporate traveling to new destinations.

Interesting Details

Kathryn is married and a proud mother to two teenage children. She enjoys trying new activities and also a bit adventurous (including: skydiving, bungee jumping).

Why Kathryn chose this career

Kathryn was fortunate to have strong role models within the STEM fields to model as well as promote career options. She gives significant credit to her family for highlighting the engineering possibility during her formative years when she highlighted an interest in both math and science was starting. Strong advisors in her college years opened up the direction of electrical engineering and the variety of options for career tracks.

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