Alumni Q&A: Farnia Fresnel – Penn Engineering Blog
From overcoming her fear of public speaking to coaching professional audiences, Farnia Fresnel’s (ENG’98) journey was influenced by her start in systems engineering at Penn. Now the president of The Lenserf Group, a business consulting firm, she specializes in leadership development and coaching.
In a recent Q&A, Fresnel recounts pivotal lessons from Professor Anand Anandalingam, former Chair of the Systems Engineering Department:
“Under his mentorship, for Senior Design, I researched video-on-demand adoption, analyzing customer behaviors and barriers to technology adoption. This was a cutting-edge topic at the time. That work landed me my first role at AT&T’s headquarters. More importantly, he taught me how to listen to the data, to the customer, and to the unspoken assumptions hiding in complex systems.”
After graduation, Fresnel volunteered to judge the Senior Design Competition and joined the Engineering Alumni Society (EAS), where she was soon nominated as President. She says, “That moment marked another level of my leadership and reminded me of the transformational nature of being part of a welcoming community.”
Read the full Q&A today.