Sensata Technologies President Martha Sullivan named New England Businesswoman of the Year

MARTHA SULLIVAN, president and CEO of Sensata Technologies, was named New England Businesswoman of the Year at the 2015 Women's Summit at Bryant University. / COURTESY SENSATA TECHNOLOGIES
MARTHA SULLIVAN, president and CEO of Sensata Technologies, was named New England Businesswoman of the Year at the 2015 Women's Summit at Bryant University. / COURTESY SENSATA TECHNOLOGIES

SMITHFIELD – Sensata Technologies President and CEO Martha Sullivan was named the Bryant University 2015 Women’s Summit New England Businesswoman of the Year at the daylong event held Friday at the school’s Smithfield campus.
The award was presented by summit director Kati Machtley during lunch, in which 1,000 of the event attendees gathered to hear a number of speeches, including from not just Sullivan, but Gov. Gina M. Raimondo and Hoda Kotb, co-host of the Today show, as well.
In her remarks, Sullivan credited her success at the company, which manufactures sensors and controls for the automotive and aerospace industries, among others, to a great amount of good fortune, which has given her a team that “has created a business that we are really proud of.”
The Attleboro-based business, which posted net income of $283.7 million in 2014 on revenue of $2.4 billion, was spun off from Texas Instruments in 2006, and taken public in 2010.
Sullivan left the audience with four pieces of advice:

  • Find a career that you can believe in and commit to
  • Surround yourself with great people
  • Set high standards and work to meet them
  • And, don’t get comfortable

And, as soon as Sullivan left the stage in Bryant’s Chace Wellness Center, Machtley introduced Gov. Gina M. Raimondo, who gave a brief talk, but not before noting that she loves the annual Women’s Summit, now in its 18th year. And while the governor said that she was tired from preparing and presenting her first state budget Thursday, she said that the energy in the room was invigorating.
In keeping with the summit’s theme of empowering women, Raimondo said that the real significance of her election as the state’s first female governor was that it tells girls that they can be whatever they want to be if they work hard at it. And that message is coming at just the right time in Rhode Island, she said.
“I think the single greatest underutilized resource in the world is women. The more we can do to unleash that talent, promote it, support it, put it to work, the better off we will be,” Raimondo said.
She went on to repeat her themes for turning Rhode Island around – build a skilled workforce, embrace innovation, attract businesses and entrepreneurs to the Ocean State – before calling on all the women in the room to do their part to help the state succeed.
Following the governor to the podium was Hoda Kotb, the co-host of the fourth hour of NBC’s Today show, who arrived at that position after working at local television stations across the country and as a Dateline NBC correspondent.
Kotb’s story of how she got in the business – related in a series of anecdotes of being rejected by numbers of local TV stations across the American South – kept the audience entertained. But it came with a message of empowerment and ended with her relating an anecdote from an overseas trip for the Today show.
Having just had surgery for breast cancer, Kotb, while still in recovery, took a light-duty assignment overseas. On the way back, she was engaged by a fellow passenger on the plane, who convinced her that she must only do those things that matter most in life, and that making change starts with small things that add up to big things.
“The way you spend your days is the way you spend your life,” she said. And if you want to change your life, just change one day at a time and before long, you will have accomplished a major change.
The audience then gave her a standing ovation and went out to the afternoon’s programs.

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