Women in STEM Spotlight: Ambassador Chantale Wong

Ambassador Chantale Wong is the U.S. Executive Director to the Asian Development Bank. Trained as an engineer, Ambassador Wong has had a long and distinguished career in public service. Until August 2016, she was the Senior Vice President at a technology startup firm, Amida Technology Solutions, where she focused on solving data interoperability challenges by developing agile, open source tools. Prior to that, she was appointed by President Obama to serve as Vice President for Administration and Finance, and Chief Financial Officer at the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC).

During her career, Chantale has held leadership positions at the Office of Management and Budget, Departments of Treasury and Interior, NASA and the Environmental Protection Agency. She started her career as a civil engineer at Boeing.

Ms. Wong holds a Master in Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, where she was a Littauer Fellow and a Women’s Leadership Fellow. She has another Master in Environmental Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, with a focus on water and wastewater management. She earned her undergraduate degree in civil and structural engineering from the University of Hawaii.

1. Ambassador Wong, you have an undergraduate degree in civil engineering and a graduate degree in environmental engineering. Can you share with us what sparked your interest in STEM as a young woman, specifically engineering? 

I was initially drawn to pure maths and logic during my high school years in Guam. However, a scholarship opportunity from the Society of American Military Engineers, with the help of the Governor of Guam, steered me towards engineering. This led me to major in Civil and Structural Engineering at the University of Hawaii, where I found myself among a small handful of women in all the engineering programs. I still remember how the campus building was designed with the assumption that only men would pursue engineering. Women’s bathrooms could only be found on every other floor. So, in the very early stages of my life, I not only discovered an interest in engineering but also noticed the gender imbalance in the field.

2. Your first job was at Boeing. Then, you joined the City Government of San Francisco as an environmental engineer. That was an interesting transition. Why?

Yes, I joined Boeing after graduating from the University of Hawaii as a civil/structural engineer. I helped design the company’s 757 and 767 airplanes, specifically the wing strut and the hydraulic tubing that controls the wing flaps. I was part of the first group to learn computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM). That job was amazing, but it was done on a dark screen. Being in a room where the window shades were always drawn and the days were short (Boeing’s HQ is in the Pacific Northwest), I got tired of no sunlight after six months. 

The CAD/CAM skills I developed at Boeing led me to the petrochemical industry. I got a job with Bechtel in San Francisco, where I designed petrochemical plants in the Middle East. I spent a year there before pursuing a master’s program in environmental engineering at UC Berkeley. After graduating, I became a very junior sanitary engineer at the newly online sewerage treatment plant with the City and County of San Francisco. 

This marked my transition from pure engineering to the next phase of my career, which is what I am doing currently. In many ways, it has been an evolution. The experience led me to recognize the role of the Federal government in Washington in policies and regulations that we had to implement on the ground. This led me to Washington, DC, to start my long career in public service.

3. From your start in sanitation in San Francisco to now being the US Ambassador to the Asian Development Bank, would you say you’ve enjoyed the public sector more? Why?

Yes, I truly believe in public service – it is a higher calling. As I had described earlier, it started with my initial role as a sewerage engineer at the City and County of San Francisco and the evolution of my understanding of how that world worked. I eventually got pretty good at getting things done in the public sector, specifically when it came to federal budget and resource allocation. This is a special skill that is only relevant in Washington, DC. To do it well, you need a deep understanding of the different roles in the executive branch, from the programs to the management to the political appointees.

My year at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government reinforced this calling for me. Focusing on public administration and public service programs taught me how policy decisions were made and what it took for the community to be at the table. One class in particular profoundly impacted my career: Federal Budget and Macroeconomics Policy from Alice Rivlin, one of the best in federal budgeting. She became my mentor for the next 30 years, and every role I had in Washington was related to what I had learned from her. I eventually became her Chief of Staff when she was the White House Budget Director at the Office of Management and Budget.  

So, yes, I do love this entire line of work. So much so that I founded an organization–the Conference on Asian Pacific American Leadership–to build a pipeline of Asian Americans seeking careers in public service. There are not enough of us in this field, and I want to change that. 

4. Even though what you do now does not seem directly connected to your STEM education, how has your academic training contributed to your success?

Yes, absolutely. First, our work at the Asian Development Bank (ADB) involves infrastructure in developing countries to help unlock economic development. There is always a need for more water and sanitation, power, and roads, all of which require engineering design and civil works. So I found my engineering education tremendously helpful, and I continually use the many skills I’ve learned from my engineering degrees, even in my current work. I would say that my STEM education also provided me with the analytical tools for solving problems. I find myself solving social issues using the same analytical framework: defining a problem, getting the data needed to understand that problem better, then figuring out the theory of change necessary to solve a health or education problem, and finally coming up with solutions and KPIs to track progress. To me, my STEM education has been tremendously helpful.

5. What advice would you give to young women with STEM backgrounds in college and newly in the workforce?

Take on every task with the same analytical rigor you learned in college. As women, we are always put to the test, especially in the field, and we are often held to a higher standard. Don’t let that deter you. It will ultimately make you a better engineer or scientist.

To support Women in STEM, nominate a fellow for Global Women Asia’s 2024 Women in STEM Fellowship by March 31, 2024!

For more inquiries, info@globalwomenasia.org