Innovation Spring 2026

“Open offices are not great for us. We may need a bit of a different schedule because of how our chemistry, our brains work on a different schedule,” Mc L arty said. “Allow us to unmask and be ourselves because the superpowers of the neurodivergent will add so much value to the team.” Smith added another, more cultural change, could be made to better include neurodivergent individuals in workplaces. “Change the belief that ‘failure to move up’ in a company or profession automatically means ‘failure as a professional,’” she said. “Moving “sideways” or moving “randomly” throughout one’s career should also be valid, and successful in a different way.” Word to the neuro-amazing Reflecting on their lives and experiences as neurodivergent individuals (even if they did not always know of their neurodivergent traits), the three professionals shared advice for other neurodivergent professionals. For Smith, her years of living with depression and anxiety led her to work more on herself, and she suggested neurodivergent professionals “work on your self-confidence the most. Daily, if you can.” Mc L arty, whose professional successes and challenges were shaped by her ADHD, advised professionals with different traits and skills to “find a role that fits with your talents. ADHD does well in positions that offer lots of change and urgency. People with autism often dig deep to find solutions, so find a role that fits this talent.” Birch, after a lifetime of feeling different than others in certain specific ways, offered simpler, yet just as powerful, guidance: Be yourself. “There is nothing about you as a neurodivergent person that makes this job impossible,” he said. “There's nothing about that

that disqualifies you from being your full self in this kind of a field and succeeding. “I don't tend to think of myself as neurodivergent. I don't like the

divergent part of that label, so I like to call myself neuro-amazing. If I had a choice between being neurotypical and neuro-amazing, it's pretty obvious which one I would choose.”

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Innovation Spring 2026

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