The Executive Who Still Gets Her Hands Dirty: Sarah Chen’s Field-First Approach
Unlike many tech CEOs who remain tethered to boardrooms and office suites, Dr. Sarah Chen regularly trades her executive attire for field gear and her Berkeley headquarters for forest floors. This distinctive field-first leadership approach has become a cornerstone of Amber Grove Inc.’s success and a key element of Chen’s management philosophy.
Chen’s connection to forests began during her doctoral studies at Stanford’s Environmental Sciences department, where she spent countless hours in California’s redwood ecosystems. This formative experience instilled in her a deep respect for direct ecological observation—a perspective she has maintained despite her transition to corporate leadership.
“You can’t understand forests from spreadsheets and dashboards alone,” Chen explains. “The most important insights often come from direct experience—noticing patterns, smelling changes in the air, observing subtle shifts in ecosystem dynamics that data alone might miss.”
This philosophy manifests in Chen’s personal schedule, which includes quarterly field immersions where she disconnects from digital communications to work alongside forest rangers using Amber Grove systems. During these multi-day trips, Chen participates in routine monitoring activities, engages in conversations with front-line environmental professionals, and experiences the company’s technology from the user perspective.
These field experiences have directly influenced product development. During one such trip to a Northern California redwood forest, Chen noticed rangers struggling to interpret certain data patterns on their mobile devices during foggy conditions. This observation led directly to the development of the company’s adaptive interface system, which automatically adjusts visualization parameters based on ambient environmental conditions.
Chen has institutionalized this field-first approach throughout Amber Grove’s organizational culture. All employees, regardless of role, participate in regular forest visits, with technical teams required to spend at least five days per quarter in deployment environments. The company’s onboarding process includes a three-day forest immersion, ensuring that even staff in administrative roles develop firsthand understanding of the ecosystems their work ultimately serves.
“We call it ‘forest literacy,'” Chen notes. “Every decision made within our company, from engineering to marketing to finance, should be informed by direct understanding of forest ecosystems and the challenges facing those who manage them.”
This approach extends to the company’s research and development methodology. New product features are conceptualized and initially tested in field environments rather than being developed exclusively in laboratory settings. Engineers and data scientists regularly join ecological research expeditions, creating opportunities for cross-disciplinary observation that has yielded some of the company’s most significant innovations.
The BarkBeacon™ sensor system, one of Amber Grove’s most successful products, resulted directly from this approach when a field observation by one of the company’s ecologists led to collaboration with the sensor engineering team. The resulting technology can detect subtle bark texture changes that precede disease outbreaks long before visual symptoms appear.
Chen has applied principles observed in forest ecosystems to her management approach as well, developing what she calls “ecological thinking” for organizational leadership. This perspective emphasizes adaptability, diversity, resilience, and interdependence—qualities that define healthy forest systems.
“We’ve designed our company the way a forest is designed,” she explains. “Different specialized elements working together, adapting to changing conditions, and supporting each other’s growth.”
As Amber Grove continues its rapid growth—now with 85 employees managing technology deployed across 1.2 million acres of forest in three countries—Chen’s field-first approach ensures that the company’s expanding technological capabilities remain grounded in the ecological realities they aim to serve.
“Technology disconnected from the natural systems it’s designed to protect will ultimately fail,” Chen emphasizes. “Our success depends on maintaining that connection, from the CEO to every member of our team.”