How does your work contribute to Eaton's bigger picture and direction?

Our world is at an important junction as we transition from fossil fuels to renewables and reinvent how power is distributed, stored, and consumed. From addressing climate change and reducing air pollution, to ensuring more reliable and resilient access to power, there are many reasons we need this dramatic shift to a low-carbon future.

At Eaton, we’re helping to drive this energy transition by enabling utilities, businesses, and homeowners to embrace electrification and effectively integrate renewables—unlocking cleaner, more reliable, more efficient, and more affordable power.

The key problem is how to use more renewables, while also ensuring more reliable and stable power. Renewables bring challenges because they’re decentralized, as well as weather-dependent. More distributed power generation and two-way electricity flows demand a smarter, more flexible grid.

Our approach to reimagining the energy value chain is called ‘Everything as a Grid’. Within that, one particular area I’m very involved with is our Buildings as a Grid approach. I’m focused on how uniting renewable generation, energy storage, power management software, and charging points in buildings can help stabilize the grid and support the surging popularity of electric vehicles (EVs).

Using these technologies, commercial and residential properties can be transformed into full-blown energy hubs, helping to balance supply and demand across the grid. But this is also a huge opportunity for building owners because it can reduce their costs and unleash new revenue streams, while also lowering their carbon footprint and helping Europe transition to cleaner electric transport.

In terms of skills, my experience with graphic design software makes briefing creative teams much easier, as we can speak the same language. I also think a strong understanding of digital marketing is essential for everyone today and my experience with Google Ads, programmatic advertising, search engine optimization, and social media campaigns all comes in very handy in my role.

It’s very important to keep learning too. That’s something Eaton really supports with online courses, mentoring programs, leadership training, and the chance to volunteer for projects where you can grow your skills. Personally, I’m keen to learn more about video and interactive content marketing at the moment. I need to stay on top of Eaton’s evolving solutions at all times too—knowledge of the products you’re working on is really essential.

What's a challenging aspect of your role and what do you enjoy most?

I joined Eaton at the perfect time to be a part of something very new and exciting. Eaton had just acquired Green Motion—a designer and manufacturer of electric vehicle charging hardware and related software. I got to be involved in the integration of this pioneering company, which was a market leader in Switzerland and among the top 10 in Europe.

I took the lead on incorporating Green Motion’s product marketing collateral and sales assets into Eaton’s business, as well as supporting other marketing and branding activities, to provide customers with intelligent EV charging and energy storage. Innovation is moving incredibly fast in this area, and I’m delighted we’re helping the world to seize these new opportunities and to accelerate a low-carbon future.

It’s been fast and furious—we managed six product launches in six countries in just three months, including the entire onboarding period! It’s a real testament to my team that they took all this on and succeeded. Even now, new product launches just keep coming—with two more due by the end of 2021 and new product and software launches are planned for 2022 already. I don’t think I’ll ever get bored in the Buildings as a Grid team!

Generally, I face the same challenges as anyone working on large projects and relying on lots of stakeholders. You need to keep an eye on all the moving parts and to deal with changes as they happen—reacting fast and focusing on the right priorities.

A big part of what makes my job so enjoyable and rewarding is working with talented people who motivate and challenge me. Eaton truly values diversity, so I get to work with people from many different countries, backgrounds, and cultures which really fuels my team’s creativity. I work with colleagues from all over Europe on a daily basis, so I’m constantly learning from their different ideas and perspectives.

What skills and qualities tend to be most valued at Eaton?

First and foremost, you can be yourself here. Leaders are open to input and value your opinion. This is somewhere that wants everyone to be included, engaged, and contributing their best.

We’re looking beyond traditional engineering expertise more than ever—recruiting people with very different backgrounds than in the past. For instance, data scientists, UX designers, and software developers are vital to support the new digital capabilities at the heart of the energy transition. We’re also applying cross-sector expertise to support sweeping trends that are impacting many different industries at once.

Even if your background isn’t in STEM—science, technology, engineering and mathematics—there are roles at Eaton for you. For instance, we’re recruiting people from arts backgrounds, because it’s essential in everything from great product design and marketing, to compelling user experiences, customer aesthetics, and more. In my team, people with knowledge of varied fields like economics, political science, communications, and journalism are essential to our Buildings as a Grid approach.

In terms of qualities, Eaton expects every employee to be passionate about what they do, to be committed to honesty and integrity, to be always willing to learn, to work efficiently, and to hold themselves accountable.

What's the best piece of career advice you've had?

Always be learning. I think it’s very important to be confident in your role and to make sure your voice is heard, but you gain just as much by listening to what other people have to say. Keep looking for the opportunities to learn in what you’re doing, especially if things aren’t going your way. Find those lessons and you’ll continue growing in your career and as a person.

Are you involved in any community-based organizations at Eaton?

I joined the Internal Branding team, part of our Brand Ambassador community, earlier this year. As team leader, I had to come up with ideas on how to reengage everyone in life at Eaton after so much time spent working from home during the pandemic. In fact, new employees that joined during that time haven’t known anything else—they haven’t had the chance to even meet their colleagues in person!

We’re organizing voluntary activities and events to bring people together. We had our first Eaton ‘Bike Tour’ in September and a ‘Back to the Office’ event series in October and our first ‘Hiking Tour’ in November. Currently, we’re organizing activities for the lead up to the festive season. I think people really appreciate these opportunities to see each other, especially at times like this.