Alexandra Pradas Gauchía | CMO (Chief Marketing Officer) | Clever Solar Devices
1.- In Clever Solar Devices we digitalize the Photovoltaic plants’ O&M. It’s what we call Photovoltaic 4.0, we digitalize processes that are currently done manually and with indirect measurements, which require estimates, improving the efficiency of the facilities and reducing their costs and occupational risks of operators, bringing clean energy to more families, and helping to achieve the H2030 and H2050 horizons.
My job at the company is to oversee the planning, development and execution of the company’s marketing and branding initiatives both creatively and commercially, as well as handling the business side with customers and investors.
2.- It is necessary to increase the number of women in technical and scientific careers. We are always looking for the most suitable candidate in terms of training, experience and values, and many times you receive fifty resumes of which 10 or 15% are women. The culture of the company and how it works also makes a difference, the decision-maker and the management of the company must give equal opportunities. Our company culture is strongly committed to inclusion and diversity, but we have difficulty finding people with the technical profile we need in women. There are few of them and they tend to be more attracted to positions in multinationals than in startups like ours.
3.- Education is key. It’s important that from an early age we teach that there are no professions or careers for men or women, that they can be whatever they like. We have to motivate and create vocation from home and from the educational centers, interest, and curiosity, as well as not limiting, giving creative tools and toys of all kinds to open paths for them regardless of gender, so that they can really do what makes them happy. Society is still far away but these are the foundations. Promote interest in technology and technical careers and give examples and role-models they can look up to so that we become more and more STEM women.
4.- Just this week at the South Summit, a group of women entrepreneurs and managers, we were saying that there are more and more of us. In the sector there is still a long way to go, but little by little the way is opening, UNEF signed an agreement in 2019 with Plan International Spain in order to encourage the participation of women.
Anyway, gender role perceptions are the most important barrier to enter the sector, the mere fact that having women in the management team is positively valued in competitions and accelerators, says a lot. I look forward to the day when equality is such that this factor becomes meaningless.
