Ways Women Lead - 6 Group

Ways Women Lead - 6 Group

by Anna Gromadzka

Entrepreneurship Management Careers

Season 1

Episode 15 - Empowering Leadership in the Automotive Industry

Laurence Noël is a distinguished leader with an impressive 27-year career in the automotive industry. Having worked for Stellantis and the PSA Group before its merger with Fiat Chrysler, Laurence has held various key positions, including Research & Development, Corporate Planning, General Management, and Business Development. She has led business units across Asia and worldwide from Europe.Throughout her career, Laurence has been at the forefront of implementing new businesses and driving transformative initiatives. She started as an engineer at the PSA Group and has since traversed a diverse professional journey, managing development projects, engaging in strategic planning, overseeing manufacturing and sales, and even spearheading the establishment of a groundbreaking circular economy business model in her most recent role as a Senior Vice President of the Business Unit at Stellantis.Passionate about business, sustainability, technologies, and the automotive sector, Laurence is a firm believer in empowering others and creating a supportive environment for individuals to thrive.Laurence's contributions have been recognized and honored in 2018, when she was bestowed the prestigious title of Knight of the Legion of Honor, conferred by Louis Gallois.

Episode 14 - Driving DEI: Empowering Automotive Leaders

Drita Roggenbuck is a Senior Vice President & General Manager - Transportation Business Unit at NI (National Instruments), a producer of automated test equipment and virtual instrumentation software for applications such as data acquisition, instrument control and machine vision. Over the past 20 years, Drita has had an exciting career in the Automotive and Transportation sectors, progressing through roles of increased responsibility from Engineering, through Program Management, and Sales & Business Development, to Global Business and P&L Leadership. Drita is passionate about developing successful, effective and inclusive leaders. In this episode of Way Women Lead, Drita will share a story of her own leadership journey as well as insights on the importance of role models and mentoring. Drita will share her challenges and successes of leading across diverse cultures, as well as tips and best practices for fostering a culture of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and developing effective leaders within organisations.

Episode 13 - Everyone has a DEI Story

Lena Tsvetinskaya has over 20 years of experience in HR & Communications, having worked for global organisations such as IKEA and PepsiCo where she has spent the last 10 years progressing through roles of increased responsibility focusing on driving cultural transformation, designing talent, diversity and inclusion, communications, and engagement strategies as well as driving digital talent initiatives.Lena has led HR initiatives and teams in complex multi-cultural matrix environments, working from Asia, Europe, and Americas, leading across global teams and organisations.While at PepsiCo, Lena was awarded a highly commended ‘Diversity Team of The Year’ award as well as the PepsiCo Chairman’s Award for Raising the Bar in Talent & Diversity.In this episode of Ways Women Lead, Lena shares insights into how to drive effective Talent, Engagement and DEI initiatives in fast-moving complex environments.

Episode 12 - Leading in the Renewable Energy and Clean-Tech Sectors

Caterina Gorni is the founding partner of Oaktree Renewables and P3 Renewables, companies specialised in the development, financing and management of renewable energy assets, including solar, wind, hydroelectric and biogas. Caterina has over 20 years of experience in Renewable energy investment which includes private equity and exposure to the entire investment cycle (from origination to exit), having mainly focused on developing, financing, building and operating renewable energy assets. Caterina is passionate about renewable energy and clean-tech sectors and she aims to share her passion and contribute to the development of those sectors by providing advice and support to investors and start-up businesses in their growth strategies. In this episode of Ways Women Lead, Caterina shares the story of her career progression in the renewable energy and clean-tech space. We are also exploring topics such as entrepreneurship and the reasons why we should attract more women to this highly creative space as well as the current challenges and opportunities in the renewable energy sector and how Oaktree Renewables and P3 Renewables play an important part in driving forward innovation that allows the sector to continue to advance.

Episode 11 - Building a strong culture in a remote workplace

Mikaila Read is a remote-first People and Culture leader with progressive experience in HR and Marketing, with a particular focus on helping remote leaders and teams to achieve incredible business and people outcomes collaboratively. Currently, a Senior People & Culture Partner at MUI, a company that offers a suite of UI tools to help build UIs faster, where Mikaila focuses on establishing the company’s vision, mission, and organisation-wide OKRs while creating equitable, inclusive, and scalable practices and processes across the organisation as well as designing purposeful programs to maximise organisational and individual capability. Previously a Remote Experience Manager at Mezmo, where Mikaila led the Executive and Senior Leadership teams through an Organisational Culture and Values assessment to remodel company values, aligning to performance frameworks and embedding them throughout the organisation. Prior to this Mikaila was with LogDNA, an observability platform that allows to manage and use data. In this episode of Ways Women Lead, Mikaila shares insights and best practices on how to drive successful cultural change across organisations, particularly in a remote-first environment, resulting in more engaged, inclusive, happier and better-performing employees. We also discuss psychological safety, employee engagement and experience and their link to teams' and companies' performance.

Episode 10 - Scaling Up an Automotive Business

Sarah Olson is the Director of Engineering at Masu Brakes North America, a company that designs and manufactures Brake Pads & Brake Linings for the automotive industry. She joined Masu Brakes in 2020 and has been a vital part of their North America growth.Previously, Sarah was a Director of Product Management – Braking at Federal-Mogul, a global supplier of vehicle parts, where she had a successful career over 16 years, progressing through roles of increased responsibility, starting as a Formulator, then moving through Application Engineering, Program Management and Product Engineering. Prior to Federal-Mogul, Sarah worked for Goodyear as a rubber compounder.In this episode of Ways Women Lead, Sarah shares what it is like to work for a global multi-billion automotive company as well as what it was like to transition from that environment into Masu Brakes where Sarah reports directly to the business owners and plays a critical role in the company’s expansion in the US. Sarah also shared insights on the most exciting parts of her current role and the biggest lessons from her recent transition.

Episode 9 - Leadership in complex manufacturing environments

Natascha Wolski is a Director Customer Quality, Warranty & Risk at BENTELER Automotive Natascha has approx. 20 years’ experience working for major manufacturing businesses such as MANN+HUMMEL and BENTELER, which she joined in 2017. Throughout this time, Natascha has had the opportunity to work in international roles, based out of Germany, China and USA, lead teams of up to 200 people, managing through others and managing cross-functionally. While at MANN+HUMMEL – a family-owned manufacturer of filter systems, Natascha held various international roles within the production and quality departments. Most recently, at BENTELER - a global, family-owned automotive and engineering company, Natascha has held responsibility for the global Customer Quality, Warranty & Risk functions for the Automotive division. In this Episode of Ways Women Lead, Natascha shares insights on the challenges, and successes as well as some best practices for leading cross-functional international teams in complex multi-site manufacturing environments.

Episode 8 - Breaking the glass ceiling

Alia Zafar was the first woman on the Board of Governors for Pakistan Cricket Board. Currently holding the role of the Group Head of People and Organisational Excellence at The Bank of Punjab. Alia is also a writer on historical art from Punjab and a senior mentor for women leaders in Myanmar. Alia has 27+ years of experience in public, corporate and development sectors including Energy, Finance, Health, Telecoms, and Technology, having worked for organisations such as The World Food Programme, United Nations Development Programme, Crown Agents and most recently Askari Bank and The Bank of Punjab. She has been a keynote speaker on Digital Transformation, Leadership and Management, and has also co-authored the book "HR Directory of Terms" as part of the ISO 260 task group. In 2012, she was recognised as “HR Professional of The Year” at the Asia-Pacific HR Congress. In this Episode of Ways Women Lead, Alia shares insights on her own leadership journey and what it is like to lead within environments where female leaders are scarce and cultural diversity had at times led to friction. We also discussed Alia’s role in creating equitable and inclusive culture within the organisations she has worked for and how some of the best practices that Alia implemented can be replicated in other industries and environments.

Episode 7 - Managing career change and Growing as a Leader

Maura Nespoli is the Vice President of Sales for Innovative and Sustainable Products at Prysmian Group. She holds additional responsibility for the Sustainability North America strategy and plan implementation as well as the Renewables market for USA and Canada. Maura Nespoli has had a successful career of over 20+ years spanning leadership roles from Strategy through HR to Sustainability and Sales, having worked for prestigious multinational companies, combining management consulting and corporate experience: McKinsey, Vodafone, Ernst & Young, McDonald’s, AstraZeneca and most recently Prysmian Group, based out of Italy, the UK and currently the USA. Maura joined Prysmian Group in 2018 as a VP with the responsibility to manage the integration of General Cable which was acquired by Prysmian Group the same year. In 2021, she moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, USA, taking on her current role. Maura holds a Bachelor of Science (Philosophy; Occupational and Organisational Psychology). She also completed a Global Executive MBA at the Instituto de Empresa in Madrid, Spain, and is currently studying for a Business Master’s degree in Renewables at the University of Harvard. In this episode of Ways Women Lead, Maura shares her inspiring story of how her career experiences allowed her to grow as a leader and bring value to her current role and how she effectively managed the most significant change of her career.

Episode 6 - Leading a Fourth-Generation Family Business

Paula Salastie, CEO of Teknos Group – a global coatings company headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, with operations in 23 countries, 1,800 employees and net sales of approx. EUR 419 million in 2021. Paula Salastie took over the company’s operations taking on the CEO role as the fourth-generation representative of the Kiikka family in 2015. She has worked in the company since 1997 and led the Group Board since 2011. Paula is also the majority owner of Teknos Group. In this episode of Ways Women Lead, Paula shares insights on what it is like to be the CEO of a fourth-generation, family-owned business and why this dynamic creates unique opportunities for the business and its employees. Paula also shared insights into her own leadership journey as well as advice on how to lead effectively, balancing a highly demanding role and priorities of the business with personal priorities. Tune in to the next episode and for more insightful leadership stories subscribe to LinkedIn and YouTube

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