Talking to inspiring #WomenAtWork: Anela Boese, Director Connected Car at Porsche
53.5 percent of the girls in Germany say that they initially associate a scientist, an engineer or a programmer with a man. That really is a shame — but it resembles the working world in tech-related industries.
Luckily, this is changing — slowly, but steadily. Still, most of my colleagues are male. That’s probably the reason why I get a little extra excited when I meet inspiring and bright women at work.
In honor of International Women’s Day, LinkedIn started the initiative #WomenatWork, in which influential women from across the globe talk about gender equality, balance in the working life and change. I’d like to take this opportunity to join LinkedIn in celebrating #WomenatWork with a series about 3 women that truly inspire me.
Women who inspire me #1:
Anela Boese, Director Connected Car at Porsche
Anela is not only a C-level executive, but an entrepreneur as well. In 1998, she founded a Smart Home startup, which is by now the global technology leader in lifestyle automation. Today, she is leading the Connected Car department at Porsche and, together with her team, works on making sure that cars are linked to the cloud (IoT) and enabled to use online services.
I met Anela at a presentation for our board of management, where everyone was nervously waiting for their presentation slot. When it was her turn, she obviously knew exactly what she was talking about and had a specific goal she was focusing on.
That impressed me and I knew I wanted to get to know her better. Doing so, it became clear that she is the kind of person who is constantly going where things are about to change and someone who makes this change happen.
So here we are today, on International Women’s Day, talking about Anela’s career, her inspiration and the changes in the working world.
Anela, how did your path lead you here?
“That’s a question I’ve asked myself quite a few times before as well. I didn’t wake up as a 14-year-old and thought ‘I want to become an entrepreneur’. However, I’ve always been curious — to create new things, meet new people and learn something new. I’ve always had ideas, loved tech gadgets and liked to take on responsibility — that seems to be a good precondition for entrepreneurs. Anything else probably wouldn’t have done the trick for me.”
What was the biggest challenge of your career?
“To me, the biggest challenge was to accept change. I’ve been part of the transformation of the connected industry since 1999 — jumping from Smart Home to Connected Car. During my career, I realized that things change — sometimes even quite dramatically — and that the change isn’t always successful. But as Germans, we believe that new things must be 100 percent perfect, tested, safe and secured, to be successful. Over the time, I came to realize that there’s no such thing as a guarantee for success. Developing, implementing and creating something new is always trial and error and by now, I believe in the success of that. Apple is a great example: Everyone knows Apple, but no one knows ‘the windfall’.
What inspires you?
“This picture has been hanging in my office at home for years. This is my (life) motto: Nothing is impossible.”
Which change would you like to see in the working world?
“I think that we need more openness towards innovations and change — we need to see new things as a chance. In the automotive industry, two worlds are meeting at the moment: the traditional car manufacturing world and the new, digital world. They work quite differently, having different product life cycles and development processes. Due to that, established products and processes are often perceived as slow and useless in the new world, while digital innovations and connected services are dismissed as strangers by the traditional world. I am convinced that we need to tie these worlds together to continue our success story — and to build the sports car with digital performance of the future. To make this change happen, we need an open mindset and above all a change of principles at all levels of cooperation. To me, this means more agility, more cross-functional teams and a more common product focus.”
Lastly, I wanted to know what helped Anela the most in her career.
I expected many things: special mentors, trends, successes, smart decisions. But surprisingly, she stopped for a bit before saying:
“What helped me most in my career were the mistakes I made. Most of the time, you only enjoy the successes, but you do not think too much about how they happened. Setbacks and mistakes make you sad, angry, even speechless. But when you think about the whole process, about what it really was all about, you learn so much. At least that’s what I experienced.”
Thank you, Anela, for your inspiring words — it’s been a pleasure!
In the next months, I will continue this series of interviews with women who had an positive impact on me and shaped the way I look at career topics and the world of work. If you’d like to follow me on LinkedIn. Stay tuned!
#BalanceforBetter
Randi Bauer is Project Lead IT at Porsche. To find out more about Porsche and Technology, follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
