When John was young, he took university night classes so he could work to support his mother and three siblings. His days began at 4am and he wouldn’t sleep until midnight. Times were tough, but the long hours paid off — he has just been promoted to CEO Distribution Systems, South America (w/o Brazil), a position that’s based in Tenjo near Colombia’s capital city of Bogotá. Looking back, he dedicates his success to hard work, grasping every opportunity to learn, and understanding the value of people.
Joining Siemens 24 years ago as a mechanical engineer, he worked tirelessly to absorb all the information he possibly could about transformers. “I was part of the team that developed high-voltage transformers for export from Colombia to the US for the first time. We opened this door, and it was a good one to open,” he says. From there, he shifted roles but his fascination with the product didn’t budge, and working for the Distribution of Power Transformer Factories in Colombia (and five other transformer factories across America), gave him the chance to hone his skills even further.
And it’s proved invaluable over the years, with one of John’s many responsibilities being to call upon this knowledge to save a struggling transformer factory and make it profitable. “The people from this factory should be very proud because together we saved a company,” he says.
A balanced approach to leadership
John continues to oversee a transformer factory in Tenjo, but his copious experience doesn’t mean he has nothing left to learn. He takes a flexible approach to leadership, understanding that it’s impossible for one person to hold all the answers. “Sometimes you need to be the lead and sometimes you need to be the follower,” he says. “It doesn’t matter whether you are the head, you need to adapt to the circumstances.”
He is also a firm believer in ensuring all employees have a strong sense of belonging and are valued at work. “When you don’t feel useful at work, you start to get depressed, stressed, and sick,” he says. Placing real value on people and seeing them as individuals rather than statistics is something he believes has helped him get to where he is today. “To build a team you need to know the people in detail,” he says. “Nobody is perfect and all of us have our weaknesses and our strengths, but a team can be almost perfect if we override the weaknesses with the strongest parts of another person.”
Outside of work, John focuses on his family and he hopes the hard work that has helped him get to where he is today will inspire his two young sons’ future careers. Together, they often take trips to the cinema, go swimming, and play basketball on the court behind their home in Cota.
John J. Vélez R. joined Siemens in 1995 and has held various roles including Transformer Designer, Transformer Quality Manager, and Transformer General Manager. He has worked his way up and is now the CEO Distribution Systems, South America (w/o Brazil). He lives with his wife and two sons. Find out more about working at Siemens.
John is one of the many talented people working with us to make real what matters.
Photography: Franz Grünewald
Video: Mattias Matoq
