LAs a mechanical engineer, Federico says one of the most valuable things he’s learned is the ability to work with other people. Project managing gas turbines in Buenos Aires, Argentina, means he relies on a vast network of specialists to help his team maintain these enormous and complex feats of engineering. “Sometimes you need the help of a specialist team on the other side of the world,” he explains.
Working across time zones and cultures has taught Federico that, when it comes to people, there are rarely any hard and fast rules. “You learn to handle different expectations,” he adds. “You learn about people’s cultures, how to treat them, and what they expect of you — all the different ways in which human beings can behave.
In the eight years that Federico has been at Siemens, he’s worked with people as far afield as Russia, Germany, Spain, and the US on long-term projects that can run for up to 10 years.
A big part of Federico’s role as Project Manager is to build relationships. “I’ve got used to working with different people on different projects,” he says. “And that toolkit has served me well.”
He says it’s an ability that has even transferred over into his personal life. At the moment he’s planning a holiday in the Caribbean with 20 members of his and his wife’s extended family. “It’s like a small project,” he laughs. “We need to figure out the budget, somewhere to go, somewhere we can go with a small child. I’m not the kind of person who can rock up without knowing all the possibilities.”
From business administration to international commerce, Federico is now turning to his professional experiences to help him decide where he wants to go in the future. “I’d like to run my own business,” he tells me. “It would be something related to energy services where I can draw on what I’ve learned at Siemens while looking into alternative energies like solar and wind.”
He says the motivation comes from feeling a sense of responsibility to leave the world in a good place for the next generation and that’s something he believes more and more companies will place an emphasis on in the future. “Before I joined Siemens I worked in a lab for sugarcane fuel,” he says. “So, I’ve been involved in this type of engineering since the early days of my career.” It seems clear, therefore, that he shows no sign of stopping his involvement in this quickly evolving sector.
Federico Weyenbergh lives in Buenos Aires with his wife and daughter. Find out more about working at Siemens.
Federico is one of the many talented people working with us to make real what matters.
Photography: Franz Grünewald
Video: Mattias Matoq
