Lucía Anero: Being pigeonholed is not an option  

We interviewed Lucía Anero, Project Manager at Ecrimesa Group.

1. How long have you been working at Ecrimesa Group? 
   On 15 October 2022 I celebrated my first 4 years as part of the Ecrimesa team.  
2. What tasks have you carried out?
   Since the beginning I have developed my profile in the position of Project Manager, or to put it another way, doing a bit of everything! 
   The first and perpetual task is that of a student, because no matter how much engineering degree you have, little is taught in the career about Investment Casting and MIM, as well as languages, especially German applied to business and technical language in this field. 
   The main functions of my position would be to promote an effective communication in general and between the client and the Ecrimesa Group in particular, in order to meet the client’s needs.
   I work in both English and German, as I have direct contact with customers in Germany and Israel.  
   Typical summer functions would be the closest to “a bit of everything”. Near or during official holiday closures, it is always necessary to be versatile in order to meet the needs of the clients. 
   If there is one thing that characterises me, it is that I don’t get pigeonholed in my most primary functions. You learn something every day at Ecrimesa Group, and not only in the fields mentioned above. 
3. How have you seen the evolution of the company since you joined? 
   In the four years that I have been with the company, two of them have been marked by the pandemic. In that time, we have experienced an atypical situation in which delivery times have lengthened to previously unthinkable levels, which is very fortunate after the global crisis we have experienced, but creates a constant challenge for the entire Ecrimesa Group.  
   Management has faced up to this situation by increasing capacity in different departments and taking on new challenges such as the opening of a MIM line in the USA.  
   This proactive attitude of Ecrimesa fully represents the philosophy that attracts me to the Group. 
4. How do you tell or would you tell your children what you do for a living?
   As far as my role in the company is concerned, I would explain to them that the fundamental task is to promote effective communication both between departments and with the customer. 
   Knowing how to understand the final needs of the product and production in order to be able to execute it is essential and for this, it is necessary to express them in a reasoned and convincing way, in my case, also in different languages.  
5. How do you rate your work experience at Ecrimesa? 
   I value my professional development very positively since I joined the company because it offers the possibility of working in an international environment, and that has always been of interest to me.  
6. What recommendation would you give to the new generations who are currently joining the company? 
   Attitude rather than aptitude!  
   We must start from the premise that there is always a lot to learn when entering the world of work and understand it as an opportunity to nurture both knowledge and to develop innate skills or skills acquired during the educational period.  
   Next, be aware that we are a team! If it is true that everyone has something to contribute, it is even more true that we must work together to achieve success.  
7. Which company would you like to work for, if only out of curiosity?
   Right now it’s not so much a question of which company, but rather under what conditions, and the truth is that my Ecrimesa Group offers me opportunities for both professional and personal development, so right now I don’t have a different goal in mind.  
   When I started out, I expanded my knowledge on the basis of the desired profile for positions that were interesting to me at the time, and I took BMW Munich Engineering as my reference point. Today, however, I consider the automotive world to be too rigid, which is why I still prefer my current role.  
8. If time gates existed, to what era of the past would you like to travel? 
   The truth is that in order to be able to travel, I would stay in the present.  
   I am lucky enough to be able to afford trips that, in the past, both because of the unavailability of affordable flights and because I am a woman, I would not even have been able to consider. We live in an era full of possibilities! 
9. Tell us an amusing anecdote related to your work. 
   Things about communicating in a non-native language and the similarity between some words. My colleague Francisca, who was supervising my emails when I joined, could laugh when she read “Verführung” instead of “Verfügung”.  
   Anyone interested can google “Wir stehen Ihnen gerne zur Verfügung” and replace the word in question with “Verführung”. Luckily it never reached a customer.
10. Recommend a film, a series, a song and a book.
    I’m not much of a screen person other than at work, but if you want to go to the next one I recommend a beach and a restaurant in Santander… 
    Song: None in particular.  
    Book I would say Harry Potter, if only because I’ve read it in Spanish, English and I’m in the process of reading it in German.  
11. That country or city you can’t wait to visit. 
    All of them! South America is still unexplored, but Asia still grabs me for all it has to offer. I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of visiting it and keep discovering it, as it offers unbeatable security for tourists and a very affordable cost.