Women in eMobility

Women play a huge role in the emobility sector, occupying positions at every level from C-suite to trainee, and performing every function imaginable. Admittedly, they are not as visible as the men working in our field. On the International Women’s Day of 2023, we are thrilled to launch Women in eMobility, highlighting the women in EV charging who work every day to advance our mission of decarbonising transport.

Meet Laetitia Jumel, Head of Data at Electra!

How does your daily work contribute to the roll-out of EV charging?

We have two examples of projects we are working on:Geospatial data helps Electra makes better decisions, by providing helping us estimate the number of cars that will come to charge at a location. This helps us decide whether we want to invest in a location, size stations properly, or make energy forecasts. Our goal is to create a sustainable network, that is convenient and efficient.Another type of data that is very valuable is chargers data. After collecting charging sessions information, we worked on the definition of unsuccessful sessions and build a comprehensive understanding that allowed us to improve the share of successful charging sessions. Historical analyses are necessary to learn about patterns that increase failures, while live data allows us to remediate to flagrant issues immediately. Charge session data is only one of the indicators we use to ensure that we provide the best customer experience possible: countless types of data are also used to refine or create new products.

What led you to working in the eMobility sector? Can you tell us about your education and career before joining the eMobility industry?

After I graduated from engineering school, I joined Airbnb as a data scientist, and discovered the tech ecosystem of the Silicon Valley from the inside. I learnt about how data can be one way to listen to the voice of our customers. All statements remain opinions if they are not backed by data, to paraphrase a famous quote. I left convinced of the value of data, but wanting to apply it to the reduce carbon emissions - and I was lucky to find an opportunity to do just that, at Electra.

What advice could you give to other women interested in working in tech sector?

If you want to work in tech, then there is a place for you somewhere. You do not have to be alone, friends and mentors have been essential in helping me find my place. So, surround yourself with great people, and push each other to advance towards your goals

What skills help you succeed in your daily job?

I love to tackle scrappy problems, move quickly and try new things. I can spend a lot of time with data, trying to understand every aspect of it.

What is your wish for the future of eMobility?

Fewer cars on the road, but autonomous and shared by everyone. Like public transportation, but it also covers all adresses.

What led you to working in the eMobility sector? Can you tell us about your education and career before joining the eMobility industry?

I am passionate about emerging technologies with a guilty pleasure for sustainability. After I completed my Bachelor and Master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Technical University of Munich, I started my Engineering career at Schneider Electric. After a year doing this, I moved into product management and found myself wanting to be involved in the “what” and “why” of our products and not just the “how’’, to have a larger impact on the business.

Over the last 5 years, I have led a wide range of projects and initiatives in both eMobility and Renewables, most notably the Mobility2Grid research project at the EUREF Campus in Berlin. Then, I joined ChargePoint in 2021, bringing the capabilities of our energy management solutions to customers interested in optimizing the delivery of EV Charging managed via our software platform.

What advice could you give to other women interested in working in tech sector?

I am a true believer that you can do anything if you set your mind to it, which is why I am always striving to learn more and will never give up. Having perseverance with an eye on the end goal is the attitude I go into every day with, because the finish-line is what ultimately matters.

Build a strong foundation, stay curious and commit to lifelong learning. This knowledge will serve as a strong base for your career, while you strive for equality. Excellence knows no gender! Keep making huge strides, believe in yourself and what you want to achieve! As you progress in your tech career, consider becoming a role model for other women interested in tech. Share your experiences, offer guidance, and be there to support the next generation of women in this industry.

What skills help you succeed in your daily job?

I have lived in Germany for over 10 years, which allowed me to be perfectly fluent in four languages and enabled me to easily adapt to new environments, be it a new team, or a different field of work. Throughout my working experience in particular in research projects, I worked with different stakeholders where communication is crucial for cooperation and success. My high motivation and commitment to regular and effective communication as well as my dedication to accomplishing goals mean that I am constantly looking for ways to improve upon things. I truly enjoy teamwork and collaboration at very high levels of productivity. I love to inspire and lead highly functioning teams to achieve something much greater than any individual could. I take pride in my leadership abilities, as well as being able to make every team member feel accountable and enthusiastic.

What is your wish for the future of eMobility?

I hope to see young voices highlighted and elevated in electric transportation. This generation is pushing and fighting hard at the intersection of climate change, sustainability, and gender inequality. I want to amplify these voices and see more women getting engaged in this field and shaping our future. Things are starting to change in the eMobility landscape, but we can still do more.

What led you to working in the eMobility sector? Can you tell us about your education and career before joining the eMobility industry?

I graduated as an architect from the Polytechnic University of Valencia with a specialisation in urban planning. After that I did a master's degree in digital art and experience design at the European Institute of Design (IED Madrid).

For seven years I developed my professional career within the architecture and construction sector, focusing my work mainly on residential, institutional, industrial and urban planning projects until I finally had the opportunity to join an emerging sector that was committed to a more sustainable social model: eMobility.

Throughout my professional development I have pursued the same concerns such as the social value that design and architecture can bring, the sustainability and environmental impact of projects, as well as the incorporation of new technologies in the flow and production of like virtual reality and BIM methodology. These tools help to optimise both the design itself and the timing in different phases of work or the optimisation of the material and human resources used. I’m now investigating how AI can help to optimise and generate new design models and how eMobility can benefit from this.

Has the eMobility sector been becoming more diverse and inclusive in the last years and how can it continue to evolve in this respect?

Although I haven’t been in the e-mobility industry long enough to form a full view, throughout my professional career, I have seen how women have been getting more and more involved in traditionally male-dominated sectors such as architecture. There is a general trend in today's society and culture where inclusion and diversity is key to the development and success of companies and projects, eMobility being one of those sectors. Much more needs to be done, such as working within companies to find a balance between the professional development of the employee and family reconciliation so that things like maternity do not represent an obstacle in the professional career of each individual.

How do you make a difference in your role, in terms of understanding customer pain points?

As an architect, I understand that eMobility goes far beyond technical issues such as car autonomy, charger power, communication and marketing of the sector or the development of the user platforms. Consumers have limited interest in the complexity behind these technical aspects. For them, the important thing is to be able to charge their car as quickly and easily as possible when they are on their way to work or travelling from one city to another on holiday with their family.

From my point of view, eMobility should cover a very basic and very mundane need: to be able to move around with an electric car in complete freedom and still go about our daily routines without major setbacks. That’s why it’s important that charging stations are perfectly integrated into the urban infrastructure of our cities, as well as into the state road networks.

How does your daily work contribute to the roll-out of EV charging?

I’m aware of the social value of design and the impact that can be generated with it. I think that the layout, materials and integration of charging stations should respond to the needs and concerns on both user and societal level.

Issues such as climate change, personal and social health and well-being, sustainability and the long-term impact of our actions, or the quality of the time spent in the vehicle charging process are key to the definition of our charging stations. That’s why, in designing charging locations, I look for the quality of spaces that provide a regenerative value to the environment, places where the user can identify themselves, feel safe and where the experience goes beyond the actual vehicle recharging.

What advice could you give to other women interested in working in tech sector?

The tech sector is booming and growing, so there is room for everyone here. From my point of view, success in any area of life doesn’t depend on gender, but on perseverance, hard work, passion for what you do and the determination to improve yourself every day.

Find allies to help you in your day-to-day life and help them with the same generosity. The idea is to form a team and take those qualities that differentiate us from each other and put them to work in such a way that they are not an obstacle, but an opportunity to learn something new that helps us to grow both individually and as a group.

What skills help you succeed in your daily job?

Creativity, transversal and flexible thinking are key for me. Being able to analyse and understand different points of view, both technical and human, to achieve a joint solution that solves all kinds of problems and needs of the many agents involved in each project, from the end user of the station, to the builder who executes the work, and even the needs of the company.

To project means to imagine a future scenario where a specific action is taken to solve a specific need. In order to do so, a unique solution must be thought and materialised in the present time. A whole mechanism must be articulated to generate this future scenario both at a material level and in the planning of means, time and resources.

What is your wish for the future of eMobility?

I wish that institutions and public agencies would come to understand the real need for the eMobility sector to develop as quickly as possible, as it’s a mobility model that can really help to improve the climate emergency we are experiencing. Here in Spain, institutional bureaucracy puts many obstacles in the way of any project to deploy the much-needed charging infrastructure. I would also like that the rest of the public is more familiar with this sector and that soon, the electric car will be accessible to anyone, regardless of their status or purchasing power.

Has the eMobility sector been becoming more diverse and inclusive in the last years and how can it continue to evolve in this respect?

Over the past decade, the technology sector has witnessed a sustained increase in diversity, which I have personally observed throughout my career. However, there is still significant room for improvement in achieving gender balance, particularly in the Embedded Software domain across all roles and seniority levels.

Women working in the e-mobility or tech sector at large, should continue inspiring the new generations to follow the same path and share the advantages of working in these sectors, which are multifaceted, and range from personal achievement to a positive environmental impact.

Moreover, companies should actively work towards increasing the representation of women in leadership positions as this will normalize their success and make such careers more attainable and realistic for aspiring women.

How does your daily work contribute to the roll-out of EVcharging?

In my current role at EVBox, I have worked on delivering the Human Machine Interface (HMI) features for the newly launched EVBox Liviqo AC chargers. The embedded GUI features developed by my team and me have vastly improved the user experience of our chargers by providing guided prompts to users about conducting a successful charging session. Additionally, they offer comprehensive information about system errors, ensuring user safety. These improvements not only enhance end-user experience but also help Charging Point Operators (CPOs) quickly identify issues and increase the overall uptime of their charging networks, which makes the consumers more confident in the technology, wanting to switch to EVs. I believe that improving the user experience of chargers for users and CPOs will have a significant impact on EV adoption by making charger usage a seamless and hassle-free experience.

What led you to working in the eMobility sector? Can you tell us about your education and career before joining the eMobility industry?

I hold a bachelor's degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering and a master's degree in Computer Engineering. I started my career as a software engineer working on full-stack development for an e-commerce website. After gaining some experience, I decided to pursue a master’s in Computer Engineering with a focus on Embedded Systems, which was more in line with my interests. After graduating, I took up a job as a firmware engineer in Intel’s Solid State Drive division where I learnt a lot about Embedded System development.

Additionally, as a side project, I started creating eco-friendly terracotta jewelry which opened the world of sustainability to me. I wanted to get involved in an industry that would contribute more to the environment on a larger scale. When I decided to move to the Netherlands, EVBox caught my attention with its mission to contribute to a sustainable future. I joined the company in 2020 and have had an exciting experience building the new generation of chargers for EVBox.

What advice could you give to other women interested in working in tech sector?

Technology is evolving every minute and the possibilities of innovation are limitless. This provides limitless opportunities for women interested in entering this field. Having a humble, open, and curious mind will take us a long way. Being bold and taking risks helps us get exposed to better experiences which will in turn help us in becoming well-rounded individuals and leaders. Finally, the tech sector needs you!

Do you meet many women when speaking with others in the industry?

Over the past 5 years, I have noticed a positive trend in the eMobility domain being more inclusive and having more women working in leadership roles. Nevertheless, more could be done to have an even higher number of women working in key roles and ensuring equitable representation between genders. Women bring in new knowledge and ideas, and a unique approach. Through enabling diversity, this young and dynamic sector can find better solutions for the customers.

How do you think that you make a difference in your current position and in the role of understanding the eMobility customer pain points?

Two words come to mind: curiosity, and flexibility.

You have to be curious and open to learn new things. The eMobility market is growing and developing at a rapid speed, therefore, being open to learn, wiling to understand the challenges and find opportunities for the various players in the market really makes the difference.

In parallel, flexibility is key. For thriving in this space, it is key that one is able to flexibly combine and apply previous working experiences and best practices from other industries to address eMobility challenges.

Given my professional background, this has been one of my priorities: I come from the banking sector, and when we installed ATMs around the globe, the after-sales service was very important. ATMs are self-service devices, and basically everybody with a bank account should be able to use them. This means that ATMs have to be reliable and up and running at all times. To achieve extremely high uptimes, we built a smart, data-driven services infrastructure and all tooling needed like dashboards and remote monitoring, so that we can prevent ATM failures even before they occur. Having this first-hand experience allows me to take an innovative approach when solving issues in my current role.

I am now adapting all this knowledge, experience and skills for EV charging. We trained our support engineers, and adjusted our service tools so they can now be used for EV charging as well. We approach the reliability of an EV charger the same way as we do with ATMs. The EV driver needs to be able to access and use a charger himself, day or night, wherever they are. This means the charger needs to be available and up and running 24/7.

What advice can you give to other women interested in working in the tech world?

I would like to give them 3 things to think about:

First and foremost: Stand up for yourself and believe in what you want to achieve! Excellence knows no gender. You have all the tools needed to reach your full potential.

Secondly, accept failures and drawbacks. Failure is an important part of learning! Being able to accept feedback and learning from it will help you to progress faster in your professional career and to meet new challenges.

And third: Be vocal and be visible. Women have an important voice in technology companies, and I encourage them to not be afraid to use it! Speak out and ask questions, play in the team, and stay in the arena, also when you have to work with difficult colleagues and challenging customers – in the end they will only help shape you and grow as an individual.

And perhaps a fourth advice: I believe that having a good mentor can be instrumental in helping you grow as professional and as a human. I’ve always found it very valuable myself to have a mentor – someone with more working experience helping you reflect on difficult situations and giving you advice how to handle them. That’s why I’ve now also become a mentor myself for several years to younger women at the start of their careers in technology. This way, I want to give back and contribute – even though at a modest scale – to eventually having an equal share of women as men in technology organizations.

Can you please give us an overview of your professional experiences in tech and e mobility?

In 2019, I started in tech to launch the new technology center at EDP Comercial, based on Agile methodology. It was a very interesting challenge because I had the opportunity to build the IT project development model from the ground up, which involved more than 700 people to ensure that EDP's digital solutions leveraged the ambitious strategy that the group has taken on in recent years. In this area, I coordinated the launch of IT product, in which I had the first contact with smart mobility. In 2021, I joined the electric mobility Product Development Team where I have been ensuring their E2E development. In this area, I am responsible for ensuring the design of the solution, through feedback from our customers, market trends and testing of new products and equipment’s. Subsequently, we develop the product that we want to launch, involving all the teams impacted on the customer's journey and, finally, we ensure the launch of the products to our customers, ensuring the technical solution of the product (based on several pilots carried out), the value proposition we want to provide and the alignment of all business processes.

How do you think that you make a difference in your current position and in the role of understanding the e mobility customer pain points?

It is the key of my work. We develop products for a highly dynamic market that still lacks in infrastructure investment and whose users have unique characteristics and behaviors. Therefore, knowing their main difficulties and needs is essential to ensure that we develop solutions that add value to our customers' daily lives. Additionally, keeping abreast of market evolution and changes in the customer behavior allows us to grow in the EDP portfolio to be increasingly disruptive and to keep up with market trends. On the other hand, our work allows us to support the evolution of e-mobility market to provide the best experience for EV Drivers and also for CPOs. Sharing a recent example, one of the features we are currently working to integrate in our app will enable EV Drivers, regardless of the country in which they are based and of where charging is taking place, to have access to a comprehensive network of charging stations (both in Portugal and abroad) and thus, a true seamless digital experience. Such integration required developing specific solutions to take into account the peculiarities of the e-mobility regulatory framework in Portugal that presents different requirements vis-a-vis the standard framework in Europe.

What advice can you give to other women interested in working in the tech world?

The world of tech, specially, electric mobility market, is fascinating and still has a lot to explore, so I would say that the best advice I could give is not to be afraid to ask and challenge what is presented to you. By tradition, it can be perceived as a men’s world, but if we ask all the questions we have and show interest in knowing each part of the process, we will also be promoters of this change and responsible for contributing to a change in behavior that becomes urgent for the continuity and sustainability of our planet.

Thank you Marta, and stay tuned for further updates showcasing the diversity of the EV charging industry!