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Women in Industry presents Marian Navarro Pastor

Marian Navarro Pastor is the area manager of Actemium ASAS Valencia. She is responsible for the commercial relationship between Opel/Ford and Actemium ASAS in Spain.

Marian studied superior industrial engineering specialized in electrics and later earned a Master’s degree in Business Administration and Management. Her professional career started in 1999 and has been working for more than 20 years in the automotive industry.

 

  • 1. What made you decide to pursue this field?

    When the time came to plan my career, I had no clue which professional path to follow. I always loved mathematics and physics, so I went for the most generic scientific degree, industrial engineering, with a wide range of professional prospects. In my first year at the university, I knew I had made the right choice, everything was amazing, interesting and challenging.

  • 2. What is the best part about being a woman in industry?

    I don’t think there is a best part of being a woman in industry.
    In the end, we are people working together, and the success in the projects is based on the people involved, their commitment to the project and their skills; it is not based on gender.
    However, indeed, personal interaction sometimes works in our favor. For example, when you are the only woman in a meeting with more than 10 men, you can certainly assume you will be easily remembered. And I would even dare to say, that in general, disputes and fights are frequently smoothed in its manners when addressed to women.

  • 3. What are your biggest accomplishments?

    I have been involved in a lot of challenging projects, with technical difficulties, new applications and new technologies. In every project, there are new solutions to be studied and implemented, so when the project is started up and everything is running and working perfectly, it is personal and professional satisfaction.

  • 4. Have you experienced any obstacles in this line of work? And how did you overcome them?

    When I started in the engineering department, there was a male colleague who didn’t want me working on his project exclusively because I am a woman. But luckily, my colleagues and my boss always supported me and didn’t allow this toxic behavior. That was the only time I felt discriminated against because of my gender, and it was at the very beginning of my career.
    In general, the most difficult for me was to learn to work with a lot of people, from several countries, with different languages and different ways of doing things. I was very rigid at the beginning and needed time to learn that all these differences can become advantages if you learn how to manage them

  • 5. Any advice you want to give to women considering a career in industry?

    You can choose any career in the industry, what is important is that you love what you are doing and aim to arrive wherever you desire.

For more information, please contact Marian Navarro Pastor.

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