LATINO
2022
South America Senior Vice President, HARMAN Brazil
LEADERS Worth Watching
TM
INTERNATIONAL
Don’t Freeze in the Face of the Unknown
Education: BSC and Master’s degree, mechanical engineering, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul; MSC, noise and vibration, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina; MBAs, business administration & marketing, Fundação Getulio Vargas Company Name: HARMAN Industry: Consumer Electronics & Automotive Technologies Company CEO: Michael Mauser Company Headquarters Location: Stamford, Connecticut Number of Employees: 30,000+ Your Location: Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil Words you live by: Integrity, Passion, and Knowledge Who is your personal hero? Airton Senna, a Brazilian racing driver What book are you reading? Thank You for Being Late (An Optimist’s Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations) by Thomas L. Friedman What was your first job: Automotive R&D Engineer, focusing on vibration & acoustics technologies Favorite charity: Medecins Sans Frontieres; I also volunteer to help those in need in my local community Interests: Technology, nature, and history; I’ve found that I learn valuable lessons from these sources that have been useful to me in the business world. Family: Family is the core of my existence. My family gives me energy, resilience, and balance to go above and beyond.
56
2022 First Quarter
One of the earliest life-changing experiences I can recall goes back to the 1980s. It was during my second year of studying mechanical engineering at university when I was completing my research & design internship at an automotive corporation. I was faced with a technical problem involving the mathematical solution for the elliptical contact profile among a very particular combination of metallic surfaces. This problem had been puzzling employees within the company for quite some time, so I took the opportunity to seek out my engineering professors’ guidance. Unfortunately, I had no initial success. I was never one to give up easily. So next, I went to visit my former mathematics professors at a university where I had studied for a single year in pursuit of my childhood dream of becoming an astronomer. I was inspired to revisit my studies from my time there, despite my feelings that I had wasted that year studying for a career I did not end up pursuing. It was a great success. I utilized the diverse knowledge and strategies from my unique combined education to solve the problem stumping higher-up engineers. The solution was shared with the global R&D structure, and it impacted the entire organization, giving new answers to old problems and challenging the status quo. In the wake of this success, I felt proud that I had taken a fresh, unbiased approach to the problem and helped a multitalented team embrace a wide range of knowledge and personal styles. I also learned many lessons that have continued to guide my career, including these: sometimes you must go beyond your comfort zone to find new answers; diverse opinions and perspectives generate a much richer environment for innovation; never freeze before the unknown; a good leader provides support with an open mind; and nothing is a waste of time when it comes to networking and knowledge. Overcoming a challenge like this in the early stages of my career helped me find my professional direction, leading me to move from the technical field to the quality, manufacturing, operations, sales, marketing, and general management areas of companies across the automotive, consumer, and professional audio industries. In those positions, the lessons I learned from my experience as an intern were not only applicable, but also evolved with me as I became an executive. Today, as a senior executive of a technological global corporation, the core values of these lessons have remained a cornerstone of my professional journey, providing me resilience and guidance through challenging times.
www.diversityjournal.com
AWARD
Rodrigo Rihl Kniest
