Women Walking a New Way

The history of my family at Continental Guarulhos began in 1974 with the professional career of my mother Elizabete who worked for 5 years as a production operator, after which she decided to leave the company to dedicate herself to her children. As soon as the children grew, she encouraged and supported my sister Sheila in 2003 to join Continental. A few months later in the same year my younger sister Juliana started her career in the same unit and in 2005 I started my journey here, as Quality Inspector, and it was here that I fell in love with the shop floor, which was decisive for the definition of my career. I decided to study Production Engineering and the story does not stop there. Last year my daughter Ellen after having met the company when it was open to families on so called “Family Day”, also joined Continental through the Young Apprentice Program. Thus completing the cycle of 3 generations of women from the same family working in Continental. What we can say is that we feel grateful and proud of being part of Continental de Guarulhos’ 60-year history of success. 

And I see every day in the company how much people live our values, which generates a motivating environment when faced with all our challenging goals. After going through several departments in different functions, today I face a new challenge of being production supervisor of the tachograph area, Dial and with the engineering team of Dial. I am proud to be the first woman here who is responsible for two departments, but I also feel a responsibility to encourage other women to management positions, knowing that in the selection process for my current role I competed only with men. At Continental I do not see barriers for men and women to have the same opportunities in management position. I believe that paradigm to be broken is in the minds of people, not only men, but many women too, so I understand that women in leadership positions have the responsibility to encourage, motivate and even inspire other women. I can cite as a good local example Roberta Palacio (Head of Plant SCM) an inspiration of management and motivation for me to develop even more!!!

This article was written by our employee.