THE WORLD OF POWER
When Álvaro Anzola started his career, he knew he wanted to work for a global company focused on solving complex engineering problems. 25 years later, he is the VP of North America Combined Cycle Services, having worked during his GE career in more than 20 countries and almost all the GE businesses. In his current role, he leads the largest Services P&L at GE Gas Power with over $1B in operating profit.
The start of Álvaro’s journey began in 1997 with GE’s sales leadership program for the transmission and distribution business. It was a two-year rotational program with each rotation lasting six months. Soon after, Álvaro joined one of GE’s corporate leadership programs—the Corporate Audit staff program—which would give him an opportunity to see the world and fully realize his passion for the business.
“I had the opportunity to work in 22 different countries on four different continents. Six years seeing the world, working on the hardest challenges that the company was trying to solve, getting exposure to senior leadership of every business, getting the best training in the world. It was just an amazing experience,” he recalls.
Álvaro learned about how the global power business works at the country level, each of which comes with its own set of challenges. “If you are able to understand the needs at the country level, and how they receive power in different ways, then you understand that it’s a completely different solution that each local community is looking for,” he says.
“The ways you do business in the different regions of the U.S. are not the same as the ways you do business in countries like Argentina. In Argentina, they needed fast power on their grid to solve multiple years of minimal investment in their electricity infrastructure. So being able to work through that with customers and governments that understand that culture was critical,” Álvaro says. “That experience, was an amazing journey where we tripled the size of the region after we invested in localizing talent from the US to Latin America.” GE Power became the number one OEM by market share in Argentina for the first time in history.
After working internationally, Álvaro eventually returned to the U.S. in his current role. “I was exposed to all these different countries, all these different cultures, all while having the opportunity to get involved in solving the world’s toughest problems, “he says. “I also received guidance from great leaders that valued growing diverse talent like myself. I really appreciate the fact that the company and the leadership gave back to me that much.”
THE CULTURE OF POWER
Throughout his career, Álvaro witnessed the company transition into a lean business driven by humility. And it’s that long-term plan to transform and decarbonize the energy industry that gives GE Gas Power its heart.
“We’re looking at reducing a huge amount of carbon as part of our energy transition, and that is no small feat. Every day, I consider how we embody our leadership values to achieve that goal: acting with humility, leading with transparency, and delivering with focus,” Álvaro says. “How do you serve our customer facing teams? How do you serve the operators? Those questions have changed the way I look at leadership.”
THE DIVERSITY OF POWER
Álvaro is proud to work for a company that doesn’t just embrace diversity but brings a variety of cultural viewpoints to bear on any problem. As a leader of GE Gas Power’s Hispanic Forum, he sees many opportunities to collaborate with his peers.
“Creating a culture of collaboration starts with respect, and you must have the humility to give people the space to feel all their ideas are valuable. If you have those two elements, then the results speak for themselves,” he says.
Among the diversity initiatives Álvaro speaks of with pride is a leadership training program that just produced its first fourteen graduates, the celebration of which happened at the company’s New York education center. He also seeks to create a council that connects all the employee resource groups (ERGs) within GE Gas Power, so that issues can be met by truly diverse team.
“How do we show the power of diversity in solving the challenges that everybody is facing today together?” Álvaro asks. “I envision a diversity council as a cross-functional team where all the leaders of each ERG set goals and objectives as to how they want to tackle things together.”
“We’re all on a journey. We’ve come a long way in terms of diversity and inclusion, but there’s so much more we can do.”
THE FUTURE OF POWER
Álvaro is excited about the possibilities of collaboration under the GE Vernova brand.
“When all our businesses are under one roof, we’ll better resemble our global customer base, and it’ll be up to us how use that synergy. How do we present a balanced solution to our customers that builds on that cross-business team?” he asks. “Thanks to GE Vernova, we’ll create an environment that encourages cross-pollination of ideas. And we will develop people who understand what our customers need and how they think.”
For Álvaro, there are exciting times ahead. “We have a renewed focus. And it’s working. That excitement keeps me here.”
If you’d like to join Álvaro, sign up for our talent community at http://invent.ge/gephf.
