Goal 5: the story of a young woman in a leadership role in Spain

If the gender gap is still wide in science, then in engineering it’s even wider. According to World Bank estimates, only 7% of female university students study engineering, compared to 22% for men. This situation obviously leads to an imbalance in the world of work: according to data from the British Higher Education Statistics Agency, only one engineer in 10 in the world is a woman. In other words, a female engineer is still seen as a person who is going against the grain in terms of stereotypes, even if she is just a person who is following her personal inclinations. One such woman is Jenny Ore, 28, who works as a Senior Technical Operator in the Alto Ribagorzana grouping, a network of Enel Green Power Spain hydroelectric plants in the northeast of the country, where the company operates four power plants. She is the star of the latest stage in the series on Goal 5, our world tour dedicated to Gender equality, number 5 in the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). A management position at the age of 23 Jenny Ore, who was born in Peru, moved to the Canary Islands with her family when she seven, going on to study electrical engineering at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Shortly after graduating, she obtained a scholarship from Enel Green Power Spain to work at the Punta Grande thermoelectric power plant on Lanzarote, another island in the Canary Islands. For Jenny this was her second move, which she faced with great courage at a tender age: "For me it was a drastic change, because I found myself living on my own and having to fit into a completely different environment from that of the university." Only eight months later Jenny was offered the opportunity to work at the power plant, no longer as part of a scholarship program, but in the role of technical operations and maintenance manager at the Punta Grande thermal power plant. At just 23 years of age, she already found herself in a management position. "I was the first woman to have a management role in the history of the plant. At first I felt a little in awe mainly because of my age: I had to manage the other members of my team, and some of them were twice as old as me, and therefore far more experienced. Being a woman was also an issue: I felt I had to do more than others in order to be taken into consideration. Step by step, however, I overcame my fears, because experience takes over with the passage of time." In her position she had to make important decisions quickly. "One wrong decision by me could have left an entire island in the dark. One mistake I made could also cause physical harm to my colleagues or environmental damage. Let's say I was trying not to make mistakes," she says with a smile. A nomadic vocation After four years she took another step in her career, this time moving to mainland Spain, to take up her current job: "Here I was not the first woman in my role, but at the moment I am the only one in the entire grouping of 14 hydroelectric plants in Alto Ribagorzana." She made the transition from the thermoelectric sector to renewables, specifically, hydropower. This was also thanks to her Master's in Renewable Energy and Sustainability for which she studied while working. And what is her goal now? "I firmly believe that the future is renewables. Now I work in hydropower, but I would like to keep changing by learning new things: for example, solar or wind power. When I think about my future, I see myself as a nomad who wants to work in places that are always different." Of course, all this involves commitment and sacrifice. "When I was little, my mother used to tell me: if you want something, it will cost you something." That’s a proverb that makes it clear how any goal must be conquered, and Jenny manages to do this with her talent and, above all, with her commitment.

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Goal 5: the story of a young woman in a leadership role in Spain

Goal 5: the story of a young woman in a leadership role in Spain

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