INSIGHT ISSUE 02 | 2020

19 INSIGHT | Prysmian Group Around the World THE START AT PRYSMIAN GROUP “We have made great strides, helped by the acquisition of General Cable in 2018,” she says. “In 2016 only 6% of our executives were women, and by 2019 we were already at 12%. We are aiming at 14-18% by 2022. So we are going in the right direction. I see programs like these as a ‘necessary evil.’ No one wants to be offered a job simply to fill a quota. But bias is so deeply ingrained – I notice it in myself as well! – that these programs are an important way forward.” When Cristiana joined Prysmian’s R&D department with a degree in Chemistry in 1997, there was no company-wide mentoring or gender equality program in place. She received informal mentoring from “two or three people” at the company (then Pirelli Cables) she could call on to offer advice and input, and says it was “the most important thing” to help her transition from R&D to management, she says. Cristiana arrived in Russia as country manager in June 2019 after five years in Brazil as BU SURF Brazil Director. She oversees production of high- and low-voltage cables at the group’s factory in Rybinsk and the country’s sales operations, with a total staff of about 230 people. “For the next three-five years, our goal is to grow Russian market share in both low and high voltage cables,” she says. Most recently, her focus has been on protecting her staff from COVID-19 and running the business as well as possible under lockdown, putting measures in place one month before required by the Russian government. Cristiana implemented smart working for office staff and took strict measures at the Rybinsk plant to protect staff there by social distancing, temperature checks and disinfecting the workspaces. After so much travel and different job descriptions, Cristiana knows Prysmian unlike few others. How would she explain what the company does to a child, say, in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro? “I like to think about the social impact of our work,” she says. “I would tell them that Prysmian builds the highways where electricity travels, allowing children all over the world to have a house heated in winter and cooler in summer, to have kindergartens and schools, to be able to choose and actively contribute to build the world we want.” PRYSMIAN GROUP EDITORIAL STAFF