In a fast-growing company in a fast-growing industry, you often have to think outside the box, get creative, and be decisive in order to get things done. One of our colleagues who has a lot of experience with taking ownership – and gets a lot of enjoyment out of it – is Francisco Grosso Perez.
“What am I doing with my life?”
Francisco is Italian and moved to South America in the 80s. After working in six countries, in industries ranging from oil to IT to automotive, and meeting his Dutch wife and having kids along the way, he returned to the Netherlands in 2020. During his previous stint in the country he had worked at Mitsubishi, so he rejoined upon his return, but it wasn’t as challenging as before. “I quickly got bored and was asking myself, ‘What am I doing with my life’?,” he says.
During his time at Mitsubishi, Francisco had met Bas Bonnier and Barry Smits, who both went on to work at Mogema. Barry had tried unsuccessfully to lure Francisco over to his team at Mogema a few times, but this time around the timing felt right. Francisco came for a coffee, learned about the big challenges Mogema faced, met the team, and learned about their vision. It left him excited to take on the challenge, so he joined Mogema in 2022 as Team Leader Quality Engineering.
bringing a balance
In his role, Francisco oversees all Quality Engineering activities. He joined a team facing shortages in materials and personnel, so his first focus was to understand what the company needs and get to know the team – as people, their skills, what makes them happy – and based on that, bring a balance between the workload and the resources. “When balance is reached, that reduces stress so that you can start with systematic improvements and standardization,” Francisco explains.
It has not always been easy, but Francisco does feel like it’s clear what is expected from him and that he has resources at his disposal. “You can access lead managers and if you have a talk with them you always get guidance,” he says. “On top of that, my colleagues who’ve been in Mogema for a long time have a lot of knowledge and they are always open to share, plus Mogema provides training and workshops to learn more and develop as a leader.”
welcome from Day 1
Besides that, Francisco has felt welcomed by his team from Day 1. “Our culture is open and communicative,” he explains. “My biggest fear was that it would be hard to communicate, but I have not felt any major roadblocks with regards to the language and I don’t feel like an outsider. In fact, as one of the few non-Dutch speakers, I see that they have joy in being able to talk in English to someone. There is a lot of interest in knowing who you are. That said, I am learning Dutch!”
Francisco has also found comfort in the work itself. “When I need a break, I like to go stand in front of the metroframe, one of our most beautiful products – it’s like watching the Transformers movie!” he says. “It brings me calm and inspiration to know that I’m working on such a good product. I want to do things that are good for humanity and have real-world impact. Working in semicon, with ASML as our main customer, is really nice for an engineer. We are helping the world move forward.”
being part of something big and new
That love for technology is inspiring Francisco’s future vision as well. “I would love to be part of the new factory in Dronten,” he says. “I like being part of something big and new, and that project is going to be amazing. In the short term, I would like to help bring balance and structure so that we have stable teams, stable outputs, and happy employees. In the longer term, I would like to be able to transfer this and apply lessons learned to the new factory.”
