{"id":128793,"date":"2018-11-01T16:35:46","date_gmt":"2018-11-01T15:35:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.ferrovial.com\/articles\/innovation-infrastructures\/"},"modified":"2018-11-01T16:35:46","modified_gmt":"2018-11-01T15:35:46","slug":"innovation-infrastructures","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/newsroom.ferrovial.com\/en-gb\/articles\/innovation-infrastructures\/","title":{"rendered":"Rafael Fern\u00e1ndez, Ferrovial’s Director of Innovation\u201cTo lead the future of infrastructures and services, Ferrovial has to be more Ferrovial, it doesn\u2019t need to be Google\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Born in Bilbao to an engineer father and a doctor mother, Rafa hesitated between these two professions during his student years at the French Lyc\u00e9e and the Jesuit college of Vizcaya\u2019s capital city. These doubts have their origin in the lack of interest he had in sciences in those early years. In later primary school years, a teacher with a lack of foretelling skills predicted that \u201che would end up asking for money in churches\u201d, he remembers amid laughter.<\/p>\n

He studied the baccalaureate with the Jesuits, \u201cwhere I learned to coexist with diversity and love the science subjects\u201d which he had hitherto struggled with, he says. This made him decide to go for Telecommunications Engineering, which he studied at Deusto University<\/strong>. \u201cThe degree taught me the value of effort and of working hard\u201d.<\/p>\n

He took his first professional steps at Idom, in the telecommunications area for transport infrastructures. He then joined Abengoa to work on Telvent within the urban mobility area, as project manager for the payment systems of the Bilbao, Madrid and Barcelona metros. He set out on a meteoric international career loaded down with growing responsibilities and filled with dozens of trips around America and Asia between 2004 and 2006. In this period he was Project Manager for different payment systems in the metros of Tianjin in China, Monterrey in Mexico, and Caracas in Venezuela<\/strong>. After a reorganization in 2008, he was appointed Mobility Director for Asia-Pacific, with responsibility for operations in China, India, Southeast Asia and Australia. \u201cThey set a very high bar for me when I was 28\u201d, he says. With the sale of Telvent to Schneider Electric en 2011, he started to work in the Strategy Area in Paris. \u201cI was the only one who spoke French\u201d, he tells us.<\/p>\n

In September 2013 he joined Ferrovial<\/strong>. \u201cMy third child was born with a silver spoon in the shape of the last interview before joining Ferrovial\u201d. In 2014 he was transferred to the Competence Centre for Cities with I\u00f1igo Jodra. He reviews everything he has learned from his bosses throughout his career. \u201cI learned from all of them, from the good ones what to do and from the bad ones what not to do. From some I learned strategic reasoning (I had always been in execution). From others, qualities for enabling me to lead a cross-sectional area\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt Ferrovial I very quickly learned the difference in management in regard to other companies, and I found it interesting to see the focus placed on priority markets, financial rigour and decision-taking ability at all levels<\/strong>\u201d, says Rafa.<\/p>\n <\/div>\n <\/section>\n

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\n We have to confront today\u2019s challenges and anticipate and explore those of tomorrow as a team, capturing value in a tangible way <\/blockquote>\n\n