The networker
Sérgio, IT Specialist for Business Analytics Projects in Munich, Germany, has been working at DRÄXLMAIER since 2022
Sometimes you get this strange feeling of melancholy. Once you’ve been to Lisbon, you can’t get the Fado out of your head. Sérgio knows this all too well. After all, the IT specialist grew up in Portugal’s capital. The word “fado” means destiny. Fado songs are about love, world-weariness, and an unquenchable longing for better times—a quintessentially Portuguese attitude to life.
Sérgio brought it with him when he moved from Lisbon to Munich in 2019 after studying computer science. “I was curious about the world and its people. I wanted to discover new things and help shape the future,” says Sérgio. He found his starting point in his professional career at a management consultancy in Munich. “It was an exciting start,” he says, looking back. “But I quickly realized that dealing with structures on a very theoretical level wasn’t enough for me. I also wanted to see the concrete products and services that would come out of them for the customers. And how, with the help of digitalization, new inspirations and perspectives are created by people working together.”
Serendipity
Fado songs are often about serendipity, which often precedes major fateful turning points in life. “By chance, I became aware of DRÄXLMAIER through a LinkedIn message. That’s when I started researching,” says Sérgio. “I didn’t have to be a car enthusiast to feel the technological and digital passion of the company and its vision of the future of mobility. That’s where I wanted to be.”
Today, Sérgio is part of an international team of 25 Business Analytics experts. Based at DRÄXLMAIER’s headquarters in Vilsbiburg, in Munich, and in the IT hubs in Romania and Mexico, the team works on digital transformation and continuous improvement and optimization for all business functions within the DRÄXLMAIER Group such as purchasing, sales, logistics, human resources, and finance, just to mention a few.
IT by the people, for the people
“IT is not an end in itself. It must be understood by users and easy to use,” is how Sérgio sees it. His daily motivation comes from thinking in terms of solutions and always keeping people and their needs in mind when designing front ends and dashboards. “It’s like skiing. The material and the technology have to work and follow well-rehearsed automatic sequences to bring success and, in the end, fun.”
The mountain calls
Wait a minute. A skiing philosopher from Lisbon? That makes Sérgio smile. “Another case of serendipity.” At the age of 18, he says, he visited Andorra in the Pyrenees with friends and made his first acquaintance with the joys of skiing. “Ever since, it’s never let me go,” he explains. For the past twelve years, the outdoor enthusiast has been drawn to ski vacations every year. Since he began living and working in Munich, he’s also been able to make the occasional weekend trip to the slopes. “My passion for skiing serves me in my job, too,” Sérgio points out. “Skiing teaches you to stay calm in difficult conditions, to trust your technique and your automatisms—and that you’re much safer, and definitely have a lot more fun, in a group on the peaks.”
Of course, Sérgio also knows that, as a latecomer to skiing, he still has a lot to learn. For him, that means: “Always give your best—which is what sets us apart in our team at DRÄXLMAIER.” And when the homesickness gets too strong and the fado calls, “Lisbon isn’t far away.”