Why do you think celebrating young talent in the industry is important

Working in a company whose mission is to transform how coatings are applied, I have a front-row seat to witness one of the most traditional processes of our industry at a turning point. The energy transition, digitalisation, and increasingly complex regulatory landscapes are rapidly shaping what this sector needs to look like in the upcoming two decades. Adding to the pressure is a growing labor shortage, particularly in the maintenance workforce needed to keep ageing infrastructure operational and new capacity coming online. As a result, celebrating young talent matters because visibility creates momentum. When emerging professionals see peers being recognised for meaningful contributions, it signals that this is an industry worth investing a career in. For young people who still have 40 years in the labor workforce, a sense of purpose in their work is equally, if not more, important than financial motivation alone.

On a personal level, I know how much it means early in your career to feel that your work is seen. Recognition accelerates confidence, and confidence accelerates impact. And that effect shouldn’t stop only at one’s own organisation. The industry as a whole benefits the most when it echoes the same mindset. This results in a network of talented people where we can connect driven young professionals across companies and disciplines. That is how you get the cross-pollination of ideas that moves an industry forward. Ultimately, the Forty under 40 list does something practical: it makes talent visible to the organisations and opportunities that can amplify it. That’s good for individuals, good for a company and good for an industry that needs to attract and retain the best people to navigate what’s ahead.

What has been your biggest challenge to date?

My biggest challenge has been building a career in a new country, where it is quite hard to hear people pronounce my name right the first time, while simultaneously navigating a traditionally conservative industry. On a personal level, the visa process and the practicalities of relocating are demanding in ways that are easy to underestimate. From my perspective, it takes real energy and focus that you’d otherwise direct entirely at your work. Professionally, as a marketeer, the greater challenge has been learning to communicate effectively across different working cultures as we are a team with 14 different cultural backgrounds, and finding the right way to introduce new ideas to an industry that has operated a certain way for decades.

 At Qlayers, we are fundamentally challenging how coating work is done, transitioning away from manual labor toward autonomous robotic systems, so the ability to bring conservative stakeholders along on that journey is not a soft skill, it’s a core part of the job. That challenge extends to internal communications as well. It takes deliberate effort to shift the team’s mindset away from seeing ourselves purely as disruptors. What we are doing is indeed unprecedented. But rather standing apart as a “disruptor”, I believe it is more powerful to position ourselves as a pioneer: one that brings the industry forward with us, helping stakeholders see and share in the vision, rather than feeling challenged by it. What this challenge taught me is that patience, adaptability, and genuine curiosity about how others think are often more powerful than the best technical argument.