MBA alum builds career as global energy executive, engineer

Ana Amicarella MBA ’93 is managing director for Americas Power Projects where she runs Aggreko’s $350 million temporary power division manned by 800 people sprawled across North, Central, South America, and the Caribbean. With 117 locations across The Americas, APP boasts the world’s largest temporary power generator fleet. Hispanic Engineer recently interviewed her.

An Olympic athlete, Amicarella competed in the 1984 summer Olympics as a synchronized swimmer, she was inducted into the Venezuelan Swimming Hall of Fame in 1989. She launched her professional career as service manager for GE in 1992, one year before completing her MBA.

The Hispanic Engineer article reports Amicarella ventured into the professional world in 1988, taking a job with GE. She joined the company’s energy business as a power systems engineer in Detroit, Michigan and held the position until 1992, a year before completing an MBA at Oakland University. During the first 14 years of her career on GE’s energy management fast track she moved through critical jobs such as business development manager in Schenectady, New York; Caracas, Venezuela; and Miami, Florida. She was Disney global account executive—driving all aspects of the corporate relationship with GE and Disney; a strategic initiatives manager for GE Power Systems in Schenectady, New York; and the general manager of sales operations based in Atlanta, Georgia.

“The first big [career] decision I made was to become an engineer as it aligned with my natural skills and abilities,” Amicarella told Hispanic Engineer & Information Technology magazine. “The second big decision was starting in a field role with GE,” she said. “That really set me on a path of being hands-on and having field experience. I had an opportunity to manage people early. By age 26, I was already managing a group of engineers.”

Read the full story at Hispanic Engineer here