March 27, 2020 | SonaKim
In this series, we’ll be interviewing team members at Quanergy to give you insight into what they do day-to-day at the company and how they spend their time outside the office. First up, we have the newest member of our team, Quanergy’s new CMO, Enzo Signore. Read on to find out what he’s most excited about as he joins the Quanergy team and his favorite pasta (hint: it’s not actually pasta).
Quanergy: Enzo, it’s your first week at Quanergy. What made you excited to join the company?
Enzo: Many things! First of all, the LiDAR industry is an extremely exciting one. There are a lot of applications where LiDAR can make a huge impact: security, smart cities, smart spaces, and the industrial market to name a few. LiDAR has an incredible opportunity to restructure various industries around the globe, enabling automation, efficiency, and cost savings. A broad market is what truly excites me. Quanergy’s position in the market space is fantastic and it has the potential to become the long term leader in the space.
Q: You’re Quanergy’s first CMO. What will you be doing in this role?
Enzo: We’ll want to focus all the great resources available at Quanergy on a number of key industries and applications. My initial objective is to do segmentation work across all relevant industries like automotive, smart spaces, industrial and mapping, and work with the engineering teams to develop the ideal products to really address each industry. I’ll also be working on how to develop the go-to-market plan, and how to make each channel fully equipped to expand coverage.
Q: You got your start as a software engineer. What made you take the marketing route?
Enzo: I started my career in engineering. I graduated in Electronic Engineering and Computer Science at the Politecnico di Torino, one of the top engineering universities in Italy. My first job was a software engineer and after few years I was asked to manage the R&D for the company’s flagship product. I loved that but I began to question why I was doing all this stuff and became curious about the business side. When my first company went public, I joined another company as a product manager. I couldn’t turn back after that – being in front of customers and seeing what problems they are facing, how to solve them elegantly, and understand what motivates companies to buy or invest… it was all very exciting for me. That’s what attracted me to Quanergy. The opportunity to manage the entire process from market need identification, to product creation to marketing.
Q: You’re originally from Italy. What brought you to the US?
Enzo: I left Italy after graduation in 1988 for what was supposed to be a 1-year experience… I’ve really been enjoying my extended stay here (laughs). When I graduated, I had two contracts – one in Santa Monica, California and one in Frankfurt. That was an easy choice for me. My family and I ended up living in Southern California for 10 years.
Q: Would you consider yourself a morning person? What does a typical morning look like for you?
Enzo: First thing I do is check email and read the news when I get up, and take care of urgent things that need to be addressed. Then I work out, typically at the gym but I also like to run. After I work out, I have breakfast with my wife – we like to start the day together. Then I go to work and read – I believe the earlier hours in the day are the best ones to study, before getting into the operational rhythm of my day.
Q: Ok, let’s get to the good stuff. Food! Being from Italy we have to ask, do you have a favorite pasta dish?
Enzo: It’s actually risotto, which isn’t a pasta dish as you know, but it’s my favorite dish. I can do a pretty good mushroom risotto, but my wife is the master.
Q: What’s your favorite place to vacation?
Enzo: We go back to Italy every summer to stay with our families and we still have a very strong connection to Italy. My family and I actually just went to Yellowstone National Park to explore more of the US. We do love the beach though, so we like to take trips to the Pacific, like Fiji or the Mediterranean Sea like southern Italy or Greece.
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Q: What book would you recommend right now?
Enzo: One I would really recommend is Deep Work by Cal Newport. It’s a book about being focused at work. We have so many distractions. We’re in marketing and media, so we get distracted by social media on a constant basis. The book came out of the author’s personal experience when he wanted to accelerate his personal productivity. We don’t want to work longer hours, so instead, we should work more focused hours and be effective at what we do. It’s a great book to give you structure and increase productivity.
Q: Thanks, Enzo. And welcome to Quanergy!