Strategy Manager for Audi
Achievements

Strategy Manager for Audi

Efstratia Zafeiriou is the Strategy Manager for Audi AG, while in the past she has worked as Head of Audi Tongji Joint Lab, Strategy China and before that, as Researcher Powertrain Development for Volskwagen AG.

She was born in 1968 in the city of Nea Triglia, close to Thessaloniki, and studied as an Engineer in the Aristotle University of Thessalonikh from 1987 to 1992. She obtained her Ph.D. From 1993 to 1998 in the Institute of Technology in Karlsruhe on “Thermodynamics and Turbines”. In 1992 she had won a scholarship (Erasmus) for six months in the same Institute.

From 1993 to 1996 she worked in ESGmbh in Baden-Baden as an Application Manager. In 1998 she decides to look for something bigger, so she starts sending out applications to businesses. Rejection in many of her requests worked out for the best, as she got accepted in many famous enterprises, such as Mercedes, Opel, BMW and VolksWagen, in which she finally decided to say “yes”. She worked there for two years (1998 – 2000) in the research of powertrain development, where she collaborated with the team that manufactured a twelve-cylinder engine for the model “Phaeton”.

A few years later, in April 2002, Zafeiriou starts working for Audi AG, as an Assistant to the CEO, and will remain there for two years. In 2004 she became the Head of Market and Trend Research and kept that post until 2008. it was that year that her value was strongly appreciated, since she got to be the Head of Audi Tongji Joint Lab, Strategy China until 2012. For the next two years Zafeiriou would be the Head of Technology Development Assembly & Head of Audi Production. From 2014 until today she is the Strategy Manager at Modular Manufacturing.

“Greece doesn’t invest in its human resource, and doesn’t invest to its businesses. This way everybody wants to work for the public sector. There are no good conditions for the scientists to progress”, says Zafeiriou at a past interview for Kathimerini.

In the same interview she adds that the key to her professional success it that she always pursued the object in which she wanted to excell, and not just aim for the idea of “career” in general. She believes that our descendance and culture play a vital role in what we are. “Our greek heritage and identity is an advantage when you work abroad. That’s because in Greece we are not used to working under the best conditions, so the hardships you meet when working abroad actually make us stronger”.

 

LEAVE YOUR COMMENT