When Miguel Vicedo was a graduate engineering student in Chicago, he attended a career fair with one idea in mind: the bigger, the better. Large companies, from his perspective, meant large opportunities, especially for someone from a small town who longed to travel and experience different cultures.
Vicedo met a recruiter from GE Vernova and considered how the company checked all the boxes. It was multifaceted and international, a massive business producing giant machines. Sign me up, he said.
That chance encounter opened up Vicedo’s professional life in ways he couldn’t have imagined. In just 15 years, he has rocketed from intern to executive, in a career that has hopscotched from Europe to Africa and now the United States. “I wanted to know what was out there,” he says. “All these new things I could learn — that’s what pushed me.”
The ascent wasn’t always easy. A natural introvert, he had to be encouraged to share his opinions in meetings. He was asked to take on roles that required him to expand his skills and move to places where he knew no one.
But whenever Vicedo was stuck on a problem, there was always someone at GE Vernova willing to help, if only he was willing to ask. And asking questions has been a natural impulse for Vicedo ever since he was a boy growing up in Spain, wondering why it rains or how his remote-control cars worked. It was a habit encouraged by his mother, who had the same engineering mindset as her son but not the opportunity to make it a career.
From Intern to Country Manager
Vicedo felt lucky to land that first internship in 2008 in the company’s Madrid office, where he worked in customer service for aeroderivative gas turbines — basically modified airplane engines used for power generation. “I was surrounded by very good professionals,” he says. “Just observing them, having casual conversations, I would say to myself, ‘One day, I want to become one of these guys.’”
It wasn’t long before he had the chance. When a co-worker in a more senior role went on leave, Vicedo’s manager trusted that her intern could rise to the challenge and fill in as a customer service leader. He soon had a permanent job at GE Vernova — his first of many.
In 2013, he transferred to Johannesburg, South Africa, where he was customer service leader for sub-Saharan Africa. He helped with technical knowledge and training, but he also learned the importance of having fun and connecting individually with employees.
“I talk with a lot of enthusiasm and passion,” he says. “If you come to the office every day with a big smile and that energy, people will be with you. I’ve always tried to make this passion for things I’m doing contagious and let people feel they were part of it.”
Vicedo’s next position was in Luanda, Angola, a place he once wasn’t sure he could locate on a map. There, he began to feel a greater sense of purpose in his work as services country manager. Because of the limited power grid in the west-central African nation, the gas turbines he and his team serviced were crucial for customers. He also appreciated the community-oriented culture, which felt similar to his childhood in Spain. “There’s a saying in Africa,” he recounts: “‘If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.’”
Finding a New Home in the States
Then a conversation with a visiting executive prompted a new opportunity. Vicedo had become an expert in the TM2500, a trailer-mounted gas turbine sometimes described as a power plant on wheels. The executive, Siva Chockalingam, recommended that Vicedo put his knowledge to use helping customers worldwide. Since his graduate school days, he had aspired to work in the United States, so his next move brought him from Angola to Houston, in 2016.
“When I left the continent, knowing I had left the local team empowered to do their jobs was probably one of the most fulfilling things I could do in my career,” he says.
At first, Vicedo felt a bit pigeonholed in his new technical role. But soon, GE Vernova needed a Spanish speaker to help sell gas turbines in North America and Latin America. With his broad range of skills and expertise, Vicedo was a perfect fit, and he joined the sales team in 2020.
His next role, in some ways, was the greatest leap. Vicedo gathered the courage to propose a new business model for the aeroderivative gas turbines — not selling, but leasing. It took time to convince executives of the merits of the idea, but when it was accepted, Vicedo was promoted to global sales leader for the aeroderivative gas turbines.
Now he gets to draw on all the things he’s learned in the past 15 years. “No two days are the same,” he says. “One day you can be in deep strategic discussions about the future of the business and the product line. Other days you are traveling around the world trying to close commercial deals. I love the diversity, being able to sit with customers and talk about their issues, and at the same time stepping back and having a global view of the business.”
Do It Yourself
Vicedo is motivated by the urgent need to electrify and decarbonize the planet, to meet both growing power needs and climate goals. “Given the urgent need for energy security and the soaring demand from data centers and the electrification of everything — from cars to entire industries — we’ve never seen such a big challenge to solve,” he says.
For young engineers with big aspirations like his own, he advises: You don’t need to have it all figured out on day one. Ask lots of questions. Surround yourself with people who will help you learn. And if your dream job doesn’t yet exist, don’t be afraid to create it.
“I’ve always tried not to wait for an opportunity but to start doing it myself,” he says. “As long as you’re moved by curiosity and passion that drive you to go for the next thing, this company always gives you the chance to grow.”