Lucia has been part of Life Size since 2018 and became Strategic Director in 2022. This year, she joined the management board. Martha spoke to Lucia to find out about her journey towards becoming Life Size’s Strategic Director and her priorities in the role.

How did you end up working at Life Size? 

I joined untraditionally through an introduction. Alisa, our founder, asked what qualifications I had and our mutual acquaintance awkwardly said: “none… but she can speak German and she writes well”. We took it from there. I trained as a professional dancer and still perform regularly. Something that is always on your side is your drive and how you apply yourself. I don’t do things by halves. When something interests me, as climate tech, nature regeneration and sustainability do, I learn until I can do what I need to do excellently. I learnt on the job and moved from freelancer to executive to PR Manager in a few exciting years of lots of learning. Asking the necessary questions came naturally to me. It’s simply how I approach the world. I’m curious.

What attracted you to Life Size? 

Climate tech is a solution to our biggest problems. Simple as that.

I want to create, influence, shape the world. Make it better. I can write and I can translate complex ideas into compelling stories. Most importantly, I can hold and process the multitude of truths of our founders, their investors, their customers, the market and politicians, and bring all these perspectives together to build communications that lead to adoption.

One of the key challenges of scaling climate tech is the number of stakeholders and the urgency with which we need to move minds and elicit action. This can only be done through effective communications.

There’s no other company where I could live my qualities and values and indulge my interests as much as at Life Size. I have grown and learnt since I joined and I don’t see that changing any time soon. And I see the impact and value of my work.

Why do you think Alisa chose to hire you? 

I think Alisa appreciated my intelligence, directness, innate understanding of audiences and ability to marry up ambitious visions with reality. I have a Latin American-German background and live in London. A European and global perspective are second-nature to me. Ultimately, I have a great interest in people and what drives their decisions. Many people can write very well, even AI can write ok. But understanding and consolidating numerous perspectives and crafting them into strategies and stories that generate action and thereby grow businesses – that’s a quality that’s not easy to come by. 

How does your dancing background support your work at Life Size? 

Artists are similar to climate tech founders in that their visions for the world are unique – they think differently to the status quo. Often so much so that they need someone to help them build bridges from where their minds are to their target groups’ needs. Finding a language that’s authentic to founders and understood by their audiences is like creating performances that push the boundaries and still land with audiences. 

In my years performing and producing I’ve seen a lot of diversity and I’ve heard lots of valid opinions. It’s a rich experience to draw on. 

What does being Strategic Director mean to you?

It’s natural to me to question and challenge leadership. I’ve done it since my early days at Life Size. Not to be argumentative, but because it’s during discussion and through putting varied perspectives on the table that we achieve our best results for our clients. The same applies in conversation with our clients. We challenge assumptions to scale impact. 

Now, Jan and I form a coalition and I’m actively shaping how Life Size is run. It’s exciting and feels like a great opportunity. The questioning never stops. I like to reflect on traditional business practices and perceptions of leadership.

One of the things that’s important to me is building a company that amplifies our team’s strengths. Each of us has rich work and life experience and valuable contributions to make. I want to put these to service for climate tech. It’s satisfying for the team and effective for our clients.