Pioneer for our future female service engineers in East Africa

In September 2017, Lucy joined the programme and successfully completed it after two years of training. Afterwards, she had the opportunity to stay with Krones and has since then been part of the East Africa department. She specialised in the field of inspection technology. “I come from a city that is three hours away from Nairobi. Since I’ve always had an interest in what I’m doing right now, it was clear to me that I would take the step and move to Nairobi to follow my dream career,” explains Lucy.

“I’ve always had an interest in what I’m doing right now”

At the beginning of 2022, Lucy has been in Germany for one month of machine training at the Krones headquarter in Neutraubling, near Regensburg. It was her fourth time in Germany since 2019, so the Kenyan already knows the city quite well. “I really like Regensburg, but I prefer it during summer and autumn, although seeing snow was an amazing experience, which I wouldn’t have had if I hadn’t been travelling for work,” she explains. She is also a great fan of the Bavarian kitchen, especially of white sausage. “I could eat it all day, every day,” she laughs.

In general, her job takes her to different places around the world. Most of her customers are located in Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Ruanda, Burundi and Congo. And when other Krones subsidiaries need support, Lucy and her colleagues help out there as well.

In the following interview, Lucy talks about the reasons why she is so passionate about her job and about the fact that she is one of the few women in the field.

Lucy, you’re in Germany right now and you travel a lot for work in general. Is that one of the parts of your job that you enjoy the most?

I think I just enjoy my job generally. It is very varied and it’s just an exciting job! And since travelling is part of it, I also always meet new people and discover that people live differently than myself, that they don’t speak the same way I do, and so on. For example, to achieve clarity, we mostly speak English and Swahili at work. In the East African region, Swahili is widely recognised, so you find yourself speaking the language even more than English.

Being in the engineering service field is just an exciting job! Lucy IrunguService Engineer at Krones East Africa

How does a regular day of work look like for you?

That really depends on the project. My team has different things that take us to site – maintenance, commissioning, etc. So, it mainly depends on the job we’re going to. A typical day starts at 7:30 am, when we leave the hotel. Latest at 6:30 pm, we end work and go back to the hotel. But in general, no day is like the other.

You were the first woman to become a service technician at Krones Center East Africa. Have other women followed your example and completed the training in the meantime?

Yes. At the moment, we are three women at Krones in East Africa. For the first three years, I was the only one and then the other two finished the apprenticeship programme and have been part of the team since then.

Do you feel like the fact that you’re a woman plays a role in your daily work?

For my colleagues, it doesn’t play a role and for them, we women are simply part of the team. And I can quickly prove myself and the quality of my work if a customer may not be sure about working with me in the beginning. The same probably goes for other fields of work: in the beauty industry, for example, it is also rather unusual to see a man working in that field. Why is that still the case? We can all do and achieve the same things.

We often don’t have enough female role models. We don’t have people to look up to and say: “I want to be like that! I want to do the same thing as her!” It would be nice if we had more mentors for the younger girls with interests in sciences and for women trying to set foot in male-dominated industries. Maybe I can be such a role model for others myself.

We can all do and achieve the same things. Lucy IrunguService Engineer at Krones East Africa