welcome to bets on the future where we highlight the various career paths in the electrifying Metals World from the vehicle you ride in to the bridge holding and up metals are everywhere why not in your career too I’m Jennifer bats a medals industry veteran with almost 20 years experience here to highlight these incredible career paths As Told by the women who are living them today is a first on bets on the future we’re joined by not only one but two incredible women who have built up an organization from scratch women for medals Tanya winter and Stephanie Klein along with several others from arubus launched women for medals back in 2019 as a women’s empowerment initiative in the metals industry both of today’s guests are located out of the Hamburg Germany location for arubus arubus is a leading Global provider of non-ferrous metals and one of the largest copper recyclers worldwide please welcome Tanya winter the executive director head of sales for the rod Division and Stephanie Klein senior project leader for social engagement from across the pond to to bet on the future thank you to two of my first time guests that

will be dual interviews today normally on bets on the future we have one individual telling us this you know their their backstory what they’re working on and today we are very lucky to have two very experienced individuals in the metals industry Stevie Klein and Tanya winter both from arubus and right before this we were actually just talking about how did we even meet because spoiler alert if if you’re unaware of who these two individuals are I’m based in California and these two individuals are not so that’s true uh we’re we’re making this a little bit more of an international uh episode today so thank you both for for hopping on and uh Tanya do you mind just doing a quick introduction on yourself sure it will be my pleasure and thank you so much Jennifer for having us it’s such a great pleasure and and also the first time we are on a podcast that’s recorded in uh La across the pond and with quite a time difference so yes um I think we got introduced be because of our initiative women for medals and a great fan and supporter named ner and she’s

traveling the world for this industry and she said hey I met this wonderful woman Jennifer over in the US on an history conference if I’m not wrong Y and you need to meet you really need to meet you have so much in common and um yeah so that is how she hooked us up and this is how we are meeting up here today I guess it it’s it was uh kind of a crazy story it was uh I didn’t know Nar uh until this year and because of some of my activity and her activity on LinkedIn and trying to you know expand our networks uh you know just in the metals world and specifically on more of the recycled material side of things uh we met up at the isri conference in Nashville uh had a lovely lunch uh in in in that area and yeah she she was she’s been a wonderful connector in the industry so I I really do thank her for for the introduction so she had reached out or you have had reached out to her before you met via LinkedIn I assume or yes ah yeah very now

LinkedIn is such a great platform um we real realize that also very often to just yeah connect with people and then at some point meet up in person yes exactly one day one day the three of us will actually be in the same room yeah hopefully Stephie you’re going to be in London next month right because you’re not based in London where are you based out of we are based in Hamburg in Germany okay so and uh one of the things that uh you know our introducer brought up was the work that you’ve been doing with or through a rubis I should say but for women for Metals the the organization that you both have started if I if if I get that correctly I just kind of want to know a little bit more about H how woman for metal started what is it what are you working on and and learn a little bit more yeah let me maybe step in for the start and then stepy can take over for what we’re currently working on so in 2019 so five years ago and before the pandemic um two colleagues of mine

and I thought um we needed to have a network of women or let’s say bringing women of the wonderful Metals industry um together and uh for us on the copper side of life where uh we are mostly focused on um not so much the recycling part but the products part um and the the primary site they all meet up for lme week which always takes place in London in October and so we said let’s have a tea time event let’s um invite women we know of this industry bring them together give them visibility connect them so that maybe also in the future we will not always have these panels full of men in all the different um events so that’s what we did really low budget yeah and it was a wonderful event and um yeah then uh the pandemic started which kicked us back a bit um we nevertheless conducted always on the Tuesday of lme week at tea time then two virtual sessions and then last year was the first time again that we could have an iners one in London and this was also the start of making this initiative even

bigger so our vision is to be um with women for medals and indust industrywide initiative so that is founded by us at Arubas but that opened its doors and uh to build the initiative last year in London um to other organizations associations companies or individuals yeah and now we’re just about to hit our this year’s tea time which takes place on October 10 um again in London I’m really looking forward to to seeing what comes out of the tea time uh I don’t believe I’ll be able to to make it over this year but I do hope to to get to London next year for LM week um there’s just been a little bit of travel recently amongst some us-based uh scrap conferences you had a lot of conf many conferences going on I saw that yeah yes yes but maybe let me just add one sentence I missed to mention because what drove us to really do that was um that I had a realization again that whenever we have open positions to be filled um and I’m a director of sales so on the sales side there’s hardly any women applying

and then I realized okay sales is at least in Germany not really very female dominated and the metals industry for sure is not yeah and this all together made us think on um how can we um make sure that the public understands uh that the males industry is a great place to work also for women I completely agree I mean it’s exactly why I started this podcast because I I I I would look online and you know I know many women that are incredibly successful in the metals industry and yet I would look online and I wouldn’t see them on panels or speakers or you know even just I on on my LinkedIn feed right and so I think what you’re doing is really incredible to give women the support to also educate men on you know uh the the benefits of a more diverse Workforce um overall and then also to give them that airtime on stage right yeah yeah for for and let me just preface we’ve thrown out several acronyms um throughout this this podcast so far but to help uh the individual who may be listening that’s not as familiar

with the metals World LM is London Metal Exchange it is a Marketplace I’ll call it um where basically a lot of the main metals are traded it’s kind of like the stock market if you will for metal so think aluminum copper nickel Etc from a Global Perspective this is how we figure out what the value of those metals are on a day-to-day and how our basis and the lme throws lme week which basically allows commodity Traders manufacturers basically anyone that uses the metals to come into London for the week and there’s a lot of tea times there are panels there’s discussions it’s really a great educational and networking time in the metals industry so it I I really do appreciate what you’re what you’re doing with the the tea time and um uh as someone that is from the states uh I love the British tea time concept uh it just makes it a little bit more fun for me so I it’s gonna be wonderful to see what um what videos and what photos come out of the time this year yeah thank you so much yeah we are really looking

forward um to our tea time I think uh yeah in two weeks or one and a half week and um yeah it will be really exciting for us this year because as Tanya already said said we opened uh last year our Initiative for external organizations and associations and then saying okay we are coming back one year later and present to you what we yeah identified in the last months and how we shaped our Network together and uh so it’s a really important next milestone for us because we are presenting our external um supporter and membership packages during um this tea time and we have a wonderful panel uh during the tea time as well and a lot of great women in this panel who are talking about um initiatives in this industry also female initiatives and we would like to identify what we can learn from each other best practice sharing experiences they made so I think a very yeah great um meeting point and also of course we would like to network because we see networking connecting is so important in this industry and yeah it looking forward it really is um I

I don’t believe we covered on this during the section that we were recording this for the podcast but um I find it so interesting and wonderful that this initiative that you worked on started as an internal organization at arubus right yeah and and it developed into this opportunity where you saw a need outside of arubus and that arubus gave you the support to say go for it make this an industrywide thing we will support you M yeah this is exactly what happened then um let’s say a good year ago yeah so and that’s when we could really uh let’s say kick off much more and um with the full forces and is also since uh yeah since then stepy has taken over the lead of the initiative which is wonderful because with her background of um event management and social engagement it’s just a perfect fit yeah um to let’s say run the initiative as well and then um it’s me supporting very much for the external world because my um main role in AIS as I mentioned is on the SES side so the commercial sites are very much focused there and another

colleague of us um laa she’s our um director for HR development and she’s very much supporting and focusing on the internal development of women for medals within our rubers within our different sites where we’ve now everywhere a local coordinator how we name them and um yeah make sure that uh we do best practice sharing within our Hubers um learning from each other but also then um in the external part of the initiative with other companies and individuals that’s really incredible I do know of some associations that exist out there and their backstories are are not similar to to to women for metal I I think it’s very fascinating that an internal organization essentially was able to step outside and in within five years of that organization even starting that you are getting external sponsors you’re setting this up as essentially an external organization operating on its own to an extent right you have your own p&l you have your own budget right and that you’re opening this up to nonar rubis members yeah because I have one of my favorite sayings is the more the merrier and we all you know have um

very similar challenges yeah we all or many of us share the same or similar visions and targets and uh yeah we want to like you and us we want to show how great this industry is yeah and attract other um people and especially females um to come and join us yeah yeah and as you said it’s so important to show these role models and to give role models who are already working in the companies more visibility to give them more satisfaction on one side and on the other side to attract more other women because we know women attract women and so it’s so important to give them a face to show them to give them room to show videos and um yeah this is one of our goals for women for Med the organization women and Manufacturing put out a study uh recently which I would consider the metals industry part of the manufacturing world uh that 30% of all of the individuals in the manufacturing space are females and that by 2030 35% will be female and so what you’re setting up now is a really important directive to help people understand the

benefits of manufacturing and specifically obviously unbiased uh the metals industry it seems to be more or less the backbone to everything in our societies and so your your timing could not be better um for those that are thinking about learning more about women for medals or um signing up what kind of options are there for them so we have a website which is called women Then Fall the number four metals.com so there you can find everything and there you can also register if if you’re interested to be a supporter and um yeah you will find all this information there wonderful and you very important us that so we differentiate of course between companies and associations and also universities yeah they can become members and individuals so for individuals uh of course it’s completely free of charge yeah we are coming out soon also with a collaboration platform um where we then all you know easier connect with each other and um share information um open up discussions or even just agree on meetings somewhere at one of these you know conferences where anyway several of us are are going to yeah yeah you

will find of course sorry we have a group yeah that you can also access and uh yeah more to come yeah and it it’s based out of Europe correct but I’m assuming membership is open to anyone around the world yeah yeah that’s fantastic and we would love to have um of course supporters and in the US and everywhere yeah so um that will be important but um yeah maybe due to the nature of it and how it started yeah there’s um many German companies or German Association for example um of uh Metal Traders and recyclers with whom we’ve Al so um already had one event uh in Germany where which was also a yeah a mixture of a panel and uh individual stories um sharing and also a workshop on the focus topics that we have um created after we’ve been speaking with many um interested companies and on what their requirements are what they would foresee for the initiative and um yeah now the the structure will also be based on these uh Focus topics and we will have um uh strong uh Partners who will be part of uh probably it’s going

to be called advisory committee and we’ll also be um shairing these uh let’s say working groups on these focused topics so that we really make sure yes it’s an initiative founded by arubus but it’s actually really from the from the industry yeah and there we look into the primary side we look into recycling um into trading into products um and to have the diverse setup will be important for us and of course also we are look for not only having uh Europeans or Germans but would love to have that very International as well well you’re setting it up pretty nicely because I suspect you’ll get more partners and more uh you know individuals coming to women for medals from the states because arubus um for those not familiar in the metals world just made a pretty massive investment um in the states do you mind just um elaborating on on what your company’s been working on and you know coming over across the pond if you will sure yes um it’s very exciting for us because it’s the first Green Field project of Arubas and we broke ground in Richmond um or more concretely

in austa in Georgia in June last year yeah for our um secondary smelter and um it is an investment meanwhile of 640 million euros in the US and uh we will treat 180,000 tons of complex recycling materials there and um it’s going to be the first of its kind um yeah over there in the US so that these are indeed very very exciting times and our yeah is coming over um with a substantial footprint it’s really quite impressive what what arubus is doing over in the states and somebody brought this up the other day that it didn’t really you know dawn on me um I’ve been on the scrap side of things the recycled material side of thing for the majority of my career so I think my my view is a little skewed but arubus is not the only company recently um international company that has invested in the United States and I find that very fascinating because the Investments that you guys have been making um in the state is similar to a lot of other companies where people are looking at the state as um like the next Frontier if

you will almost like in terms of recycling opportunities because we do have a lot of recycled materials available here right so instead of shipping out to other countries companies like aru is recognizing well why don’t we just why don’t we just build the plant where the material is and so it’s it’s pretty cool to see more and more companies coming to the states and saying we’re going to set up shop here we see this as a manufacturing opportunity yeah no very much I think the recycling Market in the US um somehow it was maybe even overdue yeah dead companies are stepping in um to So to avoid all these you know recycling flows overseas yeah which also is somehow maybe not the most sustainable way so um that should help on that and um and then also I think the US really has um some good programs yeah to um pull investments into the country yes I don’t know and again you know spoiler alert for behind the scenes we had a little uh conversation before we hadit you know the record button on this so I don’t know at what point we we

talked about this but for those that are familiar with ar rubis what do you do what do you make like how do you fit into the metals world and really ultimately translate into the everyday person yeah so um A’s core metal is copper yeah but besides copper we bring out 20 other metals and um co-products how we call them we are also very large producer of um suic acid for example and um we run six smelters in Europe and then the one enrichment coming up of course in the future and um we also have some uh yeah Refinery of course so we produce cathodes which is um copper cathodes which is the first let’s say kind of product and also traded at the earlier mentioned London Metal Exchange and um from out of our cathod we also produce Copper products for example this is what I um I am in charge for on the sales side wi Rod so we are a pretty large um producer of wire rod in Europe with four sites in three countries and um yeah besides that we are among the largest Recyclers of copper worldwide yeah so

of these six smelters that I mentioned two of them are primary smelters they are using concentrates but they also use recycling materials as some cooling scrap for example and then we have four uh secondary smelters yeah we where we treat recycling materials and secondary materials in general yeah so we do not own a mine yeah we don’t own a mine yes that’s important we are very integrated towards um the fabricator s yeah I’m very curious T in terms of how did you find the metals industry like how did you find a rubis how did you get to the point of running the sales for uh for this division it just I’m always interested in you know the backstory yeah and then in many cases what I’ve also heard in your um podcast sessions before it’s somehow family connected and this is also the case for me I I tend to say actually that copper runs through my veins and it starts with my father starting in this industry in a fine wire producing company 18 days before I was born yeah and then um I started in this same company during my school holidays

when I was 16 years old you know just as a job and I started in sales and marketing my father has ever been in controlling so this is not a perfect match maybe um and I’ve loved it from the very first day and I had the opportunity and that company’s name is Becken Hof um to um even then continue doing studies with them together and uh during these studies and my time at the University I even went over to the states for an internship that I spent in New Jersey and then through that um I got in touch with a company named keer also of course in uh the metals industry so from fine wire I then changed over to the strips business so meaning Road products for connectors and I was um at that time in charge for the sales in the US for 10 years so I came over many many times during that time and also for Asia and also there I loved it every day and at some point I U yeah after 10 years with kamper I needed um um yeah another surrounding and a new challenge and then

I figured out Hamburg could be a good place in the end and also then Arubas very Renown in the copper industry and especially also for Copper products and then I found my way um to Arubas where I have been now for eight and a half years and um also here every day’s been um yeah a positive Adventure mostly um with h yeah zero boredom I can assure you that but of course a much bigger company and as I described very um yeah integrated on the copper value chain so there is every day something new to learn yeah it it really is the the industry is constantly changing constantly having major events constantly having you know fluctuations and pricing and new consumers and you know locations and so it it keeps it very interesting I mean here in the states um you know we have uh you know very topical UAW strikes with the auto plants that are affecting some of the metal markets here in the stat and so you know if you like news if you like world events if you like seeing what you do go into real life and having an

effect on on on people the metals industry is kind of that perfect combination yeah and we are part of any Mega Trend if you’re talking Renewables yeah if you’re talking digitalization um immobility of course yeah urbanization it’s all about metals and of course particularly copper which is is a very nice metal infinitely recyclable actually as well and um yeah and Stephie I I know you’re you’re struggling with a bit of a a cold today so uh in just a a brief brief as as much as you feel comfortable I’m curious as to how you got into the metals industry yeah actually it was um by accident it was not a familiar based background it was a friend of me but it also woman a woman who influenced me uh he she was already working for this industry and for the company and um yeah I was fascinated from the very first beginning I’m here right now for 13 years also made yeah some developments um at AR rubis and yeah now working also for the field of social engagement at Aris completely um different than Tanya’s work but also really interesting more related to

the yeah to the countries where our raw materials are coming from so we are um doing a lot of social projects in South America in Peru and Chile and um yeah since a few months or nearly over a year right now responsible also for women for Metals wonderful work together with Tanya and um our other colleagues here and yeah always fascinating always happening something new and um yeah a great industry and um um our big aim to yeah attract more women for this great industry and show them what this industry is about how many different jobs there are in this industry I mean you can be anything yeah a absolutely I mean you you just brought up two very different stories um very different backgrounds very different roles with within the same company even and and that’s really the key here um Stephie you you brought up another key Point uh from a globalization once you get experience in the metals industry you you’re not limited to your location because metals are everywhere Tanya you mentioned being able to travel to the states traveling to Asia uh throughout Europe right being able to do

that through work is pretty unique right that that’s pretty pretty special and also being able to see what your material is going into is is pretty incredible yeah and nowadays also even more and which I like to see is of course the sustainability aspect and how now even you know with your uh customers of products they start to think okay how can we recycle it how can we you know enter a circular economy and this is yeah wonderful yeah it’s the it’s so it’s gotten so purposeful also you know uh working in this industry and this is something that I don’t recall like that let’s say 25 years ago yeah so um but uh the last years I mean it’s it’s so clear yeah um sustainability um the in you know in Europe we have the um the green deal and I know in the US we have a similar program now yeah we need so much medals for that and also we need um to take care that um then at the end of life and so on we make sure that they are recycled properly yeah the Investments that have been made

in particularly the the United States right now because we have a huge demand for a lot of the lower footprint a lot of the um energ energy projects Etc there was one company recently that basically just raised it was either I think it was one billion dollar um and now their valuation is about five billion just for recycling essentially EV batteries because of the metal content in there like think about that for a second that’s mind-blowing and that’s just one company right think about all the other metals that exist in products today we’ve done a really great job and again biased from the states um you know in terms of recycling automobiles right ice Vehicles internal combustion engines we figured out that process how to make sure that we really are recycling all of the vehicles but now with the introduction of you know a lot of projects that want lower carbon Footprints and they want more technology we’re having to get a little bit more creative to make sure that we recycle existing metals to be able to keep up with demand and and it’s it’s great from a career perspective to

be able to get in at at this level right now yes yeah and like you mentioned EV I mean this is um the recycling of EV batteries yeah it’s like startups everywhere because it’s a completely new field and we also have built a pilot line here um in our Hamburg site um to yeah for the black mass and um it’s exciting projects yes for those um that are interested in any of the topics that we’ve covered or interested in in metals as a potential career what advice would you give them to get started in in this industry so you’re referring to how to um where to find um a a job or more like once you’re in the industry once you’ve found that how um to let’s say build your your your character traits or how you deal in that industry I like both of those questions actually I think the first one is of course um a bit bit tougher you know it might be different in the different markets let’s say geographically but um on the other hand I mean then again we are at LinkedIn right yeah follow us join women

for medals it’s and so on connect with others that are already in the industry and hear about their um companies or associations or other places they um work for um follow the news on these companies of course um I think that that’s always good and then once you’ve U yeah once you’re starting in the industry I would always say it’s very important important to be yourself to be authentic yeah to be to have a Hands-On mentality I think helps in our industry to also be adjustable yeah in the way on how who do I have in front of me who am I speaking with yeah because there’s a broad scale from like very small I don’t shops yeah um familyowned or I mean you you don’t have an idea which you know companies I visited in India for example yeah so um somewhere in the backyard and um of course with differences in working security then we have them as standards in Europe or in the US for sure um but also then you’re talking to multinational um companies they are um sea level so that can be very exciting but of course

it’s um important that you you know know how to deal with a different uh characters or you learn that so it’s important to stay curious to ask questions and really really be interested truly interested and stick to your own personality and your values yeah because it’s a it’s a long-term business it’s a people business how I’ve uh known it and um therefore of course a network yeah building up a network inside your company and outside is essential and can be of great help as well but you see everybody multiple times in life yeah so it’s important yeah um you know how your first impression is and how you continue dealing with people faithfulness is important trustfulness to me and um yeah and and can I add um something I think it’s also really important um as T said be yourself and as a woman act like a woman yes don’t try to be a man yeah because it’s a men dominated industry because I think this is diversity if you can act and be and and feel and yeah behave like a woman I think this is so important because this is the

value of diverse team and diversity so I wish I would have gotten that advice almost 20 years ago I I definitely yeah tried to blend in if you will right like try to not make it so apparent that I was basically one woman in in you know my area of of business and so it’s taken me a few years to to get to so um hence the um the pink Blazer today so I realized that I was about to mention that too because it’s exactly a realization I’ve only had in the last few years before I would always be the one okay wear a dark suit as well have your hair you know to pointy tail whatever because it’s already clear you’re different so don’t make it be even more obvious right and I have found since I’ve switched that mindset to being more of my authentic self being more true to who I am more feminine if you will I’ve seen more business opportunities more relationships like people gravitate towards me more because I think they can truly understand that I’m being my authentic self right I I’m not trying to to fit

into a mold and so it it’s more interesting to them to do business with somebody that might not look exactly like them yeah well I really appreci appreciate both of you thank you for staying later by the way uh you know again the behind the scenes magic of podcasting you both um are after closing hours across the pond so thank you so much for for sticking around and for those that are interested in connecting with Tanya or Stephy they are available on LinkedIn please go visit women for medals as well check out their their various channels on that front they’ll be posting more and more information and it’s going to be really incredible to watch that organization grow over the next several years so thank you for for coming on and sharing that thank you so much for this great opportunity thank you yes and for being such a great supporter to women fors as well and uh yeah let’s see how we can grow it further and when finally we will be able to be in the same room even in person yeah hopefully yes one day one day it will hopefully sooner

rather than later yeah