The scene: northwest Germany. A quiet farm. Enter a university student with a question that would shape her future. “Hey, when are you getting a wind turbine?”

It was a casual moment, but for Julia Vey, then an apprentice at GE Vernova in nearby Salzbergen, it planted a seed. Back in the early 2000s, wind power was still small-scale, and large turbines were rare. But Julia was fascinated — and determined to be part of what she sensed was coming.

In Lahore, Pakistan, there is a seven-year-old girl with an amateur interest in gas turbine maintenance. Over the past few months, Waqas Ahmad, a senior customer portfolio manager at GE Vernova, has given his curious daughter a layman’s introduction to heavy-duty turbine inspections.

Several forces within GE Vernova align in its new Energy of Change in Action storytelling campaign: a century-old commitment to breakthrough ideas, the relentless optimism of the company’s employees, and their common sense of purpose in meeting tomorrow’s challenges today. From developing advanced grid technologies in France to leading wind services in Brazil to managing turbine sites around the world, GE Vernova’s brilliant engineers are driving the energy transition forward.

Like many science-obsessed kids in the 1990s, William Tan wanted to be an astronaut when he grew up. Then came a reality check. “I realized I wasn’t a citizen of a country that sent people to space,” says Malaysian-born-and-raised Tan, who is now senior robotics and autonomous systems engineer at GE Vernova’s Advanced Research Center in Niskayuna, New York.

Just before midday on Monday, April 28, Claudia Blanco boarded a flight from Barcelona to Jerez de la Frontera, a small city in Spain’s southernmost region. Blanco, who is the chief innovation and artificial intelligence officer for GE Vernova’s Electrification Systems business, was looking forward to her week. Although her diary was crammed with meetings and deadlines, she was planning to work from her peaceful woodland home, just a 40-minute drive from Jerez’s airport.

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.

American author and activist Helen Keller once observed that “optimism is the faith that leads to achievement.” Could optimism itself, therefore, be harnessed as a strategy? GE Vernova thinks so. At just one year old, the standalone energy technology company is remaking itself into a key player in the global energy transition.

Keeping up with changes that support customers’ needs and increase employee satisfaction is an important part of building the future at GE Vernova. Though working from different parts of the world, these three team members — who appeared today at the New York Stock Exchange opening bell to celebrate Earth Day — share values, and each one sets an example by bringing talent and enthusiasm to their work in building relationships with people from a variety of backgrounds and cultures.

Building Bridges for Inclusion: Julia Lima

They’re the team members who make their colleagues feel they can do anything. They have detailed insight into how complex systems work, yet they focus on the essentials so that everyone understands the goal on the horizon. They celebrate small wins, knowing they will ultimately lead to larger successes.

Before being accepted to the Indian Institute of Science, Rajib Datta contemplated a career as a fine artist. “I was good at math and physics, so I knew engineering or science was probably in my future,” he says. But he felt equally adept in the field that he’d pursued since childhood. A natural draftsman and painter, Datta still executes figurative works and sketches today, and now senses a resonance between visual art and his pioneering work with GE Vernova in the field of power electronics.