Since 2015, Thatiana Miloso Franceschi has been at the helm of XMobots’ commercial sector, where she has honed her expertise in various aspects of business development. Through her leadership, XMobots has been able to successfully open up new markets in the agriculture, engineering, and mining sectors. Thatiana’s strategic approach to partnerships has also been instrumental in securing large contracts that have contributed to the growth and consolidation of XMobots in the Brazilian market.
Below are the highlights of the interview conducted between World’s Leaders and Thatiana Miloso Franceschi:
Describe who you are as a person, inside and outside of the workplace.
As a person, I have always been very obstinate about achieving goals. In my personal life, I always set “goals” and looked for the best ways to reach them, always analyzing all scenarios very rationally. This characteristic ended up coming out a lot at work, where at all times we needed to define and follow strategies to reach the goals set by the company.
Describe your background and what did you do before you started/joined the company?
I graduated in social communication and journalism in 2001 from Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp), a public university considered one of the best in Brazil. I also did an MBA in sales management at Esalq-USP, another highly regarded Brazilian institution.
As a journalist, before XMobots, I had always worked with communication, specifically press relations. That’s how I got to know the drone market, and I was fascinated. At the time, it was 2011, and I was the regional manager of a press consultancy company based in São Paulo (called Ex-Libris), and at that time we were taking care of the account of one of the first drone companies for the civil market founded in Brazil. The company no longer exists, but working with it allowed me to get to know the civilian drone market (which in 2011 was just emerging) and, mainly, to meet Giovani Amianti, founder and CEO of XMobots. At that time, XMobots already existed (the company was founded in 2007) and was transferring its headquarters to the city of São Carlos, where the company’s headquarters are still located today.
What has made you successful? What do you value?
Being at XMobots since the first years of its foundation, I know the company in depth, I understand its complexity, and I can see the role and importance of each function, of each department, in the whole. This may seem basic, but in the corporate world, it is very common for people to understand their own departments, including managers, very well but not others. At XMobots, we work a lot on this with managers, because only by knowing the whole, we can do a more efficient and profitable job.
From the beginning, I believed in the purpose of the company and was committed to its growth, believing in the power of XMobots to be a protagonist in the drone market and in its ability to offer disruptive technologies to the market. We had many difficult moments along this path (you can’t imagine how difficult it is to undertake in Brazil), and many employees gave up. I was always there, always with a very large workforce, helping to redefine strategies and pursue goals by working within the values and culture preached by the company. And I’ve always managed to sell this very well to our customers and even to my team. So, if you ask what I value today, it’s exactly that: the work force, “wearing the shirt”, not giving up, and working intelligently in favor of a goal.
Which are the major services of the company and how do they the company to get ahead in the competition? What value-added services does the company provide?
XMobots currently has around 300 employees, and we are in full growth, expected to double in size by the end of this year.
Among these employees, we have an R&D team with more than 80 engineers, from different specialties (aeronautics, mechatronics, mechanics, electronics, agronomists, and software, among others), who are 100% responsible for the development of our products. As XMobots products, we are talking about:
- fixed-wing drones for mapping;
- E-VTOL drones for mapping and ISR operations spraying drones
- Artificial intelligence-based data analysis software
- Embedded gyrostabilized gimbal system with RGB and thermal cameras for real-time transmission (can be used in drones and manned planes/helicopters);
- RAAS (drone as a service) sector for mapping, ISR and spraying areas, in addition to the online platform DAASFY (Drone as a Service for You), which connects service providers with drones to service demanders.
It is a large portfolio, and among them we have some highlights, such as the surveillance drone E-VTOL Nauru 1000C (150 kg drone supplied to the Brazilian Army), the Nauru 500C (drone E-VTOL for ISR operations and mapping), among others.
We are also distributors of DJI Agriculture, supplying the Agras line (composed of great products) for the agricultural market in Brazil.
What are the most important aspects of a company’s culture? What principles do you believe in and how do you build this culture?
I understand that every company needs to know its objectives and where it wants to go. Growing up without purpose is the road to failure. And to fulfill its “mission”, a company needs to have values that will help achieve that objective, values that are the foundation for the company culture. Here at XMobots, we take this very seriously. Our mission is to develop the market for mobile robots with cutting-edge technology. We envision a very near future in which mobile robotics becomes a daily reality. To fulfill this objective, we have established six values that serve as pillars to pursue these objectives. They are: correctness, excellence, profitability, innovation, strength, and pride. With each challenge, we incorporate these values and transmit them to the different teams that make up the company. With this, we managed to form a corporate culture that is convergent and aligned with our purposes.
