Miguel Antonio Jimenez has held leadership positions in fields such as Engineering, Industrial Construction, Consulting, and Power Plant Construction, and in his career, he has been involved in companies and projects around the world. He has now joined as the CEO of AJ BRAND, a company based in Bucharest, Romania, dedicated to renewable energy generation projects, where AJ RENEWABLES SRL and AJ CONSTRUCTION SRL bring full value to a project – Development, Engineering, Construction, Operations, and Maintenance. Miguel, along with the Associates and Founders of AJ BRAND, aims to further grow the company, expanding its service offerings and presence in Europe in the near future.
C&B: Describe your activity.
Miguel: The activity focuses on Renewable Energy Power Plants, both photovoltaic and wind, and their grid infrastructure. AJ CONSTRUCTION is the oldest company in the group – from its inception it has been involved in installations for wind farms, photovoltaic projects, transformer stations, and transmission lines. AJ RENEWABLES was established in 2022 and aimed to develop projects for third parties. To date, it has already developed and sold over 700 MW and has ambitious objectives regarding the number of projects underway. From a leadership position, we aim to provide an integrated solution to clients using our expertise in all project phases, meaning to carry out development along with permit acquisition, provide construction and maintenance, additionally offer support in the financing phase, and accompany the project throughout its lifecycle.
C&B: What has been the evolution of your career/field of activity?
Miguel: My career spans several years, starting from when I finished my university studies and began in a company as a technician. Due to my character and aspirations to learn, I sought and asked for positions of greater responsibility and dedication, where I could continue to develop and contribute directly to management and decision-making. Ultimately, after being CEO in a company with a very large turnover and headquarters in several countries, in 2017, I met AJ CONSTRUCTION, which was just beginning to expand internationally. After working together for a period, we decided to follow the same path.
C&B: What were your visions in childhood/adolescence, and what are they now?
Miguel: From a young age, I enjoyed building; I had a clear vocation. I directed my studies in that direction, studying Engineering. As I grew older, I saw that the decision remained the same, and I felt that this profession offers a lot of knowledge and versatility, as it requires you to know technologies, to design, and to build projects. Now, with a more mature perspective, I appreciate that tenacity and the support of family and close people have led me to succeed. The best thing is that the action and work we carry out focus on developing a sector, that of generating energy with renewable sources, which is a benefit and a necessity for humanity. We need to reduce pollution and leave a better future for our descendants. After everything I have experienced and seeing the needs, my vision for the future is based on achieving a cleaner environment, reducing pollution, and bringing energy generation to isolated or less invested areas, which would allow them to develop. Personally, I intend to continue maturing, combining work and family, friends, sports, and supporting those who are starting.
C&B: What are the life and activity principles you follow?
Miguel: Since I was young, I have behaved in a very similar way, with humility to learn from everyone, discipline, and consistency to reach the goal, adaptability to changes or resilience, integrity, respect for people, and support in everything I can for the personal and professional growth of others. I apply all of these in my professional and personal evolution, creating teams to work with, to train, support, and defend them when necessary. A team that identifies with its leader, fights for objectives, considers them their own goals, and grows together. Daily activity makes us work very fast, but with internalized principles, contribution occurs naturally. In addition to principles, I set daily activities to be able to review work, meetings, make strategic decisions, do sports, etc.
C&B: Have pandemics and economic crises affected your activity?
Miguel: They have truly affected all sectors because, beyond the humanitarian tragedy, it has been seen the dependence on international transportation, costs, time. In this situation, we continue to work on many ongoing projects, but others have had to be stopped due to lack of materials and human resources. Now we need to focus on limiting these effects, as some of them persist, such as high transportation costs, lack of some materials. Also, we have learned that we need to be attentive and prepared to adapt quickly.
C&B: Can you share funny anecdotes from your activity?
Miguel: I remember several, but the one I like to tell, referring to our travels in this sector, is that, being at the airport in Tokyo, Japan, on one of the many quick trips I made alone, after several days without hearing anyone speaking Spanish, I heard some Spaniards in the distance, and finally, approaching, they were professional colleagues passing by. In this sector, there is much respect and discipline among colleagues and competitors.
C&B: You have a potential client/associate or employer in front of you. How do you convince them?
Miguel: For years, working with clients’ technical teams on projects or in negotiations with directors, I try to anticipate their project needs before they indicate them to me. Thus, we can search for the solution or adapt the proposal to offer them. If there is clarity about the existing need, we can work to find options. Therefore, I always tell them to tell us what they need, and we will work to get it in our proposal and to optimize it together. Thus, good agreements are often reached, as I have done many times, maintaining good relationships with clients.
C&B: What advice do you have for those starting out or undecided?
Miguel: I dare not give advice. Each person has their own visions, personal situations, and good advice for some may not be so good for others. Usually, I tell them my experiences, the principles I follow, my activities, daily routines, and thus show the results in my case, rather than telling others what would be best for them. Let each draw their own conclusions.
C&B: What is your opinion about society and its evolution?
Miguel: There are several aspects that concern me, and although in some cases solutions are found, we should move faster. These are issues such as global instability in recent months and years, which affect the security of populations and transport, affecting the global economy, environmental protection, which we should impose on ourselves and respect approved rules and even impose more ambitious requirements. We need to work, and that’s what we try to do both personally and at AJ BRAND level, as we show in our ESG policy, for future generations, for improving sustainability, for helping integrate people, for strengthening human rights, and for ensuring that technologies are for the benefit of the population.
