Anna Gross joined the Truck as a Service team in July 2021 as our Commercial Project Manager. When Anna joined, she was one of three people working on our after-market Truck as a Service (also known as TaaS) offering, therefore she has been a key part of building the service for our customers. In this blog post, Anna reflects on her time at Volta Trucks so far.
What drew you to Volta Trucks?
For me, the main thing that drew me to Volta Trucks was very much the values they held. I particularly admired the way they are taking the safety aspect very seriously. I sadly lost one of my friends in a road accident, so it’s very close to my heart that the company took this electric truck opportunity to promote safety.
Before joining Volta Trucks, I was working in a tech start-up, so it was a very different industry. I enjoyed the very high pace of my previous job, but in the past decade or so, I’ve become more worried about the environment, and I began to feel quite strongly that I would like to do something to help with the climate emergency.
I wanted to be at the intersection of doing something that is tangible and makes a difference. The harder you work, the better the cause you care about goes.
What’s it like working in a start-up?
I’ve only ever worked in start-ups, but I find it really empowering that you have to create the first versions of everything and it’s up to you to solve any problems you see.
What have you found to be the biggest challenge since you started at Volta Trucks and how have you worked to overcome that?
It’s been tricky coming from a different industry and being tasked with such a huge project. I’ve had to learn to ask questions I might think are silly.
But I have to remind myself that this is new for everyone. Building this truck is new even for the experts and everyone I’ve met at Volta Trucks, even those really experienced, are incredibly humble and happy to answer all my questions.
How do you think the work you’re doing will help create the world you hope for?
My team and I work on the electrification services, which will help Fleet Managers think about electric truck operations in a different way.
In the best-case scenario, we hope to create a data-driven approach where we can analyse our customers’ depots and electricity usage. If we combine these data sources, we can give the customer new tools to work with when considering an electric fleet, which will help them reduce their running costs.
We hope to make this transition to cleaner vehicles a lot less frictionless.
What do you think Volta Trucks is doing to make the transport industry more accessible for women?
I think the design of the truck is very welcoming and accessible for everyone, including women.
About the header image: In this picture, Anna is out in nature, which is one of her top favourite activities.
If you would like to find out more about Volta Trucks and our mission to make cities safer and more sustainable, you can see where we are on our journey by clicking here. If you are interested in joining the team, please take a look at current openings we have available here.