Livia Cevolini was 36-years-old when she founded Energica Motor Company, & an Italian manufacturer of high-performance electric-motorbikes. & Energica is based in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna, also known as & “Motor Valley” and home to automotive greats Lamborghini, Maserati, & Ferrari, and Ducati.

Cevolini says she overcame significant obstacles to & achieve success with her company. She has had to work hard to be & accepted as an engineer and leader in the historically masculine field & of motoring.

“The automotive industry, including & motorcycles, is mainly male-dominated. But, it’s changing,” says & Cevolini from Energica’s headquarters in Italy. “There are more and more & women that are passionate about motors, and that are demonstrating that & they can be very good at the business.”

Cevolini & studied engineering at the University of Modena in the early 2000s and & estimates that 90% of her classmates were male. She says that the & minority female student-body in her program was generally more & determined and committed than the male engineering students, but that & they were not given the benefit of the doubt about their intellect and & abilities.

“Professors and male classmates acted as & if the girls couldn’t get the lessons, but of course that was not the & case,” says Cevolini.

She recalls her professors & specifically asking the female students if they understood the material & covered in class, yet not asking the male students the same thing, & assuming that the boys had grasped the concepts. When the female & students replied that they understood, the lessons would then move on to & other topics.

Rather than deter her, Cevolini used the low & expectations of her professors and classmates as motivation to excel at & her studies. Upon graduation, she says she was among the highest & achieving students in the class.

It was not just in & the classroom that Cevolini says she faced inequality. While a student, & she spent time in the Ferrari Formula 1 engineering pits in Italy and & was often the only female engineer-in-training there.

“I & was like maybe 16, 17. I was studying. I was speaking with someone and & they would ask me, are you a journalist, or are you an umbrella girl? & And I would say, no, actually, I’m an engineer,” she says.

After & graduation, Cevolini worked as director of sales and marketing at CRP & Group, an Italian engineering firm that specializes in Formula 1, & motorsport racing and the aerospace industry.

But it & was motorbikes that Cevolini was passionate about, and in 2010 she built & a team at CRP that developed and manufactured electric race-bikes. Four & years later she founded Energica in her hometown of Modena, and moved & into the consumer electric-motorcycles space.

In 2016 & Cevolini took Energica public on Italy’s Borsa Italiana stock-exchange & to raise funds to facilitate international growth. The company opened a & sales and service outlet in Silicon Valley, California the same year. & Energica’s market capitalization is now just under 40-million euro, or & 46-million USD.

Cevolini says that 30% of the 45 & employees that work at Energica's Italian headquarters are women, a & number she would like to see grow. But she says that the Italian culture & often adheres to traditional roles for men and women and that many & women are encouraged to focus solely on their families rather than & pursue careers.

“I think that Italy is behind in some & years,” says Cevolini about the societal expectations of women. “Women & can have a family and still have a job or even a good role in a & business, they don’t have to choose.”

She says that & her female employees are highly-skilled and passionate about their & disruptive work in motoring and notes that women excel at mediation.

“They & have a different point of view,” says Cevolini of her female & employees. & “So it's very good, because we have to put together all of & the best ideas at the table.”

Cevolini credits her & family for pushing her to study a scientific field at university and & encouraging her to develop a career in business. She would like to see & more women study STEM in school and make up a larger percentage of the & engineering talent pipeline.

The European Commission, & a division of the UN, put out a report in 2014 noting that just 15.6% & of women in Italy attained a tertiary education in 2012, significantly & below the European average of 25.8%. Cevolini’s advice for women wanting & to get into male-dominated fields is to use knowledge to level the & playing field.

“It is best to demonstrate that you & are as good as a man, or even better at your own job,” Cevolini says. “I & am here because I have the know-how, the competence to be here.”

The & company she looks to as the leader in the green space is Tesla. & Cevolini has not met Tesla founder Elon Musk, but respects him as a & pioneer in the industry.

“What we are fighting now is & what he was fighting in 2008,” she says. “Tesla is for sure the one & that we have to look at. Because they are working on motors and & performance. It's well-rounded. A very high-product and now trying to go & for a bigger market. They continually try to do the best service for & the customers. That’s the right approach in 2017. Not just the car.”

Cevolini & does not have plans to move Energica into the electric-car business but & sees opportunity in electric-boats and other transportation systems, & and in the second-life of batteries in a renewable-energy system or & smart-grid. Her 10-year plan for the company includes being listed on & NASDAQ or another international stock market.

Like & Musk, Cevolini says that it is tenacity and perseverance that have got & her where she is. Facing inequality early in her life taught her & valuable lessons about resilience, that can now be of value to other & budding entrepreneurs.

“Go for your way. Do your job, study a lot in order to be prepared,” advises Cevolini.

She recommends that entrepreneurs push forward and pay little attention to competitors and those that do not share their vision.

“Go for your growth. Don’t look at the others.”

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