I am Valentina, Engineer and Innovation Designer with 10+ years of experience in manufacturing, NPD/NPI and project management.
I’ve walked the path from hands-on manufacturing engineering to commercial, which led me to my entrepreneurial journey, started when I founded Engineering Success.
I bring a holistic approach to bridge the gaps between technical and commercial needs, planning and execution, short and long term priorities, where you are and where you want to be.
My journey gave me firsthand insights and experience into the challenges of developing innovative products and solution to tackle with societal challenges.
For many years, my relationship with food was shaped by restriction, guilt and confusion. Over time, through learning, reflection and curiosity, I rediscovered food as a source of nourishment, pleasure, balance and self-care. That journey changed not only how I see food, but also how I see the systems that shape the way we produce, access, experience and think about it.
I came to realise that food is connected to so much more than what ends up on our plate. It sits at the intersection of health and wellbeing, agriculture, manufacturing, healthcare, the environment, sustainability, waste and the way our communities live. Improving food therefore means looking beyond individual products and considering the wider systems, behaviours and choices that shape our relationship with food and its impact on people and the planet.
This is what drives my work today. I want to help organisations working across these interconnected systems create solutions that make a genuine difference, support healthier lives, more sustainable ways of producing and consuming food, and a better relationship between people, business and the environment.
I envision a world where organisations use innovation not only to create economic value, but to create healthier, more sustainable and more meaningful futures for people and the planet.
A world where leaders have the courage and capability to challenge the way things are done, understand the complex systems they operate within, and turn emerging needs into opportunities for positive change. Where innovation is not simply about creating something new, but about creating something that genuinely improves the way we live, work and interact with our environment.
I want to contribute to a future where the organisations shaping our food systems (from food producers and manufacturers to healthcare, environmental and sustainability organisations) have the skills and confidence to develop solutions that support better health, wellbeing and a healthier planet.
My vision is ultimately about making innovation a force for meaningful change: helping organisations turn human needs and societal challenges into solutions that create lasting value, while building the capabilities to keep creating that value for generations to come.
My mission is to help organisations turn complex societal challenges into opportunities for meaningful innovation, putting people, their experiences and the systems they live within at the centre of the process.
I work with organisations across food systems, health, wellbeing, sustainability, waste and the environment to challenge conventional thinking and explore better ways forward.
I believe innovation is at its most powerful when human insight, creativity and engineering rigour come together with a genuine responsibility to people and the planet. By building these capabilities within organisations, I want to help create a future where innovation is not an occasional exercise, but a core capability.
I believe that meaningful innovation design happens when people are given the right mindset, tools and confidence to challenge the status quo and create change themselves. My role is to create the conditions for that to happen, bringing together human-centred thinking, engineering rigour and collaborative experimentation to help organisations turn complex challenges into meaningful opportunities. Ultimately, I want every organisation I work with to walk away with more than a successful innovation project: I want them to have the capability, confidence and curiosity to keep innovating long after we have finished working together.
My pillars are:
Human-centred Innovation: Start with human needs.
Reality-grounded Innovation: Build solutions that can actually be adopted.
Cross-functional Innovation: Align diverse teams on what is worth creating before committing significant resources.
In-house built Innovation: Innovation is a capability not a one-off initiative.
Contact me at info@engineeringsuccess.co.uk and let’s explore opportunities together.
I also invite you to connect with me on Linkedin.