We are excited to showcase the incredible people working on the GDA vision every day! By building a diverse group of individuals, we push forward our mission and through this series, we look forward to connecting faces to the names of our innovative, driven, fun, and creative team. In our second Interview, we sat down with Andrea Taylor.
What do you do at GDA?
GDA, as a start-up in the USA, engages in a great deal of purchasing. I work with our vendors to execute major purchases and manage the schedules and payments to the companies that work so hard to help us be successful. I build relationships and help ensure our team and our suppliers work well together for a common goal.
Each day I work with multiple team members and contractors to coordinate major construction and power infrastructure purchases, deliveries, imports and payments. Many of my hours are spent with my nose in a computer recording purchasing, but that is my superpower… I have the information our team and contractors need to keep our major purchases on track.
What’s the most exciting part about your day to day work?
The people I am so fortunate to meet and work with. They are professionals with so many talents and skills. Watching the progress of the work that the GDA team and the team of contractors is accomplishing is amazing. Pictures cannot do it justice, because there are so many lessons learned and unavoidable roadblocks that our teams have overcome. The ingenuity, creativity and sheer will inspires me often.
What can the blockchain & crypto industry do to get more women involved?
Blockchain and crypto are such a mystery to the majority of populations around the world. People are learning how to invest and transfer crypto globally, some industries are learning how to cut out the middle-man and gain more control as artists and independent professionals using crypto currencies. That is all amazing, and any of those examples could draw different people.
For me, I see the way that violence in our world stifles people from reaching their full potential. In areas where gang violence and unrest poses a serious risk for being targeted, harmed or killed, people can send and receive money with nothing but a smart phone and cellular service because of the infrastructure I am fortunate to be involved in building. That makes what I do every day important. People once at risk do not have to go to a bank or a Western Union where they are being targeted for violence anymore in many countries of the world. I imagine so many ways that the computational power of blockchain can make our world a better place. Women are often attracted to companies that work to improve the world we live in.
Who inspires you most? Why?
Marie Curie inspires me. I have achieved a Bachelor of Science in an interdisciplinary study of Neuroscience. Marie Curie was fearless and gave her life to discover and study the benefits of an element that still saves lives today. Some of her quotes that I admire are:
Nothing in life is to be feared; it is only to be understood.
You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end each of us must work for his own improvement, and at the same time share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful.
If you could visit any city in the world, where would it be? Why?
Marinha Beach in Lagoa, Portugal is one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. I am a water baby, and it would take the rest of my life for me to get bored there.
