Diana Avila Bio 

Growing up in a small touristic town in Colombia, Diana Avila was acutely aware of the importance of business financials. Developing a fascination for numbers, she enrolled in a very unique degree – Financial Engineering. Learning to create complex models and analyses for boosting business growth, she cultivated a very useful skill – the art of structuring and projecting finances to reach big goals.

“To be honest, I haven’t heard of any careers similar to that one. Especially in my country, it’s not a very common career – because it’s a combination of Finance and Engineering, but engineering more in terms of creating finance models to evaluate how profitable the model is. One or two universities over there offered this degree, I focused more on accounting but I also focus on admin and finance, so I think that’s a very good combination.”

In 2013, Diana’s husband landed a sponsorship for work in Australia. Their lives changed instantly. Mr Malagon took up the opportunity, and naturally, his wife followed. 

At first, the language barrier presented a hurdle for Diana. Never one to sit around waiting for anyone, she began to go to community service at her local church. Taking English lessons at night while looking after a little one during the day, she soon gained confidence in speaking the language and began looking for work.

Her search led to a role in Accounts at a dynamic construction company. While in the role, Diana also explored new territory, finding her way to Unimac Machinery. There, she worked a couple of days a week, swapping days at her full-time role to take on the opportunity.

At Unimac, Diana was in charge of the accounts, working closely with our founder Pierre. Then, the company experienced a fork in the road. The birth of Innovync followed; freshly rebranded with Pierre at the helm.

“There were only three people working at the time – I was so impressed with how Pierre was working. There was only one technician, and me a couple of hours a week, which means that Pierre was doing everything else himself. He was doing everything, running the company as Director, selling machinery, offering technical support, doing the marketing – just everything.” 

Initially, Diana was to work for 2-3 days a week. That never happened. Growth came faster than expected – so her new role became full-time right away. Responsibilities included managing the accounts and reception, communicating with suppliers in Europe, and ordering parts – plus a whole lot more. 

“When we started full-time, Pierre bought the factory. When I came here, it was just a room with a table by itself. Just a room and a toilet. Pierre asked: are you ok to work in this? It will improve, but will take some time. I could see in the first financial year how successful the company was. It was good sales, regardless of having only one sales rep – he did so so so well. Then COVID came, and it didn’t affect us at all. I am excited about what the future will bring to Innovync, and feel proud to be part of this amazing team!”.

With her financial engineering mind, Diana paves a clear path to our continued success. Watch this space to see how she grows with the company – there is very little this lady can’t do when she sets her mind to it!