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Catalans Abroad
7 February 2021 2.00 h

Anna Schlegel

Vice president of the leading data storage company NetAp

The land of opportunity

Why did you leave Cat­alo­nia?
I left Cat­alo­nia not know­ing that I would stay in the States for more than a year or two. In that sense, I was not leav­ing Cat­alo­nia. I did not know I was. It was an ad­ven­ture in 1992 to ex­pe­ri­ence the US. For love, for youth, for my ad­ven­tur­ous spirit… be­cause I have lived in dif­fer­ent coun­tries: Eng­land and Ger­many, and trav­elled a lot and spent a lot of time in Japan, Ban­ga­lore, Mu­nich, Bei­jing...
Why did you choose Sant Fran­cisco?
I ini­tially spent about two months in Los An­ge­les, to see if that were a place I could thrive, live in. How­ever, I got a job at the San Fran­cisco Air­port and while vis­it­ing the town for a week­end I fell in love im­me­di­ately. San Fran­cisco felt more fa­mil­iar, more like the towns I had grown up in, like Girona, Barcelona, or Berlin. I would not need a car to move around (al­though I did end up cav­ing in and buy­ing one very quickly). San Fran­cisco felt like an in­cred­i­bly rich town in the arts, the food scene, and a com­plete melt­ing pot of cul­tures. I was in my el­e­ment there.
Are you happy with the job op­por­tu­ni­ties you found there?
Ab­solutely, I can­not com­plain about a thing. This is the land of op­por­tu­nity, es­pe­cially land­ing in Sil­i­con Val­ley, if you are an in­vestor, in in­no­va­tion you are like a kid in the candy store. I had my own startup, I man­aged some­one else’s busi­ness, I have led glob­al­i­sa­tion for For­tune Com­pa­nies. I feel very priv­i­leged. The main area I have al­ways fo­cused on is how will a tech­nol­ogy prod­uct work in any other coun­try, glob­ally. I have de­vel­oped sev­eral method­olo­gies, mod­els and mech­a­nisms to en­sure prod­ucts can func­tion with­out is­sues around the world. We take care of the op­er­at­ing sys­tems, en­cryp­tion is­sues, global trade com­pli­ance, code in­ter­na­tion­al­i­sa­tion. Mostly things that are naked to the user’s eye.
What do you think is the best thing about liv­ing there?
The ocean, the ski­ing, the largest surf waves in the world, the whales, the places that re­mind me of the Costa Brava, the op­por­tu­nity, the num­ber of or­gan­i­sa­tions try­ing to help the com­mu­nity. Ac­cess to in­cred­i­ble ed­u­ca­tion. I can take a class at Stan­ford or UC Berke­ley any day of the week, as an ex­am­ple. As a British friend of mine once said, this is like the promised land! We have lots of na­ture around, so you can es­cape very quickly to re­ally for­get work! I also like how in­cred­i­bly friendly Cal­i­for­ni­ans are. When I come to Cat­alo­nia and I smile at all the faces that look at me I re­alise that I am not in Cal­i­for­nia any­more, no one smiles back! Un­less I know them! Cal­i­for­ni­ans will smile at any­one look­ing at them. It’s pretty easy to start chat­ting, too. It may not lead any­where, but folks are friendly here. Cal­i­for­nia is a dy­namic place, very de­mo­c­ra­tic, very prac­ti­cal, not too bu­reau­cratic, and full of major in­no­va­tors. So that com­bi­na­tion is pretty in­tox­i­cat­ing for me. You can be in a cafe and see Steve Woz­niak, or Is­abelle Al­lende, for ex­am­ple.
What would you most like to change?
That Cal­i­for­nia was on the East Coast and so flights would be way faster. I re­ally do think about Cat­alo­nia a lot, I am very con­nected. So, I would change how fast I could go back and forth, or how my fam­ily and friends could come here eas­ily!
What do you miss most from home?
My very close fam­ily. My mom the most. My dear­est school friends. My col­lege friends. So many times, I am here think­ing, WOW I wish they could all be here see­ing what I see or cook­ing and eat­ing with me. I do miss a few things that I can­not seem to get here like fuet… Hey, I am from Olot! I miss the Pyre­nees, and the Mediter­ranean, going up and down el Call Jueu with Roser. Get­ting on a Hob­by­cat and tip­ping it over in S’Agaro. Hav­ing in­tense and com­pletely hys­ter­i­cal con­ver­sa­tions with Teresa. Hav­ing the yearly din­ner with my school friends from Girona where we re­ally have such a great time. My school friends, we are all in the same What­sApp group and talk al­most daily. All these things help me not be too home­sick!
Do you plan to go back to Cat­alo­nia?
I would love to. For now, I visit two to three times a year and try to stay a few weeks at a time. My kids just en­tered uni­ver­sity and we are a very close fam­ily; I can­not leave now nor soon. I am also in­no­vat­ing a lot and sup­port­ing lots of local non­prof­its. But I know I will spend more and more time in Cat­alo­nia for sure. I do not have it all fig­ured out yet! I do have a very good friend who helps me dream of rent­ing a van and just roam­ing around the Pyre­nees for days at a time and get­ting lost. That keeps me hop­ing. When I am ex­hausted the van gives me hope!

CATA­LANS ABROAD Sant Fran­cisco (United States)

SOME SUGGESTIONS:

Can you recommend a place to have lunch with friends?
I love to take my friends to great fish restaurants like Pacific Cafe in San Francisco, or Sultana in Menlo Park, I live next to an Indian restaurant which according to my Indian friends here is the best in the Bay, it is called Kabab and Curry! We have all flavours, all cultures, we have restaurants from Ethiopia, Catalonia, France, Portugal, Hawaii, Japan, Californian cuisine, you name it, and you pretty much can find it, we even have an East German restaurant. Food trucks are still very active, too. Obviously, Mexican food is incredible here. It is everywhere. Tacos, mole, enchiladas, burritos, quesadillas, and all very affordable and very common!
Where would you have a special dinner for two?
At Ventana, in Big Sur. Or at the Ritz in Half Moon Bay. Spectacular places.
When is the best time of year to plan a visit?
I would say September, as the kids are back in school. Unfortunately, for the past few years, we have had a very intense summer fire season, so maybe in October, when that is over. It depends, if you want to go to Lake Tahoe come in February or March, if you are in for a summer adventure and you want to drive the Pacific Coast, come in June!
What is the best kept secret about the area?
Californians are very understated. You never know if you are standing next to a millionaire or now a billionaire. People are in shorts, flip-flops, no one walks around with nannies and are heads of this or that at Google or run major divisions at Microsoft or Amazon or Apple. Everyone is very used to technology executives here. I think it is very hard for anyone around the world to understand the amount of innovation, talent, and capacity here. It is the largest centre of innovation in the world.
Where are the best places for visitors to stay?
I would stay a few days in San Francisco city, close to Union Square and take many days trips, for example, to see the Sequoias, the widest trees in the world. Walk on the beach and see the power of the Pacific Ocean in San Francisco, walk all over China town, walk down Lombard street, go have a drink at the top of the hotel Mark Hopkins. Walk all along Fillmore street with its dozens of small stores. Go to see an off-Broadway theatre play. Go dancing at night… Go see the San Francisco Opera, or the Symphony, or the Ballet. Go see local museums such as the Asian Art Museum, or the Museum of Craft and Design, or the Museum of Africa Diaspora. I would rent a sailboat and go under the Golden Gate Bridge and have a picnic at the Yerba Buena island or Fort Baker. You will feel so incredibly free and lucky. You can hike the whole Lake Tahoe area; you can be mesmerised and stay in a log cabin in Big sur. From all of this you can then drive to the Grand Canyon in Arizona. Ideally, visitors should come for a few weeks! It is a trip of a lifetime. I feel very small here, spaces are so large, there is so much space!
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