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.”