Interview with the Director General of the World Nuclear Association

Summary

In this episode of the Nuclear Leadership Network podcast, host Matt Gavin speaks with Dr. Sama Bilbao Y Leon, the Director General of the World Nuclear Association. They discuss Dr. Bilbao Y Leon's journey into nuclear engineering, the current state of nuclear energy, and the essential role of leadership in the industry. The conversation highlights the unique opportunities and challenges facing nuclear energy today, the importance of collaboration, and the need for bold decision-making. Dr. Bilbao Y Leon emphasizes the significance of attracting talent from other industries and the continuous development of leadership skills to drive the nuclear sector forward.


Takeaways

Dr. Bilbao Y Leon has a strong background in nuclear engineering and energy.
Nuclear energy is seen as a solution for carbon-free energy.
Leadership in nuclear requires bold and visionary decision-making.
Collaboration across the industry is essential for success.
The nuclear industry must adapt to new technologies and challenges.
Learning from other industries can enhance nuclear leadership.
Motivating teams requires understanding individual motivations.
Continuous learning and mentorship are key to leadership development.
Nuclear waste should be reframed as barely used nuclear fuel.
Curiosity and open-mindedness are vital for future leaders.

Creators and Guests

Guest

Sam Bilbao y Leon

Director General or World Nuclear Associatiomn

What is Nuclear Leadership Network?

The Nuclear Leadership Network was established to fill a gap in leadership development. By the time leaders hit a certain level in their path, it becomes more and more difficult to know what development steps to take to ready yourself for a shot at the top executive leadership roles in the Nuclear Industry. As you climb the ladder the number of people available to help you on your path become fewer and fewer, and your journey becomes a much more personal one. There will always be a need to collaborate with others, seek advice and guidance from those around you and take feedback from others seriously, but when you get to a certain point, you realise the more you are on your own. It’s up to you to develop yourself, through conversations, self reflection, making mistakes and being brave enough to learn from them. Not having all the answers, but being bold enough to seek the answers, is where much of that later growth in leadership occurs.

Matt Gavin (00:01.443)
Hello and welcome to the Nuclear Leadership Network podcast. I'm your host, Matt Gavin, and today I'm delighted to be joined by Sama Bilbao y Leon from who was the Director General of the World Nuclear Association. Hi, Sama how are you?

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (00:14.116)
Hey, I'm very well. It's lovely to join you today. Thank you for inviting me, Matt.

Matt Gavin (00:19.533)
Yeah, thank you so much for joining us and spending a bit of time with us. I'm sure our listeners will really, really enjoy the conversation. So we love talking to leaders. That's why we're here. That's why we're talking to you today, Summer. So if you could just kick us off by a little bit of a history into Summer, into your journeys into global leadership and how did you get to your position of Director General of World Nuclear Association?

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (00:42.748)
Okay, well, so I think you know, I am a nuclear engineer. That's all I ever wanted to be. I am one of those relatively boring people that always wanted to be an engineer, number one. Number two, I always wanted to work in energy because I was, I thought, well, you know, we will always need energy. So I can be an energy engineer. I'm very quickly, well, I narrow it down.

to nuclear energy as what I thought was the type of energy that had more pros and fewer cons. So that's what I got to my profession. So I had the opportunity to, I mean, I did my undergrad in Spain. I'm originally from Spain. And then I had the opportunity to pursue a PhD in the United States. So I moved to the U.S. to Wisconsin, to the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

I did my PhD and I also met this adorable guy. And of course I married him and this whole coming back to Spain became a little bit more complicated. So I started and I actually pursued a lot of my career in the US in nuclear. So I started working for Dominion Energy as a nuclear safety analysis engineer, doing exactly what you can imagine. So essentially doing the day to day work.

Matt Gavin (01:48.909)
.

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (02:08.41)
supporting at the time seven nuclear power plants in Virginia, in Connecticut, and in Wisconsin. And then for a number of reasons, I had the opportunity to work with Dominion to actually start from scratch a new nuclear engineering program in Virginia. So we had this problem that we were having difficulties retaining nuclear engineers at Dominion.

Matt Gavin (02:10.126)
Thank

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (02:35.642)
because there were no nuclear engineering programs in Virginia. And there were lots of nuclear related businesses in Virginia, but you know, so we will hire somebody, they would become fabulous. And then they would go home because, know, they got married, they got children or parents got old or all day above, you know how that is. So we created the nuclear engineering program at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Matt Gavin (02:49.877)
you

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (03:03.238)
And that I have to tell you is one of the things that I'm very excited about because we started that from scratch. And today, as in 2024, it was the number 18 best nuclear engineering program in the US, which is not nothing. And obviously, it's a very new program. We started that in 2008. And I was doing everything from recruiting to...

teaching classes, course, doing research, writing proposals, putting together the technical labs, you name it. Obviously, with a lot of support, I didn't do this all by myself, but I was leading all that effort. And then I have had the opportunity to work at international organizations. I worked for a while at the International Atomic Energy Agency. I was responsible for research and development on water-cooled reactors.

I worked for a little while at the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency and I was leading the division on technology development and economics. And then of course now I am here at World Nuclear Association where I have a fabulous team where we are everything and anything, know, moving forward the nuclear energy to actually achieve this tripling global nuclear capacity by 2050 at least.

Matt Gavin (04:27.756)
Yeah, an interesting background. Just really interested, why nuclear? What sparked your interest in nuclear and how did that sort of interest sort of build as you developed your career?

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (04:27.856)
So basically we are supporting the industry to do that. So that's a little bit the journey.

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (04:44.218)
Yeah, so as I said, definitely energy was what I wanted to do. And then when I was looking at all the different, I in Spain, the degree that I got was a master's in energy technologies. And we actually look at all, I mean, we studied all of them, the traditional thermal energy, wind, solar, hydropower, geothermal, et cetera, et cetera. And when I was looking at all those, it just felt that

Well, you couldn't really be better, much better than nuclear, obviously carbon free, minimum impacts beyond carbon emissions. I mean, there are many other impacts that are just as important as carbon emissions. And then, know, the 24 seven dimension, the fact that is a real source of energy that we've been using now for more than five decades and it's very scalable. And we have seen that whenever we have put nuclear energy

we have actually seen a significant improvement of social economic development around our nuclear power plant. I mean, yeah, it's not perfect, clearly nothing is perfect, but I felt that the advantages very much outweighed the disadvantages.

Matt Gavin (05:58.572)
Yeah, I guess we're in a bit of a, I call it a renaissance in nuclear at the moment with a lot of things going in favour of nuclear, certainly a lot of support globally starting to generate. What role do you think a leader in today's nuclear industry needs to play? You know, certainly someone in your position, what role have you got to play in the industry as well as obviously being Director General at Nuclear Association? Is there any other?

parts of your role that you feel passionate about in the industry.

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (06:30.79)
Well, you you said it. We are in a unique moment in the history of the world and certainly in the history of nuclear energy, where the stars are uniquely aligned for nuclear energy to truly deliver on its full promise. I mean, it's not just we, the nuclear professionals that are aware of the essential role of nuclear energy.

But if you look around, you see policymakers, see financiers, you see energy users, you see the media, the public. mean, a lot of people are recognizing the essential role of nuclear energy. So to me, this brings incredible responsibility to all of us that are in a position of leadership in the nuclear industry. And obviously, there are many different types of positions, There are people that are going to actually

Matt Gavin (07:14.923)
you

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (07:28.688)
build these power plants or operate them or make sure that they are appropriately licensed or they are going to finance them. I mean, there is many roles for many people, but I you know, I will tell you, this is something that does keep me awake at night. I mean, I actually, I think of, I don't have children, but I have a seven-year-old niece. I always worry that, you know,

Matt Gavin (07:36.715)
you

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (07:58.621)
10 years from now, 15 years from now when she's 18 or 20 and she's in the world that we will have at that time. She'll tell me, and Samar, why we don't have nuclear energy today? Why is nuclear not doing everything that it could do? What were you doing in 2025 that this is not a choice that

I and the rest of my generation have today. So this is something that does keep me awake at night. And also that's what makes me get up every morning. So those are the two things. So I very much think that it is essential that the human beings that are today in the many different leadership roles throughout the entire nuclear sector, we all need to realize that it is up to us

Matt Gavin (08:38.665)
you

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (08:55.958)
And it is up to us now to make this happen. So that's where true leadership needs to show.

Matt Gavin (09:06.268)
Yeah, wow, when you put it like that, quite a responsibility for us all, I suppose. And I guess from that leadership perspective, what do you think is going to be some of the biggest challenges and barriers to that vision that you just laid out so well for us there? What do you think is going to be the challenges and what can leaders do today to equip themselves for those challenges and make sure that we can overcome them and deliver them on this promise?

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (09:11.014)
Definitely.

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (09:28.324)
Right. Well, you know, I think that, well, for many good reasons, we are in an industry that has been historically, well, fairly conservative. And, you know, we are very focused on safety and security, and we really are very focused on daily operations and those kinds of things. But I really think that...

Some of us, I'm not better than anybody else. We really need to be a little bit more sometimes bold and ambitionary. We need to make sure that we realize that this is not a zero-sum game. In fact, we really need to work together to make sure that the pie grows.

there is going to be success opportunities for everybody. So this is where I really think that this mentality that perhaps we have had in the past, this mindset of, well, we will be second. We will wait for somebody else to be first, for them to deal with all the issues and to solve all the immediate problems, and then we will go second.

I don't think we have time for that. we all, mean, not everybody is going to be first. mean, clearly there is, you know, but I think that we all as leaders need to be ready to jump and make bold visionary decisions because we simply don't have time and we cannot wait any longer. So I think that to me, the challenge, there are many challenges we can talk about.

we need to accelerate decision-making. We need to optimize licensing frameworks and financing and supply chains and workforce. I mean, we can itemize a million practical tactical details that need to be done. But ultimately, I truly believe that it all boils down to visionary decision-making.

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (11:45.413)
And you can see this if you look at, say, UAE. I'm sure if you ask the leaders of the UAE program, they can itemize for you the many challenges that they found. But hey, here they are. I mean, they made a decision and they just went and did it. And it was the same in France in the 70s and 80s when they did it, or in Sweden, or US, or Korea, you name it. It is a matter of being

Matt Gavin (11:58.343)
Hmm.

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (12:13.466)
bold and visionary. So that's where I think we really need to not wait for somebody else to go first.

Matt Gavin (12:20.526)
Yeah, that's an excellent observation in my opinion as well. think what you touched on a little bit there around someone's got to go first and there's lots of opportunities for everyone. What do you think a leader's role is in the balance between, you know, I guess, driving their own organization, making their own organization successful, but also collaborating across the industry as well with other organizations? How does a leader get that sort of balance right to make sure that, yes, we deliver for our organizations, but we also deliver for the industry as a whole?

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (12:40.785)
night.

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (12:50.424)
Exactly. Well, I I don't want to be naive, right? So remember, I am in a position where I myself, we at World Nuclear Association, we are not going to be the ones building anything or operating anything or financing everything. So we are a little bit the cheerleader of the industry. are creating the predisposition, if you wish, for that to be successful.

I am sure that there are some leaders out there that are the ones that actually need to start putting the concrete on the ground or they have to make the investments that they may be rolling their eyes when I'm talking about this thing. But let me just say, think that for good or for bad, and this may not be unique to nuclear, but it's definitely true for nuclear.

for good or for bad, are all together in this boat. So we know historically if somebody has a problem, we all have a problem. But we also know that if somebody succeeds, we all succeed. So this is the take that I'd like to take. So I want to make sure that as companies, I so if somebody has an opportunity, I mean, there will be a first project.

And I really think that we all as leaders need to be shoulder to shoulder with the organization that is going to deliver the first project and tell them, okay, what can we do to help? Where do you need us? Because when the first project is successful, there will be a second project and a third project and a 27th project. So this is a little bit naive. I I realized that obviously Company X

will need to compete with company Y and country D will compete with country N. So I understand all those things. But at the same time, it truly is an enormous pie. And if we work together, if we support each other, each person and organization's success will actually be a catalyst for the success of the other organizations.

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (15:14.286)
and the other human beings.

Matt Gavin (15:19.367)
Yeah, you talked a little bit there about sort of, I guess we've got to be bold. We've got to make some good decisions. We've got to really drive hard to make this happen. Well, kind of obviously bringing on new technologies, know, SMRs, advanced reactors to the market, you know, they're part of the solution here as well as more traditional large scale. What kind of leaders do you think need to, what the leaders need to sort of do and become in terms of...

to lead that kind of new market development? you think there's a skill in that and a different leadership style that will enable that compared to maybe traditional leadership?

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (16:00.624)
Well, I think that we all need to... I that specific technology that we are using in nuclear, I don't know that that's what is going to make the difference in leadership. mean, obviously somebody that is leading an organization that is operating reactors that we have operated for 50 plus years, probably...

Well, I don't want to say that they can do this in their sleep because nobody wants to do this in their sleep, but you know what I mean. And clearly, if you are going to deploy advanced reactors, clearly we are still learning, right? We don't have the hundreds of thousands of hours of experience in those reactors as we have in the new ones. But I don't know that that's where the leadership is going to be. I I think that we are going to need to have

Fabulous technical experts in many areas, mean in nuclear engineering, but also electrical engineering or contract development or project management or human resources, whatever. So we are going to need to rely on many of those people to make some of those more detailed decisions that are required for these technologies. But the mindset, I think that it's not different from all technologies than new technologies.

Matt Gavin (17:07.973)
you

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (17:26.78)
I think the mindset is still, okay, really need to, I mean, so leaders are responsible for those in their charge, right? So you need to make sure that you paint a very clear, compelling vision for the people that you are working with. Make sure that you actually translate that vision appropriately so they understand how they fit

Matt Gavin (17:34.297)
you

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (17:56.207)
in this vision, mean, we're not so much to spell it out to the tasks, but okay, so this is where you can contribute and drive the vision. And then just make sure that they have the tools and the space and the ownership to actually contribute to actually together drive the vision. So to me, that's the role of the leader.

And I mean, depending on where you are and what you do, you may need to learn things that are specific to one technology or the other, but the overall role doesn't really change, I think.

Matt Gavin (18:35.94)
Yeah, it's interesting you touch on the role of the leader and setting the vision. Do you think leadership has a different meaning or different challenge in nuclear compared to other industries? Or do you think there's a lot of commonality? And how do we attract leaders, I guess, from other industries to make sure that we sort of really, really develop that leadership sort of benchmark that we want to obviously maintain in the industry to drive it forward?

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (19:03.964)
You know, I so there are some aspects of nuclear that are perhaps a little bit more specific. I mean, we talked about how we always focus on operational excellence and safety and how we are very aware of how we are really together in this boat and what one of us does reflects positively or negatively on the others. But other than that, I mean, I really think that

nuclear energy is really not so different to other industries. I I think that we can learn quite a bit from equivalent industries where you have this hardware, this physical infrastructure that you need to develop and manage and maintain and take care of. And obviously, is very technological.

Other than that, really, I think that we can learn. I mean, and I think we should do that, but I think that sometimes in nuclear, we've been a little bit insular and we think that we are very special and unique and we don't really open our minds to what's happening in other places. And I think that we are doing that more and more. I think that is helping us to actually grow faster and to become better leaders and become

Matt Gavin (20:30.615)
Hmm.

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (20:33.444)
a better industry as a whole, I think.

Matt Gavin (20:37.729)
Yeah, brilliant. I'm just going to change direction a little bit and come back to your journey, Sam, if that's okay. Yeah, just really interested in, so as you developed, been in the nuclear industry now your whole life, your working life at least. What points in that journey did you sort of realise that you were going to be a leader? You were going to be a leader in this industry. I guess people in the technical field as yourself might not always see themselves as being the...

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (20:40.816)
Okay.

Matt Gavin (21:07.48)
director general of an organisation like the World Nuclear Association and that's journey that you've been on. just interested in where were the key trigger points for your career that you kind of knew you were on that path.

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (21:18.062)
Yeah, well, so, you know, I've always been a person that didn't see a problem that we didn't want to solve. you know, I mean, obviously, so let me say first of all, I have had the fabulous lack of having fantastic mentors and managers that they have always, as I was mentioning before, empower me to feel comfortable, you know,

are they identifying opportunities or identifying challenges? And they have given me this, okay, so what would you do? I mean, not just, I have had, somebody has created that space for me to be able to do that. But naturally, I've always been a person that whenever I saw a problem, I didn't really felt comfortable just working around the problem. I was the person that's like, okay, you know what?

Matt Gavin (21:57.859)
.

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (22:17.072)
There's gotta be a way to do this better. So, and I tended to be a source of solutions, not of problems. So I tended to go to whoever my supervisor was with, okay, you know, I've noticed that every time that we do this, we have this problem. So, you know, I've been thinking about this and perhaps we could do it this way. And well, sometimes my manager would say, well, no, we are not going to do that way. Sorry, Summer, you get to do, you know,

Matt Gavin (22:42.019)
you

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (22:46.79)
you get to work around every time. Or in some cases, they were like, you know what? That's a good point. so, you know, not to say that I always got what I wanted, but okay. And I think that this reputation of being a solution finder or being a person that is not shy, not just to bring the ideas forward, but also to say, because also sometimes when I say I have this idea to improve this, they will tell me, okay.

you go do it. Okay, so I went and did it. So I think I slowly but surely developed this reputation of being somebody that you can give them an out there task, no matter how crazy or new task, and they would actually, well, make it happen, or come back saying, well, you know, this is not going to work this way, but you know, so I think that that's when I noticed that, well,

I could actually sometimes lead with my ideas and sometimes even people.

Matt Gavin (23:55.586)
Yeah, it's interesting. You touched on people at the end there. So I guess as a leader, getting things done often relies on a lot of people working for you. You might not share your ideas, your vision, as you put it earlier. So what are the kind of softer key skills do you think you've sort of developed the most over your career to be able to do that, able to get others to work on your behalf and get your ideas brought to reality?

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (24:20.71)
Yeah, no, so that's a little bit what I mean. Obviously now I am in a position where I have actual organizational leadership. But frankly, for a lot of my career, I just had, well, I was working in teams, so I wasn't necessarily the boss of anybody. I was just somebody that would come there with an idea. And it was, I mean, it's always been a matter of

presenting the idea, presenting, as I said, the vision and, you know, trying to, to,

make people see what would happen if that idea or vision would be a reality. How their everyday lives would be better or how their organization as a whole would be in a better place and how they could learn something. mean, obviously you need to understand what are the motivations of different people, right? So that, and you know this, I mean, you have colleagues that are very interested in learning new things. You have colleagues.

that they just really want to make the world a better place. are leaders, I mean, there are colleagues that they just really wanna go home because they want to play soccer with their kids. mean, you know, there is all, mean, and all those are fabulously important motivations. So it's a little bit understanding what makes your team or the people that you are working with tick.

Matt Gavin (25:26.625)
you

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (25:53.445)
And in some cases is, well, you know, this is going to save you time. So you will be able to go home quicker. Or you know what? How about we learn something about AI? If we learn something about AI, then we are going to, I mean, so there is different people that are going to be motivated by different things. I think understanding that is important, but overall is really painting a picture of a better situation.

Matt Gavin (26:21.025)
Thank

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (26:22.242)
And then that typically helps people to say, how can I help?

Matt Gavin (26:27.465)
Yeah, motivating through the vision and getting people to sort of come on that journey with you. So important, so important. I'll stay on the people theme. It's a subject I'm really interested in on what motivates people. The nuclear industry by nature is a very challenging industry, highly regulated. A lot of checks and balances can be perceived to be quite a slow industry. Certainly I don't find that anymore. think it's...

it's really paced, know, the pace of the industry is really, really, really ramping up. But how do you kind of motivate people in that kind of environment where, you know, there may be lot of ambiguity, things may be difficult, may be challenging, you might have to overcome some adversity. How do you continue to keep teams and people motivated to deliver that vision, do you?

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (27:17.926)
Yeah, you're right. This is, mean, to me, I think that this is a little bit of a huge challenge right now for many leaders, because as I mentioned at the beginning, so we have to, so there is still a lot of uncertainty, right? So on the one hand, we all see this unprecedented growth that is right here, but we still cannot quite touch it.

right? So and of course there is still some uncertainty. So obviously there is challenges there. And also, I mean, and to me, I would say that one of the biggest challenges that I see is what I was telling you earlier, is a situation of mindset. And there is still some of us in the industry

that we've been working in this industry for many years, 25 years, 30 years, whatever many years. And we've been doing well. mean, many of us are moving up in the industry and we've been doing well. And for some of us, it's not easy to adapt to this much faster, uncertain situation that we have right now. So I think that...

to understand that what we've been done forever may not be good enough in the next 50 years, whatever. So to actually internalize that and say, you know what, I've been a fabulous, whatever, engineer for the last 20 years. But these things that I've done for 20 years are not going to take me where I need to be the next 50.

To me, that is the big challenge. And again, how to motivate the people to actually make this step change is going to be different for different people. mean, you know, there are some people that will see this by themselves because they see the ambition and they say, okay, you know what? No, no, no, I need to do this differently. But some people, perhaps they are happy and it's like, well, you know, we have all these youngsters that are going to do this.

Matt Gavin (29:29.823)
Hmm

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (29:40.112)
What I've been doing is good for me. It's very much a little bit of an individual thing, it's understanding who you are working with.

Matt Gavin (29:50.175)
Yeah, I guess to do this differently going forward, we're to need all different ideas and new ideas. And you talked about sort of learning from other industries and almost like diversifying the nuclear industry to a certain extent. How do we, I guess, attract that as an industry? How do we, how do we pull people out of these other, you know, highly regulated, successful industries into nuclear so that they can bring fresh ideas and bring a fresh, fresh, fresh approach? What was a leader can we do to make sure that we attract that top talent in those other industries?

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (30:20.806)
Well, I think that we are kind of doing that quite a bit in many cases. I so number one, one thing that is helping us a little bit to open the minds and the hearts of other industries is the fact that frankly, many sectors of the economy are very, very, very closely looking at nuclear energy as a great opportunity to help them energize and decarbonize

moving forward. mean, and this is true. Obviously, yeah, we talked about AI on data centers. That's the low hanging fruit. But talk about the petrochemical industry or the metallurgical industry or the chemical industry, ceramics and shipping. I know, I mean, there is many industries that are already looking at nuclear energy as a potential partner as they want to become.

more efficient, more effective, carbon free, et cetera. So I think that that is already happening. And I think that on our side, I think that we really can make it clear that we welcome their inputs. I I think that we would not be successful attracting those people if when we have potential leaders coming from other industries, tell them, no, no, no, no, no, this is not how we do it in nuclear. No, no.

We've never done it that way. That's really not what is going to attract them. So we really need to be curious and open-minded and we have to have this questioning open-mindedness. It's like, okay, so you know, in nuclear, we've always done it this way. And I see that in the pharmaceutical industry, you actually are regulating things differently. How could we?

take some of those best practices into. mean, so when we are able to see them that we really, really are open to their ideas, I think that that motivates them. And because I think that they by themselves are already becoming very aware of the advantages that this technology, that nuclear energy can bring.

Matt Gavin (32:37.906)
Yeah, brilliant, brilliant. Last few questions, Sam, it's been fascinating, brilliant. Just a couple on developing leaders and developing your leadership skills, capabilities. Obviously, as you get up the leadership spectrum.

You know, you still want to learn, you've still got to develop, you've still got to become a better leader. And how do you do that? Obviously, the day job's really busy, you're really busy traveling, you know, advocating for the industry and doing all that good work. How do you make time in your busy schedule to make sure you're developing as a leader, you're becoming a better leader and you can better serve this industry?

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (33:02.908)
Mm-hmm.

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (33:16.122)
Yeah, so well, so these are some of the things that I do. And frankly, as you said, I wish my days had been 48 hours because I really could use the time to do much more of that in particular. So, you know, I was mentioning this earlier. I am addicted to podcasts. I read constantly. So I do this and I do read fiction. So yeah, I do read fiction.

but I also read constantly anything and everything that I think can help me grow in different directions. So yes, sometimes you read books on leadership or management. mean, sometimes there is the traditional more pragmatic, more tactical things about leadership, but sometimes you just read other things. I mean, from other sciences, I am always fascinating.

Matt Gavin (34:06.205)
Thank

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (34:12.406)
in behavioral psychology, trying to understand how our brains work and how we react to things. So I do a lot of that reading. But the other thing that I do do is I am always trying to pay attention to other people. When I am impressed by how somebody handles something, and let me just say,

I do learn a lot from other leaders, many of which you have had in your podcast. I read about how they manage a particular operation or business transaction, or I hear them speak and I hear how they see the business. That's very inspirational. But one of the things that I also learn a lot is from the people that I mentor.

So I love, mean, yes, I do have the luck to have fabulous mentors that help me and give me ideas and help me to course correct and to reassess whether I'm doing things the right way. But many times when I talk to the people that I'm a mentor, sometimes they are peers, sometimes they are, you know, all my PhD students or younger professionals.

And many times I am very impressed on how some of these persons handle situations. like, my gosh, that was very profound. And that was a great example of leadership. And you don't have to be the boss to be a leader. So I do try to keep my eyes open to opportunities to replicate good examples.

Matt Gavin (36:00.54)
Yeah, I'd agree 100%. I love learning from other people, which is part of the reason I love talking to people on this podcast so much because it gives me that insight into digital way people think and I can take things from that. Brilliant. Thanks for your time. I'm going to finish on some quick fire questions if that's all right. Bit of fun to finish with. leadership in three words, how do you describe great leadership in three words?

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (36:06.448)
Mm-hmm.

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (36:16.068)
Okay, very good, very good.

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (36:25.199)
my gosh, three words. Inspire, empower.

and be a good example.

Matt Gavin (36:40.508)
Lovely, I that, like that very good. Next question, what's one myth about nuclear you wish would just disappear?

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (36:48.908)
my gosh, there's a few, but the one that I like to make disappear is when we are talking about nuclear waste, I've been starting to call nuclear waste barely used nuclear fuel. So that's my myth that I would love to get disappear.

Matt Gavin (37:08.667)
And last one, what is the one piece of advice that you'd love to give to an up and coming future senior executive leader in the industry?

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (37:18.204)
I mean, I would say remain curious, remain open-minded, pay attention to everything that is happening around you, and be present and deliver it. Be in the moment.

Matt Gavin (37:38.959)
That's brilliant, brilliant great advice. I'm sure people get a lot out of that. Simon, it's been an absolute pleasure to have you on. Thank you very much for spending some time with me and see you next time. Thank you.

Dr Sama Bilbao Y Leon (37:48.538)
It is a pleasure Matt. Thank you.