Global Account Director, Unilever Foodsolutions
Since finishing my studies in the late 1980s, my career has taken me from Sales Trainee with Unilever Germany, to local and international marketing positions, and general management as Managing Director of DiverseyLever Thailand. I then moved to customer management, first in Asia and now globally, for Unilever Foodsolutions.
Unilever is a truly international company, with senior leaders of many different nationalities, and I've had the opportunity to work for many different companies within the group and widen my experience.
I'm currently focused on developing Unilever Foodsolutions' business partnership with Sodexho, a leading global foodservice catering company. This involves agreeing global contracts with the customer in over 30 countries. To grow sales and market share for Unilever Foodsolutions, it's essential to find a common way of working across all the countries involved, so joint business planning is at the heart of this partnership.
Within my team, we each manage different global customers for Unilever Foodsolutions, with the goal of ensuring we become the strategic partner to our customers. We achieve this by delivering more than just good products and leading brands in the foodservice market. In the business-to-business environment, building superior personal relationships, providing business solutions, adding value beyond price and brand, and promoting the customer within the business are all of high importance.
Working in customer management means you need to like working with and influencing people. Networking is key, as is keeping promises and staying close to your customer. It's also important to be a good communicator to ensure your team and the company are aware of the customer's needs.
All in all, customer management is very rewarding as there's a lot of direct feedback and clear evidence of performance through sales numbers – it's a top job!
