Director of health and nutrition, Unilever Latin America, Chile
I'm a chemist-pharmacist with an MSc in management of technology from the University of Minnesota. I joined Unilever Chile in 1995. My first position was in Quality Assurance, then I moved into research & development, personal care. After two years there I moved into home care, laundry. That period was very exciting. It was the beginning of the fight for the detergents markets of Chile, Argentina and Brazil. We worked really closely with these countries.
In 1998 I was promoted to a regional position, with nine reporting lines from nine different countries. I was overseeing the implementation of home care products. Then in 2003 I became head of Unilever Health Institute Latin America. I'm based in Chile but travel a lot in the region. I'm very interested in health and nutrition so I really enjoyed this new position. Because of the Vitality mission you also have a lot of interaction with non-governmental organisations, which is really inspiring. The Vitality mission really motivated me. Vitality really captured me.
I spend probably 60% of my time in Chile, talking to research, development and marketing people; getting alignment on objectives, processes and ways of working. The challenge is to really put nutrition and health on the agenda. The other 40% I'm travelling throughout Latin America. There's a perception that it is a single market. Of course there are similarities between the Latin American countries, but there are also differences. To get seamless project implementation in the region you have to be extremely sensitive, not only in terms of food preferences, but also to cultural differences. And I'm the kind of person who gets things done by selling concepts more than by trying to impose them.
I have fulfilled most of my dreams for my private life, so I want to give something back to society. And I think Unilever is a very effective organisation to help achieve this. For example I am working on a very exciting project in partnership with UNICEF, addressing the nutritional problems of the poorest of the poor. I'm looking forward to seeing the impact. I really want to make a vital contribution to our children's nutrition and health.
