Experience in intercultural Management
After graduating from university with a Masters degree in management, I started my career working in sales. After building up my business knowledge, I took on management positions in France and then overseas. The region I know best is Russia and the neighbouring CIS countries (former Soviet Union). I have also had assignments in the Middle East: based for three years in Dubai, where I was in charge of the GCC countries as well as Iran, Saudi Arabia and India. I have successfully completed four expatriate assignments. Trilingual, speaking English, Russian and French. I have performed management assignments with large multicultural teams using all three languages. As a senior consultant I have extensive international and operational exposure. I contribute the most value added through my experience of executive committees and various senior projects around team mergers, most of it gained in consumer goods and HR.
- Intercultural management
- Talent management
- Managerial development
Evolution in the mass-market retailing
Several major changes have impacted the distribution of consumer goods over the last few years. Changes in the legal framework, the arrival of hard discount chains and globalization have all strongly impacted the relationship between producers and distributors. Is this a European specific issue? Probably not… For example, in Kazakhstan, where I was in charge of a key French food industry player, the arrival of Metro Cash and Carry created a major disruption in the distribution chain. Beyond changes in the actual distribution process, there was a need to look at the human aspect of these changes.
What should a manager do vis-à-vis the team?
How much time do we have to train and bring the local team to the necessary level of competence? Is it more efficient to recruit specialists and experts from outside the company or should we train up people from our own talent pool? How are we going to identify them and what is the best methodology to use? These were some of the questions I had to ask myself as a senior manager. These are questions for which I found answers and solutions, solutions based on real corporate experience that I can share with clients to help them grow.
- Intercultural management
- Talent management
- Managerial development
The CFO of a company that I had just joined contacted me about the outstanding balance of the Russian subsidiary. I had been in the job just two weeks! The outstanding balance was over 100 days instead of 30. To change the finance manager was the solution proposed by head office. What would be the consequences for the team? What were the other options? I started a one-on-one meeting with the finance manager in a very calm and direct manner, explaining the comments of the CFO.
What happened then in the company ?
The manager took his share of the responsibility. Within 48 hours we had reengineered the invoicing process. This was a key step for the team and for my management, and I decided to keep the finance manager in my team. After two months of hard work, results started to show. During a meeting at head office, the CFO congratulated me on the achievement. Two years later, when I was leaving the Russian market, our outstanding balance was only 3%, which was the best performance of all European countries.
- Intercultural management
- Talent management
- Manager development
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We work in close cooperation with our clients throughout the whole HR process, from the integration of employees through to their ongoing development and the development of the teams they work in.