Employee Profile

Looking back at my past 12 years in Cargill, I have to admit that I am fortunate to be part of the Cargill family. When I first joined Cargill, I was the training supervisor at PT. Hindoli, Cargill’s first oil palm plantation in Indonesia. It was difficult for me to live far away – leaving my hometown to be in the middle of a plantation – and I wondered if I had made the right choice. Until one day, after about a year, I finally asked my manager how long I was expected to work in that location. The answer I got was “I don’t know Simon, you tell me!” I was irritated at first by such an answer, but over time, understood what he was trying to tell me: Whether I am here for a year, or the rest of my career, that is entirely up to me to decide.

Cargill offers everyone the same opportunity for personal development, and it is up to us to make the choice. After my years with Cargill, I feel enriched with knowledge and learning, and I now have quite a number of networks of colleagues that I interact with worldwide. After two years with palm oil and more than three years in corporate shared services, I now have the big challenge to be part of Cargill Indonesia’s Animal Nutrition team where I work as a human resources and training manager, as well as the location manager for the Makassar plant.

Cargill’s efforts in corporate responsibility for the local community and its partnerships with various NGOs is another aspect that I am really proud of. Not many companies in Indonesia come close. From setting up a kindergarten in Sungai Lilin – a project that I personally had the chance to lead – and bringing in quality teachers for local schools, all the way to introducing a mobile library for plantation villagers to help enrich their knowledge, we are continuing to see Cargill doing more and more.

Safety is an incredibly high priority in Cargill. I remember when a new cell phone policy was introduced in Animal Nutrition, not allowing us to use even the hands free option while we drive. That really bothered me at first, knowing that I have many colleagues on the sales team travelling for hours to serve our customers, but none of them were able to pick up a call. I thought it was a crazy idea, since we could lose big opportunities, until I heard a convincing answer from Todd Hall – Cargill’s global president for animal nutrition at the time – whom I met at our headquarters in Minneapolis. He said to me, “Simon, the dollar you make is important, but returning every single employee to their loved ones every day is more important than the dollar you make.”

After all this time, I continue to feel very secure working for this great company, where I never run out of new things to learn. I am proud I can share my knowledge and experience with my younger colleagues. That way we make sure that we continuously improve, without having to reinvent the wheel.