Employee Profile

“I hope my customers know I will always do my best for them; this sometimes involves thinking outside of the box. That is how I try to make a lasting effect for the right reasons and if I make my customer happy, it makes me happy.”

Ability to contribute is Cargill’s principle that resonates the most with me: with ideas, energy and the ability to build effective relationships, I can make a lasting contribution to customers and communities around the world.

One of the managers who interviewed me for my current role told me that customers buy from people, and so in front of the customer, on the phone or in person I try to be the best version of myself that I can be. Further to that, I do not over promise and under deliver. The same rule applies to internal colleagues otherwise you do not have the support network for your customers. I hope my customers know I will always do my best for them; this sometimes involves thinking outside of the box. That is how I try to make a lasting effect for the right reasons and if I make my customer happy, it makes me happy.

I currently manage all aspects of approximately a third of the UK and Ireland CTS customers including our distributors which means I am responsible for agreeing the contract to supply our ingredients and also for ensuring that I have forecasted internally so that our plant can manage both the raw material and production plan. I am responsible for generating projects to develop new business or defend existing business and seeing them through to implementation phase which ultimately helps our team to achieve the targets set by our business unit. If we can do this we contribute to the success of CTS we can then invest, grow and be the best in the market that we operate in.

Each day my work is mainly focused around the customer, I can be preparing for a visit, working on a negotiation, taking actions from the meeting, entering forecast information, speaking to a customer to discuss a project or help them understand about the raw materials markets impacting the ingredients they buy. The most important skills to my job are building customer and internal relationships, asking the right questions is a great skill, understanding your customer and communicating in a way that they understand, and knowledge and experience about CTS and our competitors‘ products.

When I left university, I decided to do temporary work for a while because I was not sure which industry I wanted to work in and I saw this as the best way to experience many companies. One of my assignments was a receptionist at Cargill, I really enjoyed the organisational work required to run the reception desk and talking to lots of different people from all over the globe. I was then asked to apply for a customer service team member role, in this role I started to understand more about the Account Manager role and I decided this was the job I was most interested in. I took a few rejections along the road however I achieved it in the end through lots of hard work and it was worth it.

I love it when a plan comes together. We discuss as a team what we need to achieve in line with our BU goals and we decide how we are going to get there. Our team all support each other with our different strengths and ultimately when we win the new business or get through that tough meeting which took a lot of preparation we really achieve what we set out to and if we do not , we try again or focus where we can win. I also have a competitive side which help motivates me, so if win some business from the competition I’m definitely having a good day.

I think that Cargill chose me in a way because I knew nothing about the company until I worked there; however, when I did discover what Cargill does all over the world I found the company really interesting, especially when Cargill bought Degussa and the CTS business unit was made. Being part of that transition and learning about hydrocolloids really opened my mind. More than all of this what keeps me here is my fantastic team members locally and all across Europe. In the UK we are like a family.

Be prepared to work hard and take the rough with the smooth. Being an Account Manager can have highs and lows, one minute you have had a huge success on a project and the next you can be dealing with a very complex situation and be handling a large amount of pressure from your customer and the business. Every day is a fresh challenge from dealing with commodity markets to specialty products, be prepared to get stuck in and you will never be bored!