I led procurement of raw-materials for foods business in Unilever. This was an interesting role partnering categories which on one hand were operating in commoditized businesses and hence low on margins and on other hand was pivoting into new packaged foods demanding high agility in innovation and vendor development.

Procurement function is a key business partner and can be a competitive advantage to any business in many ways. It is a great blend of building robust strategy while driving excellence in execution. Building right sourcing strategy involves working with right partners, reading the markets well and most importantly staying externally focused on the evolving trends. Procurement also plays a key role in innovation in not just executing the innovation plans but as well bringing in innovation ideas through vendor partners which at times could be game changing. Creating value through best in class costs and service and constantly stretching the value leadership agenda enables procurement to contribute to overall quality growth in the business. Last but not the least, the biggest experience procurement is negotiation! Negotiating in adverse circumstances, negotiating to create a win-win solution, negotiating to build long term value and many more are experiences to look forward to.

The most challenging part was building the muscle of external orientation and learning technical aspects of ingredients to engage meaningfully with vendor partners and R&D colleagues. However, once you start making the initial moves, the journey becomes super exciting and enriching. Another key challenge is to constantly deliver value leadership and here, a mindset of healthy dissatisfaction and end-to-end value chain lens always provides opportunities!

This experience has been one of my most cherished ones and the learnings I still carry is keeping an external orientation mindset to learn from others, having healthy dissatisfaction to keep innovating self and creating value.

After 3 years as Mexico´s Pet Nutrition Finance Head for the Direct-to-Store (DTS) Business Unit, I was given the opportunity to lead the DTS channel for 3 years (from the Sales side). The latter has been one the most exciting professional experiences of my career.

The experience gave me huge business global perspective, and helped me develop enterprise thinking since I held responsibility for both growth and financial targets. I learnt that a successful strategy needs to be holistic, that multi-functional collaboration is key as well as being open to listen to different angles in any given situation.

Leading a relatively Senior Sales Team without having a Sales background was one of the biggest challenges, as well as decision making beyond the financial view. The way I approached it was mainly through leveraging on my strengths (strategy and analytics) to set a clear vision & purpose and to support my team,  while staying humble/vulnerable to learn from them and ensuring they shined through their strengths too. Cross functional collaboration was another success key.

It made me a stronger Finance professional by improving my business insights, global perspective, strategy, people and collaboration skills. I came back to Finance after this role as Mexico’s Wrigley CFO -I never lost touch with the S&F organization and ensured that door remained open for a potential return-, and I am sure the experience, and the competencies I developed have been key to improve my decision making, business partnering and strategic view among others.

I have gained my first people management experience in Demand Planning team, reporting to Sales Director and being part of Sales Leadership Team. Now I have growth to People Leader in S&F team and very thankful for 2 years of Sales and Demand Planning experience.

I have understood the essence of Mars sales organization and KPIs that allow us to grow our business. We have seen how to manage different challenges within planning, sales and partners varying from quality incident to one of key partners’ bankruptcy.

First people leadership role was quite unfamiliar for me, first dismissal, first hiring, first merit and engagement meetings on the other side from LM global perspective.

Now I understand clearly priorities of Sales Team and the way how to think organizational-wise and not only being driven by numbers but focus on long term effects on Sales performance, Partnership, Execution, investments and engagement.