Experience across job families

Breadth

Cross segment experience

Cross functional experience

International experience

People

Change management

Talent development

Influencing across a matrix

Business

Different business models

Strategy contribution

Acquisition, integration & divestment

Digital contribution

Portfolio management

Turnaround and transformation

Depth

Smart Financial Operations

Enhanced Specialized Services

Innovative Business Partnering

Organization

Team/Project

Individual

Overview

You are encouraged to work in at least two of the three Finance job families (Innovative Business Partnering, Enhanced Specialized Services, and Smart Financial Operations). Each job family provides different opportunities to improve your Finance expertise and help you build a well-rounded perspective key to driving good business decisions. You should consider holding multiple roles in each job family (e.g., FP&A, Business Partner, Internal Audit, Tax/Treasury, Governance & Controls). Working on cross-functional projects is another way to gain this exposure.

Read case studies

Kaj van den Kieboom

Demand Finance Director | US Market S&F | USA

Abraham Isshak

FP&A & Supply Finance Head MW Asia | MW Asia | United Arab Emirates

Where did you gain this experience?

I gained cross functional experience in the 3 year rotational EFDP program (now MFLE) with jobs in market and supply finance. I then have had jobs in Corporate Development, Control and Financial operations, Supply Finance and Marketing and Sales Finance. I gained this experience in 12 years at Mars, in 9 different roles, across 3 segments and in 4 different countries.
What are your key learnings from this experience?

With every role in different areas of Finance, you gain a unique perspective working with different areas of the business. You start to truly understand the buy, make, sell, support functions in our business. Also, never stop being curious about different areas!
What was the most challenging part of this experience?

You are never the expert in the area, you need to embrace learning and being out of your comfort zone. There are always people that know more than you do, use it as an opportunity to be curious and ask questions!
How did this experience shape the way your work today? What is different from before?

I bring a lot of perspective to how I work today. I know enough about each area of the P&L to connect the dots when I am trying to solve a problem that spans multiple functional areas, and can bring a sound functional understanding of all finance areas to help my team. What is different from before is that I learned that not being an expert can bring a different level of value and business acumen to the people finance supports, and that asking the right questions is more important than having the right answers.

Where did you gain this experience?

I managed to gain experience across various job families all in Dubai. I started my career here with Mars and have moved from working for the local Saudi Gulf market, to the Dubai Factory, to my regional role in Global Emerging Markets, to my most recent role in as part of the Mars Wrigley Asia team all from Dubai. Once travel is open again however, I plan to relocate to Malaysia.
What are your key learnings from this experience?

No one area in Finance is more important than another! Being an expert in one area is great, and very much needed. You might enjoy one role more than the other, however a Finance Associate who has a holistic view and experience can be the most powerful resource and co-pilot to the business.
What was the most challenging part of this experience?

Being able to switch gears and change your mindset sometimes is a real challenge. For example, when shifting from my factory finance role (which was very heavily reliant on going to specific details on a daily basis) to my regional FP&A it was tough to resist the urge to jump into the details and I quickly realized I need to be able to prioritize my energy to understand where I can add the most value to the business.
How did this experience shape the way your work today? What is different from before?

Going through the various roles has helped me really see where each role truly adds value, and how much you can actually simplify and even eliminate tasks. Today I operate in a way that always questions the status quo and I’m always gauging how much time and energy should be spent in different areas. Always questioning “WHY?”

The Breadth layer is about having a variety of experiences. It’s about becoming more comfortable with the way we do business whether in a new country or in a new segment. Experience in this layer empowers Associates to make credible and informed decisions and create value for the business.

Experiences expand your business acumen; they help you understand how Mars works as an organization. In this layer you can demonstrate your ability to make strategic choices and create value in a variety of situations and scenarios. Successful experience in this may demonstrate that you can manage better business outcomes.

The People layer gives you experience in people management, a critical capability for managers and leaders across the organization. If you wish to manage large scale teams, significant experience will be required as part of this people layer.

Gaining experience across Finance pillars will help Associates gain perspective, business understanding and be more credible when making decisions. You build functional skills by gaining experiences in at least two of the three job families within the Finance function (i.e. Innovative Business Partnering, Smart Financial Operations, Enhanced Specialized Services) as well as some experience in the Digital space.

The Breadth layer is about having a variety of experiences. It is about becoming more comfortable with the way we do business whether in a new country or in a new segment. Gaining this experience empowers Associates to take more credible and informed decisions and understand where the value comes from. Some of these experiences can be checked off simply by working in project teams that are cross-segment, cross-country, or within different types of business models (i.e. Mature vs Emerging markets, CPG vs Retail, DTC or Services business, Shared services business).