FMCG
While still at university I felt the draw of the FMCG industry and especially the retail aspect. I had a great tutor in an owner of a small chain of supermarkets, who truly allowed me to find my own in this industry. My initial steps were so successful that he asked me head the chain while he would start a new chain of shops, this time in bicycles. Obviously I was very proud to be asked, there was however one drawback for me: saying ‘yes’ would mean that I committed to a rather long-term career at the age of 23. It meant saying yes to it for the foreseeable future and saying no to my wish to see the world. So, with great pain in my heart I said ‘no’ and went to Mauritania.
Only in Singapore did I return to the industry, now as General Manager for Friesland Foods, a Dutch dairy company. Apart from dairy we also marketed soups, sauces, spaghetti and the like to the many supermarkets and ‘mama and papa’ stores dotted around the city-state. In short term I brought this company back from the brink and married it off to a similar sized, but much more profitable, one-product marketer, making myself obsolete in the process.
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