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History & Politics
Lancaster University |
Finance Director, Americas Confectionery
"My tips for new recruits would be to focus on accumulating skills and experience rather than formal job titles..."
"I joined Cadbury in 1990 as a project accountant in Trebor Bassett, a new combination of acquired businesses where I thought I'd get good opportunities. As I studied towards CIMA, I took on a wide variety of roles, which definitely helped me to understand of what business is all about. I also learnt a lot about how to get things done, how to influence people in other functions and how to manage teams. I particularly enjoyed my time in Supply Chain, where I had to fight my own battles as the senior Finance person on site.
"Having built a firm foundation in a business unit, I moved to Cadbury Headquarters to further my career. I began there as Group Business Information Manager, where I overhauled our reporting and forecasting processes. Working at Group gave me a very different perspective on the business and helped me to see things more strategically. And I was lucky in that two great opportunities came my way, when I was asked to cover the maternity leaves of both the Director of Investor Relations and Group Financial Controller, giving me first hand experience of operating at a senior level.
"In 2000, I returned to the UK business unit as Commercial Financial Controller - I wanted to go back close to where the business makes its money, I wanted to work in Commercial and I wanted to be part of creating a new business (CTB, formed when Cadbury merged with Trebor Bassett). The big challenge in the role was to create and then lead a new team with a new business partnering agenda.
"In 2003 I was promoted to Finance Director, UK Confectionery and in 2006 I was promoted to Finance Director for Americas Confectionery, finally moving outside the UK, a role in which I had to work through the challenges of a different category, new markets and different ways of working.
"My tips for new recruits would be to focus on accumulating skills and experience rather than formal job titles; be flexible and take risks to get different experience, whether that be covering a maternity leave or moving outside Finance to get a different perspective; take control of your own career, because no one else has to; and set out to make a difference in each every job you do. Within your early career, it is most important to stretch and test yourself in different roles and situations. Would I do anything differently? Not much, but I'd like to have worked outside Finance and it's taken me a long time to get outside the UK."