CAREER DEVELOPMENT AND INTERNATIONAL MOBILITY

I gained my first experience as internal corporate lawyer at the Legal Department of Saint-Gobain in Mexico.

In this four years I have had significant achievements in my development within the Group. I gained experience that allows me to give better support to the Group in different countries as Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru and Ecuador.

After these years I got the appointment of Senior Legal Counsel which implies more responsibilities and new challenges for my career.

After more than 12 years with the Group, after various geographical, functional and business changes, I can assure you that mobility is one of the important values of this Group. It is an extraordinary opportunity that is not always allowed in other companies.

I started as a Production Engineer at Saint-Gobain PAM, and after 2 years in this position, I moved to the position of Environment, Industrial Health and Safety Manager.

After 5 years in the same department, I left my city, my department and my job, all at the same time. It was a big challenge for me, but since then, I have been HR manager in 3 positions, 3 different brands, cross-functional knowledge, different cities, hundreds of new people and their talents, best practices for each function, several markets within Saint-Gobain... So many advantages, for Saint-Gobain and for its employees, why not take advantage of it?

After three years working for another company, the job opportunity in Saint-Gobain arrived at the right moment. It was a challenging job offer with more responsibility as there is only one Controller per plant.

The Controller is responsible for the whole plant, because my comments and suggestions can impact everyone. It feels great to be part of the management team of the plant.

As Controller, you need to understand the production process and calculate the industrial gap. In this kind of job in Finance, you can see things deeper with a finance dimension. You have to work with lot of people at the plant, which needs a lot of communication skills and team work. In order to be efficient you need to understand everyone’s job.

After working for several years at the national level, I wanted to work more closely with our outlets at the regional level.

An opportunity presented itself for me to join POINT. P Matériaux de Construction in the Greater Paris region working on the building finishing market. I stayed there 4 years. Then, my management offered me the opportunity to work for heavy construction materials, a much larger market for our business. I was happy to accept this new challenge.

The thing I like about my day-to-day job is the diversity. That comes both from job profile and the different people I come into contact with. I work on the heavy construction strategy in liaison with the management committee, our outlet managers to smooth their everyday business, and with the logistics teams to optimize our supplies, the communications teams to create our promotional and sales material (catalogues, etc.), and then also with our suppliers when negotiating tariffs and contracts.

As a Process Engineer I work to optimise and improve the manufacturing process on Board Line 4 at East Leake Works. I am also dedicated to inspiring the next generation of Engineers who are at school now.

As a STEM* ambassador I visit local schools to encourage Students to do Maths and Science subjects and to show them what great careers you can do with these skills.

* (Volunteers from a wide range of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics related jobs and disciplines across the UK)

As part of our Saint-Gobain President's visit to Mexico, the challenge was to bring together a large group of architects to talk about our strategies on Habitat and show them the solutions we have to make a better world every day.

The result of this meeting was excellent, businessmen, architects and distributors who participated, commented that meetings like this allow a more complete view of Saint-Gobain's offer to its projects, likewise our President, was pleasantly surprised with the response from the audience and congratulated us for this initiative.

It is a part of my new responsibilities as Habitat Director for the Delegation. After more than 11 years in Saint-Gobain Adfors as a Commercial Manager for Latin America I had the opportunity to learn and discover how important it is to be part of a group like this. I am not just proud; we build our own future.

It was difficult for me to choose ONE particular project I am proud of. I have just realized that the 3-year experience at Saint-Gobain is filled with interesting projects. What I appreciate the most is that all HR initiatives are strictly linked not only to employees' needs, but also to business/market expectations.

For example, introduction of Internal Assessor concept was an answer to the need of strengthening the recruitment processes in a more & more competitive environment. For me personally it has been an accelerated development, each day brings new tasks, ideas and challenges - I like it! :)

I started my adventure with Saint-Gobain over 10 years ago as a secretary. Two years later, I got promoted to the position of Project Coordinator and subsequently of Sales Manager for Mazowieckie, Podlaskie and Łódzkie (Poland) provinces.

Then, I became a Regional Sales Manager at Saint-Gobain Ecophon. I do not like to stand in one place and the opportunity to develop and acquire new skills and abilities that Saint-Gobain offers its employees is very important to me.

I have been working at Saint-Gobain for over a year now and every day I am surprised about how much people mean to the company.

If I were to point to one element that makes Saint-Gobain different from my previous workplaces, I would clearly mention approach to employees. I know it is a cliché in many organizations, but this company truly fosters belief in people, their capacities, and the strength of diversity, which purely manifests itself on every step.

I left the company after 1 year while my wife finished graduate school in Missouri, but I was determined to return for numerous reasons.

I was fortunate enough to rejoin Saint-Gobain 10 years ago as a Senior Researcher in Superabrasives. Then, after 5 years, I transitioned to a R&D Manager role in the Competency Research Labs that supports the many Business R&D teams represented in Northboro, MA.

I truly cherish the diversity at NRDC in terms of technical expertise, capabilities, and breadth of projects, but also cultural diversity, where approximately 30 nationalities are represented on one campus of approximately 350 people.

I am currently coordinating a global domain watch on Additive Manufacturing/3D Printing. I have the pleasure of working with so many talented and creative colleagues who work on challenging, but rewarding R&D projects.

What other careers provide the prospect of discovery and innovation every day? It's that type of excitement that motivates many of us in our daily work and ultimately drives a vibrant R&D community at NRDC

Working for Saint-Gobain is both demanding and rewarding. Due to ambitious goals I have achieved and tasks I have confronted, what I used to perceive as my abilities’ ceiling not so long ago, presently seems to be the floor of my capacities. It was just a little while ago when I learnt the fundamentals of a production process, and presently I work as a coordinator for the production process of coated fabric.

A few years ago, we have decided on the country level to launch new tile adhesives with low dust feature that will create clear differentiation on our local market. I was leading the project, managing all aspects in cooperation with colleagues from local and intercompany R&D, sales and marketing.

Decision was made to import products from Weber Bulgaria. We have created dedicated sales and marketing actions for the launch followed by strong campaigns, first mass media (radio ad) campaign for our company. Back then we have had really good results, but much more important, we were the first ones on the market with this innovation and we still are. Our sales of low dust tile adhesive are growing every year and more and more customers are recognizing benefits of having it on their shelves.

The freedom we get to experiment, try new things and take risks. Whether it’s a new job, new techniques or new lessons—you have the ability to learn and then take those learnings and deliver something good for the business. It’s truly an amazing company I am beyond proud to work for.

I worked in the two Coated Abrasives plants in Brazil and had the opportunity to participate in projects in Europe and USA with the R&D department and local teams. This was a great chance to meet my international colleagues and build a great network.

From Brazil, I had a chance to move to the USA with a different company. After 4 years, I was invited to re-join Saint-Gobain Abrasives in Canada as a R&D Engineer in the Plattsville, ON - Canada, site. I was very glad and proud to join this team again.

After 9 months as a R&D Engineer I was offered the Technical Manager position and a few years later I got promoted to Plant Manager of the Plattsville site.

These have been years of intensive learning and growth for me. I feel blessed for the opportunity to be part of this group and for the support I have from my upper management.

With the increasing importance of diversity in our global operations and business, I feel this is a key background to have and Saint-Gobain is the place to be when it comes to diversity values, principles and opportunities. My advice for new employees? Work hard and network. The opportunities are out there!