CURRICULUM VITAE

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Profile:
I am a highly driven, self motivated delivery biased professional.I am a married mother 48 years of age, with 2 children, ages 11 and 14 and live in the heart of the Netherlands, on a self- renovated farm.
My core skills, competencies and knowledge base within Supply Chain and Engineering though quite diverse over the past 26years, have focused in the areas of :
1 - Category & Operations Strategy and Manufacturing Optimsation Globally
2 - Engineering & Technology roadmap / programme to ensure Lean design, Right first time and Repeatable models ( key during Mergers and acquistions), working closely with Operations and Supplier base globally( bias in the upfront end of the manufacturing process – Pack).
3 - Change management, - 2 key topics being the merger with Bestfoods in 2000, and more recently outsourcing of all Engineering Services / Capital projects and working with Eastern service providers.
4 –Leadership & People Managementf of multifunctional teams for top performance – both face to face and virtual.
5 – Project Management & delivery – of Capital projects – all sizes / complexity.
6 – Programme delivery for a given category globally, and engaging at top level with key suppliers, in Joint Business Programmes.
The key driver within all my roles has been to bring to market innovations and optimise existing operations with the emphasis being on quality, speed and costs.
My motivations are to work for a business who wants to WIN, has clear defined plans on how to achieve this and thus empowering its leaders to implement.
Employment History
All work to date has been within Unilever and associated filiates:

Nov 2009 to June 2012 - Global Category Engineering and Technology Director as well as SC Director - Beverages.

• Design a 5 year programme across the globe and functional expertise base to further grow the business in Latin America and diversify into Asia
• Double the business in value in 5 years and grow the margin by 6 bases points 350M euro business to 700MEuros value by 2015.
• Develop a technical roadmap to freshen the category technology, innovate re technology and facilitate roll-out ( taking it from a regional to a global business) win back the “competitive edge”
• Leadership of Virtual teams of 5 direct and over 28 indirect reports and several suppliers
• Identifying required skills / competencies for the global business and then Building capabilities for fast deployment across the globe, a supply chain strategy which is robust with clear KPI’s and deliverables as well as a technology roadmap for the next 5 years.
• Champion major Innovation Capital projects. Key for all capital projects was and is reduction of costs and speed of innovation – have worked very closely with a number of ESP( engineering service providers) to bring a 20% capital reduction to the Capital spend of the category - currently set at 80MEuros / year – engineering element was approx 10MEuros.
• Development of Joint Business Plans with external suppliers


2006 to May 2009 - Global Savoury Supply Chain&Technology Director.

• Developing leading edge technology with key strategic suppliers, for a new product launch
• Identifying, verifying commercially and then setting up new manufacturing sites, Greenfield, Brownfield – Europe, Asia and Latin America
• Carrying out both Project Engineering and Project Management roles in parallel – Countries included China, Europe and Mexico.
• Developing and implementing a technology strategy for the category which was aligned and focused - very close collaboration with the suppliers, NPI and the non-foods division of Unilever – using the,latter to implement proven practices
• Development of cross technical teams across the regions to allow self support over the coming years
• Leading the technical teams across operations, regions with various cultures and expectations needing to be managed
• No direct reports but technical team I led ranged form 10 – 25 people.

These projects have involved responsibility for Capital over 10MEuros right upto OTIF( on time and in full), which has been delivered for both China and Europe.

Next phase involved projects with a total Capex of 28MEuro .

2002 to 2006 - Global Supply Chain director - Savoury.
• Re-aligning the European strategy as a priority, re-structuring the 21 European sites we had in 2003, to a target of 11 by 2007.
• Benchmarking operations in America, Latin America, Australia, Turkey with the aim to then set their strategic direction
• Delivered results - site saving of 20% on End Conversion cost on average / site
• In the last year, as the regional strategies are now taking shape, have spent time on key core technologies, to facilitate fast, cost effective innovation rollouts.
1998 – 2002
Global Culinary Category Packaging Manager
• Packaging optimisation / harmonisation and innovation
• World class manufacturing.
• Developed a value addition packaging programme which benefited the business
• Global skills analysis initiative set up starting with Europe
Global Category Engineer
• Benchmarked sites globally
• Identified and implemented key elements for the Category Strategy for World Class Manufacturing( WCM) as well as Innovation.
• Developed with suppliers Low Cost Flexible Packaging technology – end goal was, to achieve a path towards WCM – opportunities identified in terms of efficiencies, complexity and optimisation / harmonisation.

Global Technology Convergence Manager – M & A and change MGT
• Technical role during the acquisition / merger process of Unilever and Bestfoods – the bridge between the 2 sourcing strategies
• Globally reviewed all plants, and though not responsible for any direct P&L, was directly responsible for benchmarking the sites and coming up with a strategic sourcing strategy and then for the sites which would remain open to come up with a 5 year plan on how to achieve set Performance Indicators.
• Working with people across the globe, with different cultures, understanding skill base etc and was what I found to be the most challenging role to date within Unilever.






1998 - 1995 Unilever Research Vlaardingen( Foods)

1995 – 1998 - European Culinary Category Engineering Manager.
• Worked across the key European sites, to identify key core machine suppliers setting up specifications against which machinery could be bought.
• Developed lobal buying contracts. Used this to create European strategy for World Class Manufacturing and then started implementation, was then also taken to S. Africa.

1991 – 1994 Lever Brothers Warrington and Lever Europe( Non-Foods)
Maintenance Manager ( 19mths) –
• Responsible for 26 shift engineers and the continuous operation of the site
Project Manager – Europe
• Spent 16 months as the European Project manager for all the engineering aspect across 5 sites for the parallel launch of Omo / Persil power – ensuring the machines were ordered to the same spec, delivered on time, commissioned and production was out ready for the launch.This involved me working across UK, Italy, France, Germany and Spain
Works Manager - Warrington Powders Factory.
• The key achievement here was managing the 5 sites parallel with 5 separate project teams each approx 6 – 8 strong and keeping one European specification, and then delivering this as a marketing mix on time and on budget – Warrington being the flagship from where all other activities were driven.
Category Packaging Manager, - Laundry
• Delivering higher factory efficiencies, harmonisation's and optimisation programmes.
1987 – 1989 – Mattessons Walls( Foods) – Manchester - UK
• Management trainee - project engineer
• Shift Bakery Manager
• Performance improvements Manager
Set-up of a new Fresh Bakery Plant – working close with Equipment Suppliers – responsible for 42 people in the factory, and was first European Bakery for Unilever. Then moved onto the Meat plants for efficiency improvement work.
1989 – 1991- Mattessons Walls( Foods) – Banbury
• Marketing exposure for new product launch – 8mths
• Assisted in planned Factory closure in London
The closure of the meat plant was as my first real exposure to how a business impacts people’s daily lives a real eye opener – and set solid for myself how one should work with others and to be very conscious of the prevailing conditions, which of course will be different for each situation.

Education
1983 – 1986 University of Manchester Degree - Chemistry / Biology – BSc Honours 2:1 with distinction
1989 – 1990 University of Salford
Advanced Certificate in Management Applications.

Languages English, Dutch and Gujarati

Outside Interests

The time I have I spend preferably with my children and in the farm we bought 18 years ago.I enjoy sports( motivated after loosing ability to walk in 2000), cooking and gardening and am involved in various charity and church activities.
My husband and children, can also after almost 3 years of hard work enjoy our indoor swimming pool and relaxing area. Further I enjoy working with various charities and the local church as a volunteer.

2012 tot 2014
Supply Chain Lead - Europe for Heinz BV