The Future EX’s Post

Transcript

Good morning Juliet, lovely to have you with us today. Good morning, Sally, Thanks for this wonderful opportunity. I'm excited for our conversation. And just to let everybody know a little bit more about you, tell us where are you from? Where do you call home? How did you land where you are? Awesome. So I'm Juliette and I am currently the Head of HR at Edward Snelling Company, which is South Africa's largest independent spirits group. I've been with Edward Snell for just under 2 years now. And formally stepped into the role as head of HR earlier this year Prior to this, I spent most of my career in financial services, having grown up in the big green machine. So I won't spend too much time mentioning other brands, but I think if you live in South Africa, you know exactly who that is And yeah, I'll talk a little bit about my career journey after this, but I think just by. By way of introduction and career pathing started in Beijing machine got most of my foundational HR after that, subsequently moved to FMCG for quite specific reasons and spend some time there as well. And then there was obviously a lot of, you know, there was a time in South Africa when big businesses were moving to Johannesburg. And a little bit more about me is that I'm Cape Town best, my family's Cape Town best and I'm sure many working mothers. Will understand that if you've got your village and your network based in a certain city, it's very difficult to make a decision to move anywhere else and so for location reasons moved back into financial services. Spend some time at. A smaller, more leash red investment services company. But ultimately you realize that my calling is in FMCG and and subsequently moved back to to this industry and as mentioned now it would snow in the capacity of of of the head of HR Juliette, you mentioned a little bit earlier more about a specific reason. Tell me a little bit more about what shaped your path there. Well, as mentioned, started my career in financial services. At the age of probably about 2122 years old, bright eyed and bushy tailed. And I think you know, this, these things that shape apart this and these people who shape your path. And one of my early managers in my career was fantastic at providing mentorship and guidance. I mean, I'll never forget her. Humbling me to make me very sure what my position was in the organization by, you know, when I provide spreadsheets of data or or do some HR analytics and she take my Excel spreadsheet and grab the pen and the ruler and make lots of lines to it. And at the time I think like, ohh, I'd appreciate it. I'll never amount to anything. I'm always making mistakes, but you can bet your bottom dollar that today you will. I'll pay you if you find any evidence in any of my data analytics. So. Definitely, you know, if I you don't think about the time, but if I think back to sort of what shape the type of edge of professional that I am, it's moments like that and people like that that spend time and and help me sort of hold my skills and become better, better skilled age of professional. And then I think working in a large corporate also affords you the opportunity to, to move from one business unit to another. So I was fortunate that as an HR person, I could move from a department such as IT within, within one corporate and then moving to sort of, you know, finance and actuator. And eventually one of those moves in a in a fairly senior age of capacity was into marketing, comms and, and corporate affairs as a division within the larger organization. But it was in that. Moment that I fell in love with corporate branding. And fell in love with people look after a corporate brand and maybe you know, if if we amounted now to like sort of 15 years later, everybody's talking about Simon Sinek and and knowing your why and I think in the marketing environment, people. I found their purpose. They know what they do, why they're doing it. And there's a, there's a, there's a palpable love for your job. And it was that palpable feeling that made medialize that this this is the type of environment that I want to work in. And that's what it started me to to FMCG shortly thereafter. And then found a, a wonderful role in a in another spirits company. And that was supposed was my introduction to the spirits industry at the time that was around 2012 and spend some time there really building. The corporate brand alongside of the product brand and you know, really muddying what the the the consumer brands were and who the consumer was and as a result of who the consumer was. What is the what is the, what is the employee need to look like in response to. Being representative of the of the industry that we serve. So that human touch, that direct engagement with consumer, that deep understanding of what the South African landscape looks like. And so therefore what we need to look like as an industry was wildly fascinating. And a lot more at the resonated a lot more with me. Like I knew who I was talking to a why I was talking to them, what the impact sort of within a very direct market looked like. And I really. Enjoyed that, that hands on feeding and then as I mentioned earlier on, you know, it was was the Johannesburg, Cape Town thing where that corporate then moved his head office to to to Johannesburg and wasn't mobile at the time. And sadly almost 10 years later, still not mobile and another kid after that. So that put on the brakes. Any moves subsequent to that as well don't stick create any of it, of course. And then went back into financial services, which are also enjoys. So financial services is a completely different beast in the sense that it is wildly, regular, wildly wrong with to, to use as a descriptive, regulated, but largely regulated and let's put it that way, so regulated. And then I, you know, go back to that little foundational piece about that mentor I had when I was 22 years old, which, you know, that little nugget took me up for success to work in a financial services industry. Lots of people that are brilliant at what they do and and so client centric we because you don't make a mistake when you engage with the client. You then don't make the mistake when you're engaging with your employees internally. So so again, interesting, not interesting, but but I I've always tried to marry if this is what how the organization. But how does that translate and others that reflect in terms of our HR is speaking to the employee inside and, and is there a common thread and does it feel authentic when you when you're operating in the space? And as much as I love financial services because it's just sort of like, you know, gives you deep insight into what's happening in the economy and you've got such a broad awareness of South Africa versus, you know, what's happening in other industries. What's happening globally coming back to this purpose piece and what resonates with you in terms of the environment that you love working in? You know, there was this always this nagging feeling like my like, you know, I'm not connecting with the consumer. I'm not sort of in touch with, you know, what's happening at a grassroots level that ultimately I think brought me back to say nothing. Now FMCG. FMCG is the the consumer lead industry, consumer centric industry is a space where I feel I come alive most and therefore. I can I can be my best self to work in that environment.