"I must have diesel in my blood"

In February of last year, Agnieszka Glowicka was appointed Marketing Manager of DAF Trucks Poland. She began working there seven years ago as Area Sales Manager after spending seventeen years working ay another truck manufacturer. We met up to talk about her experiences, ambitions, set-backs, challenges and the coffee corner at DAF Poland.

Agnieszka’s career path has been interesting, to say the least. “I actually wanted to be a singer”, she says. “Unfortunately, I didn’t get into the music academy, so at the age of 21 I had to go looking for a job and found myself working as a receptionist at the sales office of a truck brand.”

It wasn’t long before she was infected with the truck virus. “The transport sector – especially road transport – is an extremely important economic factor, particularly in Poland,” she stresses. “Everything we buy, from food to clothes to washing machines, is transported by trucks. Modern society cannot function without road transport. Fascinating, isn’t it? I must have diesel in my blood.”

Evening classes

Agnieszka climbed the ladder steadily and studied economics and psychology in the evenings. The latter has proven to be very useful in her work. “I can apply what I learned on a daily basis,” she says. “It helps me to see what people are thinking and why they do the things they do, to understand their behaviour. It can be very useful in my job. After all, marketing is all about people.”

Coffee corner

The forty employees at the head office of DAF Trucks Poland in Warsaw work together with the same number of staff who work for PACCAR Financial. The common coffee corner is situated in the middle of the office space and it serves an important function, according to Agnieszka: “People meet there to talk to each other and share information, all very informal and very valuable.

Communication is an essential element of successful teamwork. I’m a big fan of the slogan ‘Together we are DAF’. It’s much more than just a slogan, it’s a way of working. I manage a team of four colleagues and try to create a working environment where everyone feels valued, respected and welcome.”

Challenges

With that same team – and of course with the rest of her colleagues at DAF Trucks Poland – Agnieszka is taking on the challenge of again becoming the number 1 in the Polish market. “We are going to give it everything we have,” she says. The sense of urgency is clear but she still has both feet on the ground: “We are DAF, a global brand with almost one hundred years of experience. We deserve to be in pole position.”