What does your career path look like at Sibelco?
I started my career at Sibelco in 2016, as a consultant for an 18 months job assignment as Operations Services Officer. My focus was on managing the stock for raw materials and packaging materials, making storage plans and purchase orders and reporting production at Sibelco in Sweden, Västerås plant. The site has three factories, producing different materials, and employed around 10 employees at that time.
As the job progressed, I got the opportunity to try a range of different tasks on top of my normal responsibilities – from laboratory work to purchasing goods and filling in for a reception colleague or an office team leader. Eventually, I also got the chance to lead the lean management project, do the production planning together with our foreman and be a part of the local team taking us through the Score project.
In November 2020, I started working as a Production Supervisor at the Västerås plant, but I’m still performing a lot of my previous tasks. I’m grateful that I’ve had the opportunity to try out all these different types of assignments leading up to the job I have today. It has given me a better understanding of the plant and the work on-site. Being a person that likes to do a lot of different things at the same time and understand processes, this job fits me like a glove!
What’s the most important career lesson you learned?
The most important career lesson I have learned is the importance of having a clear vision and goals. For example, leading the lean management project at a site can be challenging. Don’t get me wrong, it’s the most fun and rewarding work someone can do. Changes can sometimes take a long time and that alone can be frustrating for people, but everything’s possible with clear goals and teamwork.
How do you like to make a positive impact?
I’d like to make a positive impact by making sure that employees are involved, setting goals for the site and being a part of actually executing projects. I believe that an included employee is a happy employee. I would also like to make a positive impact by being a woman in a leading position in the natural resources sector. At the Västerås plant we are proving that this is possible, having a female Site Manager and now a female Production Supervisor. Something to be proud of!
Diversity is a ‘hot topic’. What do you feel we can do better at Sibelco?
I think that Sibelco has done a lot during my time at the company, making sure to take actions to make the company more diverse. But I also think that Sibelco could do even better in hiring people from different backgrounds and cultures to make sure that the company thrives, especially in the future.
If you had to choose one thing to challenge, what would it be at Sibelco today?
The thing I would challenge at Sibelco would be the way of working between the different departments at the company - commercial, production, procurement, management etc. I believe that we could do a lot to improve cooperation and, as a consequence, make more efficient decisions.
