Job title: SD Competence Center Manager
Department: Information Technology – North America
At Henkel since: 2001

What are your day-to-day work responsibilities?
I have a lot of telephone conferences, and meetings with colleagues over in Europe and in other locations in North America to coordinate the team and discuss issues. I’m responsible for the sales and distribution SAP support for all the North American business divisions. The sales and distribution IT team is distributed across several locations; the main ones are located in Scottsdale (AZ) and Rocky Hill (CT).

What think makes Henkel special?
Before Henkel, when I was working for one of the big five consulting firms, I enjoyed the opportunity of working for different companies in different business sectors. Although Henkel is not a consulting firm, in many ways the IT organization is structured like one. Working in IT at Henkel is like working for a consulting firm for many diverse internal customers, both across business divisions (i.e. Detergents, Cosmetics, Consumer Adhesives or Technologies) and across continents. I enjoy the diversity of the business and being able to collaborate with individuals from different countries and cultures.

Which projects did you work on in the past?
When I started working at Henkel in 2001, I spent six months in Germany working with the Finance Shared Services IT group in a project for Headquarters. The next big project I did was between 2003 and 2004 - the SAP implementation for Henkel Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands and Luxemburg). In 2004 I relocated to Scottsdale and joined the SAP implementation team for The Dial Corp. This was a very challenging and interesting project. After the project went live in 2005, I was given the opportunity to stay in the US and in mid-2006 I was promoted to manager for the sales and distribution IT competence center of Henkel of North America.

What piece of advice would you give to people starting at Henkel?
Henkel is a company that offers numerous opportunities; in my experience, to take advantage of the most exiting and challenging ones, you need to be willing to keep an open mind to learn new things, to travel and to work in different countries with people from different cultures. That is how you’ll get the most out of your career with Henkel. Basically, this means staying flexible.