Meet Berivan from Germany

Monday, October 25, 2021

I studied mechanical engineering and started my career in CS&L as a demand planner in Turkey. I have a long stint of Key account roles (prior to and with MDLZ) before I moved to Category Planning and Activation (CPA). As Associate Director Revenue Growth Management (RGM), AMEA, based in Singapore, I led built the RGM program across AMEA region. As of July 21st, I’m leading CPA function in our Germany & Austria business, based in Bremen.

I love working in Sales because there is never a dull moment! It’s so “commercial”, dynamic, feels very real and relevant. You need to think long term but can also have some short-term impact! I find it very inspiring how sales involves people; internal employees, customers, shoppers, field force, etc. There’s enough challenge to stay motivated and enough success to feel satisfied. It really gives you the full ability to lead with the head and the heart.

Some could call being from a small market a challenge, but I never saw it like that. It just requires us to seize the opportunity and go after it. For me the challenge in a sales career was really going against many odds as a female since barriers do exist. Especially when you go out of the “ivory tower” and really dig deep into customer research and field. Being a woman is one challenge, being a young woman is another and a bigger one – UNTIL IT ISN’T!

Again, for me being from small market has been an opportunity. At an early stage in the career, you have great exposure to many different aspects of the business. You undertake big responsibilities horizontally and vertically and build a strong muscle to work cross functionally, see the full picture and build a strong commercial acumen. You start influencing the strategy very early on. But yes, there will be a point where you’ll need to get out of your comfort zone and understand the complexities of larger markets, regions and have the opportunity to work in bigger matrices with larger teams. It’s important that while you’re in the small market BE AGILE, BE CURIOUS, TAKE the LEADERSHIP opportunity with a GROWTH MINDSET!

When it comes to being a woman in Sales it is important not being intimidated by the differences. Being authentic, open and asking for help when needed has helped me. What didn’t help me is especially in my early years, this continuous effort of trying to prove my case, myself – as a young woman of sales career- was exhaustive until I realized I didn’t need to do that!