What's your job about?

Sanofi is a global healthcare company, where I work for the Consumer Healthcare business unit. Our scope focuses on the vitamin and supplements and over-the-counter portfolio. In my current role, I’m working as an Assistant Brand Manager for the Nature’s Own brand. The primary role of the Brand Manager is to drive growth for the brand through strategising and developing effective marketing campaigns that drive awareness and consideration of the brand, increasing our market share and ultimately profit and growth for the company. This consists of leading and managing various key activities such as yearly brand planning, working with the sales team, working with agencies on bringing creative brand concepts to life, exploring ideas for new product lines, monitoring the industry and our competitive environment, and much more. My daily work usually consists of plentiful cross-functional working and meetings with our sales, digital and regulatory teams, lots of reading and emails, working in spreadsheets, and liaising with our various agencies for updates on our campaigns. Outside of meetings and emails, I’m usually working on my projects, and usually on multiple projects concurrently, so being able to prioritise and stay organised is key.

What's your background?

I was born and spent my early childhood on the Sunshine Coast (QLD), in Caloundra, before moving to the northern suburbs of Moreton Bay, Brisbane. When I look back on my life now at 24 years old, the most notable and concrete memories I have growing up include being glued to my Gameboy playing the latest Pokémon game, breaking way too many bones, lots of camping, beach 4x4ing and fishing, and listening to Parkway Drive on the way to my AFL games with my dad.

I graduated from Narangba Valley State High School in 2014 and went on to study a Bachelor of Science and Business at QUT Gardens Point. I never really knew what I wanted to do when I ‘grew up’, but Biology always fascinated me, and I thought having a Business skillset would also very useful to have under my belt. During my studies I worked a lot, sometimes working 2 jobs at a time, mostly in retail. I was very fortunate to graduate at the end of 2020 and immediately land my role in Sanofi in early Feb 2021, especially in the thick of COVID when employment was quite unstable. When I saw the ad on Seek in December of 2020 for the 2021 Sanofi Graduate Program, I immediately honed in on the opportunity and skipped making dinner because I was so excited to write the best possible application I could.

Could someone with a different background do your job?

If they had a vastly different background, probably not, but conversely, the great thing about the world we currently live in is that there is so much high-quality content available online, so if someone wanted to, with some dedication and commitment, for sure they very well could make the switch.

After being in my role for 7 months, it’s extremely clear to me the kind of skills and qualities one needs to have to be an effective marketing manager or any sort of business manager. These include: working with people, listening well, possessing strong organisational skills, good presenting skills, interpreting and communicating data, writing well, formulating ideas clearly, problem-solving, time management and prioritisation, and for my role, obviously the fundamental concepts behind marketing which involve a bit of core theory, math, and some basic psychology/consumer behaviour concepts. Having a somewhat strong digital skillset is also very useful, for example: photoshop, excel, outlook just to name a few. 

What's the coolest thing about your job?

There’s this really cool quote by Jerzy Gregorek, a polish Olympic weightlifter, that goes “Hard choices, easy life… easy choices, hard life”. With that said, the thing I love most about my job is that I get to learn and grow as part of the process, and there is no shortage of challenges to face and hurdles to overcome. In the past 7 months, I have become a much more resilient and capable person as a result of the challenges presented to me through my work. But, to give you some more tangible examples, some other great things that I adore about my job include being able to work flexibly from home, be mentored by my highly experienced colleagues, and see my hard work manifest itself into tangible results, which is pretty satisfying.

What are the limitations of your job?

For me personally, I think one of the bigger limitations is the feeling that you can’t seem to disconnect from work when you should be, and there’s sometimes this looming feeling of all the things you need to get done that you can’t shake, and its 3pm on a Sunday and you shouldn’t be thinking about these kinds of things. But this just depends on the kind of person you are I guess, and I think this is the sacrifice you pay when you pursue a career and not just a job. Coming in a close second though is that the industry is highly regulated and complex, so it can sometimes be very challenging to navigate and bring certain ideas to life. I don’t think you could do this job if you weren’t completely sold on it though, and the pros far outweigh the cons for me.

3 pieces of advice for yourself when you were a student...

After personally doing both lots of things right and lots of things wrong, I give you the (unofficial) Ned’s Declassified 3 pieces of Uni advice for the adolescent.

1. Develop good study/work habits – Uni is the perfect platform to develop positive fundamental habits. You should also embrace the learning culture, because even when Uni ends you will need to constantly be learning and growing, so it pays to have good systems in place that you will use and fine tune for the rest of your life.
2. Get involved - Explore extracurricular activities like clubs, societies, internships, and side projects. This is what sets you apart from the people doing the bare minimum. Plus, half the value of Uni comes from the hidden opportunities that you need to mine out from the core curriculum.
3. Finally, have fun! – meet new people, find friends, make the most of $3 Thursday night basics at the Uni bar. You only get one opportunity to be young and at Uni, so let your hair down every now and then and just enjoy it!