Episode 6: Trust, failure and diversity: How one woman helped reshape food production

In this episode, Amie and Angeline sit down with Simone Anderson, VP & GM Asia Pacific at Lamb Western, to discuss how the culture of food manufacturing has changed over her 30 year career.

Transcript

Amie:

Welcome to Women Transforming Food, a monthly podcast brought to you by G100 and Inside FMCG, exploring the stories of inspiring women shaping the food industry. Today, I'm joined by my co-host, G100 Mission Millions, Angeline Acharya, Asia Pacific Chair of the Food Systems Innovation and Resilience Wing, and Simone Anderson, Vice President and General Manager, Asia Pacific at Lamb Western. Welcome, ladies.

Simone:

Hi, how are you going?

Angeline:

Hello Simone, hello Amie, great to be back.

Amie:

Hello, it is great to be back and I am well, thank you Simone. Now you've spent over 30 years in the FMCG and beverage sector. It's a massive commitment to the industry, to any industry, it's fantastic. You've worked with some amazing brands as well along the way. We've got Cadbury, Mondolez, Patties, Sunrise before joining Lamb Western, which is a global leader in the frozen potato industry.

Three decades is a long time, so I wanted to start by asking what initially drew you to food, the food industry as a career choice, and what has kept you there?

Simone:

Gosh, you've made me sound old now.  

Amie:

It's very impressive!

Simone:

So I was originally going to do speech therapy and I had a place at Sheffield University and was all set to toddle off to Sheffield. And I had a last minute change of heart and decided that I wanted to do something different. And so I went to a careers fair as you often do at that sort of stage in your life.

And there was a course at the local agricultural college in food science and process engineering. And so that was how I made a choice. I thought to myself, food is something that's always going to be needed. It's an industry that's fascinating and I love food. So that's how I started in the industry sort of 30 something years ago.

Angeline:

Wow. And Simone, you and I share that love of food because I also love food and your experiences across so many verticals, general management, manufacturing, logistics, innovation, engineering, procurement. And I can, I think I can go on. How do you think these experiences have shaped your leadership style?

Simone:

The first thing to say is that any opportunity that came along I was open to. And so I haven't had a career that's been a vertical career. It hasn't gone step, step, step. It's been a more of a, describe it almost like a DNA strand. So a circular career. And I think that that's given me a real strength, bench strength in what has ultimately become more of a general management career.

But you're right, I have spent a lot of time in manufacturing. That's where I started in the dairy industry all those years ago and working for a UK dairy giant at that time, no longer exists. That's how much the dairy industry has changed. And then I moved on to working for a Danish dairy company, Arla. And Arla has a very scientific approach towards dairy and so I was taken to Sweden and Denmark and completely retrained in the way of thinking about dairy and the way of thinking about leadership in particular and managing your team as a group of subject matter experts and that was very different from perhaps the UK way of thinking about your team.

And that was what started to shape my thinking about how my leadership would be different and thinking about how I developed people within my team.

Amie:

Excellent. And you, you know, we've spoken a couple of times and you've sort of defined your leadership as purpose driven. What, what does this mean to you? And I'm keen to understand how does it play out in the food space in particular?

Simone:

Yeah, I mean, I talk about my why and, you know, Simon Sinek was a big influence on me, sort of some 15, 16 years ago. And the leader that I was working for at that time really spent a lot of time with us coaching us to think about what our purpose was. And my ‘why’ that I've developed over time is about leading courageous humans to tackle the impossible challenges so that we have fun winning together. 

That really is about what I'm about as an individual. How does that translate to food? The food industry is a serious industry, you know, in terms of food safety, people safety, turning out a product that's dispecification. It's all very serious stuff. But actually, people need to understand that whatever role they're playing, whether they're playing a role in engineering, whether they're playing a role on the end of the line, whether they're a supervisor in quality, that they understand actually what the end game is and why they're doing what they're doing. 

And so what I try to do is to really bring that to life for them so that if we are dealing with a particular customer, then we bring in that customer's food for them to try or we'll give them vouchers to go and shop at Nando's or GYG so that they get to taste the product that they're making.

And I think that's really important. And I think the things that support that around purpose is being really clear about your hows. And my hows are being authentic. I talk about keeping it real, getting stuff done, being consistent, kindness, I think, you know, is a really key how. You can be a tough person, but actually you're going to get far more out of people if you show kindness. And I love that phrase, love loving like you've never been hurt before. So really bringing forgiveness in and building fun into the everyday. People respond far, far more to having an enjoyable work life because we rarely work 7.6 hours. So actually building that fun aspect in and then courage. 

So encouraging people to dream big, make mistakes because unless you make mistakes, then you're not developing as a person, but you're also not developing the business either because you're risk adverse. And then building trust. So honesty, keeping my word, making sure that my team feels supported and flying my umbrella when I need to in terms of protecting the team. So that's what it means to me in terms of purpose. And it's how it translates to me in leadership and particularly in my sector of food industry.

Amie:

And how do you think that that is received by, you know, leadership is your leading. How is that received by your team?

Simone:

Yeah, so I would say that I am still in touch with people that I worked with 30 years ago and my relationships that I build with people are personal. They're not just work relationships. I talk about, you know, talk about Lamb Western as being my extended family and that would be true for any role that I've worked in. 

So I think if you can really make it real for someone and they really believe that you have their best interests at heart and you demonstrate that and you have honest conversations with them about how they can improve or the things that they're doing really well and how they can do more of that. You get a genuine commitment from people that transcends work and it becomes people trust you for life. 

Angeline:

I think Simone, such a great thing that you paused on there. We have known each other since our Mondelez days. A great example of that was so many roles ago for me and for you as well. We've kept in touch and I think that's not just keeping in touch in a superficial way, but the relationship that we've built and developed. 

I look to you as a- as a coach and a mentor and I know I can always text you and call you and you were available and so thank you for that. But one of the things I know that you and I share is if you look at this space of FMCG, it has traditionally been male  dominated. And I think we've spoken about this and agree we don't see enough women in food manufacturing still to this day. How have you seen this change over the time that you've been in here?

And what initiatives are you running or have seen that are supporting women to choose the sector as a career?

Simone:

I think you're absolutely right. And I remember going on the milk round, as it was called then from university and Unigate, as it was then the dairy company that I joined, were very keen to put me into the laboratory, because I was a food scientist and a process engineer. And I was like, no, no, I want to work in manufacturing. Well, we don't usually recruit women into manufacturing. It's a tough world out there. You'll be on your feet all day.

And there was an initial trying to put me off, but I kind of persevered and got my way. I would say that from those days, I think we were talking about some of the inappropriate material that would be around in engineers' workshops back in the day that would be completely unacceptable today.

Angeline:

We've all seen our fair share of that one.

Simone:

So it's definitely changed to the extent that it's more accessible for women. I think that some of the shift work can be hard if you're trying to balance a family and a career in food manufacturing. And so one of the things that I've done in the past and has worked really well is we have what we called a mummy shift, which allowed mums to drop the kids off to school in the morning, and pick them up in the evening. 

And it was a specific shift around that. And it worked really, really well. And it did encourage women to enter into the food industry. I also think that making it fairer in terms of promotion and trying to take into account the fact that women want to have a balance.

I still think it's not enough women. We're still not attracting enough women into the manufacturing sector in particular. More women in supply chain. It's an easier place, a more accessible place for women to get into, but the manufacturing side, mainly because of the shifts, can still be off-putting to women. And we still need to do more work around that.

Angeline:

Yeah. And such a great example of that flexibility that you introduced probably a long time ago. And we're kind of talking about hybrid and flexibility and way of working over the last few years, but I'm sure that would have made a huge impact to, know, to the women who had to go off and do the mummy runs and things like that as well. so more of that is probably still needed to encourage that flexible, you know, way of working, particularly in manufacturing, which is, as you say, so shift bound as well.

Simone:

Yes, yes. Yeah, and you think about, you know, during the pandemic, we talk about flexible working. And of course, you know, in my head office, we've continued to encourage that we run what we call a two plus two plus one. So two days at home, two days in the office, one day flexible in terms of where you want to work. And that's been totally embraced by head office. You can't do that in a manufacturing environment. And throughout the pandemic, our heroes in the manufacturing world were there day in day out because they were an essential service.

Amie:

And how do we focus on making food and food manufacturing more of a consideration earlier in careers? 

Simone:

So yeah, in terms of really getting people, and we're talking about young people, and we're talking about young women, to come into the industry at the beginning of their career, we're not doing enough to talk about just how interesting the food industry is. And you talk to, you there's many young people, talk to my nieces and nephews who are all of that age where they are now just deciding on what their next career is and they don't really know much about the food industry. We've not done an awful lot to talk about what an interesting sector it is. So what are we doing at universities? What are we doing to really encourage people? I was at a networking event at RMIT a couple of weeks ago with a group of students and they were fascinated when I was talking about you know the industry and what opportunities there are within it and I talked about my career and you know the fact that I think I've had probably 16 different careers in the food industry alone. You can talk about that, you can make it really interesting, but what are we doing to make sure that we're doing that? And I don't think we're doing enough as an industry and we need to do more.

Amie: 

That makes sense. So gender diversity has been a significant focus in DEI efforts. There's so much more to consider. So how have you addressed this within your own leadership style at Lamb Western and what practical steps have you taken to translate these initiatives into sort of tangible results? 

Simone:

So I have a phrase that all my team would be able to quote back at you, which is bringing your whole self to work. And what I mean by that is I don't care whether you're black, white, pink, gay, straight, female, male, I just want you to bring you to work and I want you to be comfortable. And how I've encouraged that it genuinely isn't just gender. It genuinely is around people feeling that they can be comfortable to talk about, whether they're gay or straight, whether they're from a different culture, whether English isn't their first language. And so how we've encouraged that in Lamb Western is we have really embraced a different way of thinking culturally and a different understanding of cultures, but then from a gender perspective.

We recruit on the best person for the job. so, you know, in terms of, and again, it's more the supply chain roles that we have real success in, but we've got a complete balance. We have a 50-50 balance of male to female ratio. So I'm really proud of that. Manufacturing is still an area for further work.

Angeline:

And I guess picking up from that, let's look forward because I do like to look forward. What do you think are the most critical leadership shifts the food industry must make to remain innovative, relevant and inclusive? And how do you see yourself contributing to this evolution? Because I know you are already, so share some of those things with us.

Simone:

Yeah, I mean, I think that the changes have been absolutely enormous. And I think even in the last few years, we're just seeing that shift in terms of innovation, thinking differently, being prepared to take risks, being prepared to get it wrong, accepting that you won't get everything right, but encouraging teams that it is actually okay to get it wrong and to fail and that failure isn't. Failure is actually a learning experience. But so many businesses are afraid of failure and failure is treated like it's punished. And so not having that within your business is really important. 

AI, AI is fascinating in terms of what that brings. You know, sort of I was at a conference a couple of weeks ago where we were getting to understand what AI can do. And it's entering into areas I'd never even dreamed about, never even thought about. So being open to, 

Angeline:

It's going to be exciting.

Simone:

Absolutely, absolutely. And I realised I'm at the upper end of the age bracket of understanding that. But do you know the other thing is understanding that your younger team members have actually got way more to offer in terms of coaching you. Rather than you always thinking that you're coaching in reverse, you tend to think as, or we have been taught to think that as you get older, you've got more to offer in the way of coaching. 

Actually, reverse coaching from that younger generation who think differently, who've been brought up differently, who I reckon were born with a laptop in hand, if not a laptop, certainly an iPhone.

Amie:

And definitely social media accounts saved for them, yeah.

Simone:

Absolutely. I don't think they put them down to private school any longer. I think they put them down for a particular social media hashtag name. So yes, so I think, you know, really dipping into what drives that younger generation. I think there's a company that do that really well right now. That's Guzmán y Gómez. 

And they've really tapped into that clean aspect of things, you know, and I look at my nephews, they're 22, 24, 26. That's their go-to in terms of fast food these days because GYG have really tapped into a different way of thinking, which I think is fascinating. 

Angeline:

And you can see that in their shareholders.

Simone:

And growth, and growth, opening a couple of stores a week at the moment.

Angeline:

Fabulous. think, you know, some of the things you mentioned, they are like that reverse coaching on mentoring. I think I've always seen that as two ways. Well, there's as much for you to learn as a mentor as the other way as well. So yeah, fantastic. Sounds like you're contributing and you know, making an impact, you know, there's some really great lessons there also for others who want to really contribute to this evolution of where we see the food industry going.

Simone:

I think it's staying curious. think, you know, I would say that what keeps my mind young is being constantly curious, wanting to understand whether it's, you know, working in Asia-Pacific, trying to understand the Japanese culture and the way that they think and work, whether it's understanding we're in the Philippines up until Monday this week, you know, so understanding the Filipino culture. Do you know they're the most switched on social media nation in the world? 

Angeline:

I didn't know that. Wow.

Simone:

Who would have thought? So actually what appeals to the Filipino? How do you engage with the average Filipino so that they know what your product is and you're marketing it in the right way? Yeah, it's fascinating

All right, so look, in terms of thinking about my contribution, you know, I've talked about purpose and purpose-driven leadership. For me, that is my contribution, you know, in terms of how I make teams feel, how I make teams work together, how I bring people together, how I interact with everyone. I think what most people would say about me

would be that they get consistency on a day-to-day basis and there are very rarely surprises in terms of how someone's going to show up. And I think that that is really important because what you're demonstrating is that there's a different way of leading. There's a guy that's just started working for me, probably about 10 months ago. He was with the same company for about 10 years and he came and we had a conversation when we were in...

I remember Japan a couple of months ago. And he said, I was a bit dubious at first, he said, because you you were, you spent so much time talking to me, you took me around the region. You talked about kindness, you talked about, you know, the fact that things are different here, because your style is different. And he said, I'm a nicer person for working in the way that you work, he said, because I use my language, I was a bastard before.

because that was the way that that culture had brought me up. And so I think that the change that I make is showing people that you can be people-orientated and you can be kind and you can still perform well and you can still have a great business. And actually you can have a better business because of it.

Amie:

I love it. Well, thank you, Simone and Angeline and a big thank you for listening to this episode of Women Transforming Food. If you've enjoyed this episode, feel free to like and subscribe wherever you tune into your podcasts.