An International Career – Mr. Charles Nelson

Hello Dear Readers,

Recently I started my Erasmus Programme in WU – Vienna University of Economics and Business. Since day one, I wanted to write an article here in Vienna, related to pursuing an international career and broaden our own horizons.

For that reason, it is with a great pleasure that I present to you the article of today – the International Career of Mr. Charles Nelson, who worked in Mondelēz!

Brief Description

Mr. Charles Nelson grew up in the United States of America and studied Finance for a very concrete reason: it seemed to him the best way to pay back the large student loans, as he needed to finance his own University Education (unfortunately, a very common situation in the USA). He did a home stay program in Spain at the age of 17 and that was the moment when he got really motivated and decided to see the world.

Furthermore, as Mr. Charles also pointed out, he thought that having international experience as well as speaking foreign languages would be an extra competitive advantage so he focused his concentration in this, in addition to his business studies.

Japan and Germany, the first experiences, disappointments and achievements

The effort that Mr. Charles made in learning foreign languages payed off: he was actually first hired because of his Japanese skills and was scheduled to be sent to Japan after a few years training in the corporate HQ. However, due to a large merger and after a few years, nobody was around in the company who remembered anything about Japan. Mr. Charles was initially disappointed but then another job in Munich appeared and he seized the opportunity! As Mr. Charles said “Get over your disappointments quickly and take opportunities as they arise!”

A truly International Career in Mondelēz – New York, Munich, Menorca, Madrid, Tokyo, Manila and Vienna

After starting his career in New York (where he worked for 2 years) he moved, as aforementioned, to Munich, to the European HQ. After 2 years, the company where Mr. Charles worked acquired a Spanish processed cheese company based on the Island of Menorca so he went there to do the FP&A - Financial Planning and Analysis. Then, the company merged the Menorcan cheese company and he moved to Madrid as a Controller of the combined Cheese business.

12 months later, a friend from Tokyo called him up and asked if he wanted to come to work for him in Japan. He immediately agreed since Japan was his original objective since day one at the company.

Nonetheless, the job in Tokyo disappointed him: it wasn’t as challenging as he was used to in Europe, where he was making many acquisitions as well as integrating businesses. “So when the  of the Spanish company called me up and told me they were doing some additional mergers and if I would be interested in coming back to do the FP&A for the combined business I also agreed” said Mr. Charles Nelson. He stayed in Madrid until 2000, the year he left to Manila, where he became the Chief Financial Officer for the Southeast Asia Region. It was a challenging job for him, however, his family didn’t enjoy Manila very much so when after three years he was offered a job in Vienna, to run Controlling and Treasury for the Central & Eastern Europe, Middle East & Africa Region he took it.

At this part, I asked Mr. Charles Nelson what was, until today, his best and worst experience in his long and outstanding career. “The Japanese disappointment was bad and I also had some bad experiences negotiating my contract on a few occasions, but all of that comes with experience and you can’t take it personally. I think working in Developing Markets is fun – it’s always more interesting to manage growth in a small but growing market than to work to contain costs in a large mature market.” Undoubtedly, a remarkable and very interesting opinion!

Family, future and how to manage these dimensions while having an International Career

As Mr. Charles explained, having a family and an International Career at the same time is quite a demanding task. Being an expatriate is difficult, because “Uprooting the children, losing friends, new schools: it can be traumatic. New languages and cultures can be hard on the spouse, especially if he/she can’t work in the host country.” Furthermore, as Mr. Charles Nelson referred, typically an expatriate need to work more hours in the first months as he/she becomes familiar with the business. For all these reasons, Mr. Charles Nelson highlight that his family was the main reason why he moved from Manilla to Vienna.

Skills and personality to pursue an International Career – Is it more important to do master language skills or technical ones?

When I asked Mr. Charles about the personality one should have in order to have a successful career, he was peremptory: “You need to be open and flexible being a foreigner and you need to be comfortable outside your comfort zone.” As a curiosity, he referred that, although language skills are obviously necessary, the technical skills inside one’s area of specialization (in his case, Finance) are usually more important to the success of an International Career than any other aspect.

The reality of today comparing to the reality in the 90’s

Being myself a student with an international mindset, I asked Mr. Charles if, in today’s society, it was more or less difficult to follow a career like his own. “I think it’s easier to move around today because people are more prepared for international experiences than when I was starting out.”, said Mr. Charles. He added that the compensation package has become less generous because more people are willing and able to take foreign assignments. “When I started you needed to pay extra for someone to live abroad. Today, because of globalization I guess, people are willing to do that for the experience alone, without extra compensation.” It is amazing to see how a reality changed so much in 3 decades!

With this in mind, Mr. Charles added that, despite of all the difficulties and less positive aspects, he never imagined living his whole life in the town he was born. “I realize that attracts some people and fair enough, but it’s just not for me”. For myself, coming from a small village of 3000 habitants roughly, these words felt like they were taken back from my own mouth. Phenomenal insights!

 Last Lessons

To finalize, I questioned Mr. Charles If he could give some piece of advice to my readers. He said:

“- Life will give you a few opportunities but it’s up to you to capitalize on them. Take risks, but intelligent ones.”

“- Sometime, somewhere, you’re going to feel that you have been unfairly treated by your company. Unless it’s so bad that you have to leave the company, get over it and move on - normally it’s not personal.”

“- No one, on their death bed, ever said “I wish I had spent more time with my boss.” Keep your work/life balance in balance and keep your family happy.”

I couldn’t think in a better way to end this amazing life lesson. In light of the above, I would like to thank Mr. Charles for all the insights provided!

Dear Readers,

I hope that this article was useful for you! See you next time!

Microsoft – We believe in what people make possible

The first Impact

Recently I had the outstanding opportunity to visit Microsoft´s headquarters in Portugal. As soon as I set foot in Microsoft, I could see an enormous screen, showing the future events that will occur at Microsoft Portugal.

My first contact was with my beloved friend Bruna Bruno, who is currently an intern at Microsoft. Afterwards, Adriana Lima welcomed me with a big smile and we started the visit by getting to know the ground floor.

The workplace

The ground floor was completely outside the box, clearly designed to serve as a showroom, where the main events take place. In addition, there were some rooms where current or future clients of Microsoft could experience the “Customer Immersive Experience” and could test the products that they might want to purchase while listening to a presentation given by a Microsoft seller. On the same floor, Microsoft has an Incubator, designed for high potential Startups, whose name is BizSpark (BizSpark consists in a global program which aims to give the tools to help startups to succeed. How? Not only Microsoft gives the startups free access to Microsoft Azure cloud services, software and support but also Microsoft helps startups establishing powerful connections with local and global startup ecosystems, for example). There were also auditoriums that can be used for internal and external events.

Then, I had the opportunity to discover the other 3 floors at Microsoft. Firstly, it is important to highlight that, in Microsoft, no one has their fixed workstation. The culture of the company is to work from anywhere with any device possible and there are no divisions by departments. Imagine that someday you could be working right next to a senior manager! This is one of the things (you will discover many others during this article) that set Microsoft apart from other multinational companies. Moreover, every single room has a name related to Microsoft´s Universe such as: Word, Xbox, Windows, and so on. One of the most interesting and fascinating things at Microsoft is that everyone can write in some walls in different rooms, which clearly allows the creativity and out of the box approaches to various problems.

Nonetheless, typically, in the first floor is where the Engineering teams work and their responsibility is to support the different technologies. Microsoft’s Customer Service & Support (CSS) organization has breadth and depth of technical knowledge that covers support for all Microsoft products and services. CSS has a comprehensive network of support professionals, both full time employees and a vast network of agents.

The second floor is the “Business Floor”, where, for instance, we can find roles related to Sales, Marketing and Services. This floor is radically different from the first one, with less desktops and, conversely, with more interactions among people.

The third floor is where we can find roles related to HR, Finance and Retail for example.

While I was wandering, I noticed that Microsoft has a very unique way to shape their own office, in order to make the workplace the most open and flexible space! Microsoft really applies the philosophy of turning the workplace into the most enjoyable place for their workers. For instance, any Microsoft employee can play Xbox at literally any time of the day (and this really happens, as I noticed during my visit!).

Microsoft Portugal – A sales subsidiary

Microsoft Portugal is a sales subsidiary, like most Microsoft subsidiaries across the world. Microsoft is one of those companies in which you can work for 20 years and never do the same day after day – the range of functions is enormous. After all, at the end of the day, all the subsidiaries, despite having a focus on sales, require diverse functions such as marketing, technical functions, etc. Finally, for students who are really keen on product development, the best place to work at Microsoft is in its Headquarters, in Redmond, Washington.

6 months ago, in July, Microsoft has suffered a reorganization and it’s now oriented by industries (Retail, Financial Services, Manufacturing, Others, Health and Education).

The industries in which Adriana is currently working on are Manufacturing and Others (such as Oil&Gas, Telecommunications&Media, Transportation, Sports, etc) having more than 50 different customers.

The truly amazing path of Adriana Lima

By talking with Adriana, it was easy to understand that her days at Microsoft are always different and challenging.  

In fact, she doesn´t even have a work schedule from 9 a.m to 5 p.m and she doesn’t need to work at the office. She has sales goals for the year and that’s the only thing she needs to be focused on. As mentioned before, Adriana can work from anywhere and use whatever device she wants. “That´s the philosophy of Microsoft!”, she said.

Thanks to her work, in 2 and half years she is currently a Solution Sales Professional for Modern Workplace, covering solutions like Office 365, Windows 10 and Enterprise Mobility + Security.  This is her third role, as she was also a Solution Sales Professional for Skype for Business and a Solution Sales Professional for Productivity (covering Office 365 only).

Adriana has a sui-generis path: she is very young (she joined Microsoft when she was only 21 years old, after finishing her graduation in Management at FEP). Adriana remembers FEP with nostalgia, highlighting the hard skills acquired.  Throughout her academic experience, Adriana was a member of FEP First Connection (if you want to know more about this organization, just visit their website: http://www.firstconnection.pt/) and did her exchange program in Madrid at IE Business School, one of the best schools according to the Financial Times Ranking, where she had a fascinating experience (having the opportunity to truly put the theory into practice).

It was through FEP First Connection that Adriana first met Microsoft and knew by then that she wanted to join the company when university ended. If you want to join Microsoft, more than anything else, you must share the company´s vision and relate to the culture. In the online tests you only need to be yourself - there are no right answers.

To sum up, Adriana has undoubtedly a unique mindset and values the continuous improvement. She knows that is important to go for the extra-mile and that nothing is really achieved without teamwork. 

Piece of advice from Adriana Lima and her main responsibilities

It is evident that Adriana has some characteristics which make her stand out from the crowd. I asked what her secret for success at Microsoft is. She said: 1) prioritize tasks and focus on the real crucial activities, knowing how and when to say “No” to the less important ones. 2) Work as a team! “If you want to go fast go alone, if you want to go far, go together.”  3) Don’t take yourself too seriously.

Regarding her role at the company, Adriana has specific goals to achieve and, with that in mind, it is mandatory to have a plan on how to achieve them. Then, it’s all about having a customer mindset, work with partners and help their customers in their digital transformation journeys.

Microsoft vs other Companies

When I challenged Adriana to tell me the differences between Microsoft and other companies, Adriana highlighted the following topics:

• ·         Adriana´s job is to change the way how companies work. In Microsoft, for instance, everyone already works through networks, instead of hierarchies (as the majority of the companies).
• ·         The responsibility: Adriana referred that in Microsoft, it doesn’t matter how old you are or how much experience you have, the responsibilities are going to be high.
• ·         There are no predefined career paths. You can always change jobs and try different roles. No career is the same, and it shouldn’t be.
• ·         The profile that fits Microsoft is someone who is proactive, agile, accountable and that sees change as a business rule.

The MACH Program

The Microsoft Academy for College Hires (MACH) is a two-years experience for recent graduates which join various roles in Microsoft such as Marketing, Finance, IT, Operations and many others. The MACH´s will have the opportunity to start building up a powerful network and to understand their role at Microsoft, in order to have impact in the enterprise´s businesses. Nowadays, the MACH is present in more than 70 countries.

I talked with Adriana about several aspects of the MACH Program but what struck my attention were the events:

• ·         Microsoft Ready – this is Microsoft’s annual internal event and, so you can understand how much Microsoft values the MACHs, every year Satya Nadella and other senior leaders have specific sessions only for MACHs. 
• ·         Skill Up and Increase Impact – “These are events with amazing speakers, that will make you put things in perspective and truly change the way you understand Microsoft and life in general.”

Moreover, Adriana refers as the most positive aspects of the MACH Program the knowledge that you get from the company, the opportunity to truly understand what you want to do with your life and also the opportunity to travel to numerous countries.

In light of the above, I would like to thank Bruna Bruno, for telling me about Adriana and, undoubtedly, I have to thank Adriana and Microsoft for this outstanding opportunity!

Dear Readers,

I hope that this article was useful for you! See you next time!

PS: Last but not least, check the amazing view that Microsoft Portugal offers you!