Tell us about Isabelle.
I am French woman, married to Yann, an ultra-trail runner and coach. Together, we have 2 daughters, Marie 13 and Lisa 8 years old. I love horseriding–dressage, cross-country, all of it. My family and I live close to Chambéry, in the countryside and very close to the French Alps. This is the perfect location for us and our cat and dog.
And in your professional life?
I am a food engineer. I started at Nestlé Purina few years after graduating to work on their veterinarian pet food products. It was a fantastic opportunity, to work at the company’s R&D center, learning everything I could about pet food. I grew to love the products–Friskies, Purina ONE, ProPlan–and working on their development as part of a diverse team. I had the opportunity to work with various production factories, which were in Italy, Spain, Hungary, and the UK and France. I became part of the Technical Applications Team whose role was to ensure that innovations developed in R&D would be feasible in production. We were making the dream happen in real life. It was a lot of work and travels, but in a way, it was cozy, with very limited room for surprises. Slowly but surely, I was settling into a comfortable routine though I did see my sense of ambition fading.
What happened next?
After a few years, I was considered for an interesting role in Purina US, but I realized that any progress beyond where I was would have taken years. Around the same time, I was contacted by PPF. It was about taking over the company’s R&D, and even thought the job was interesting, it is meeting with the team that made me reconsider all my plans. My husband and I discussed the role and what it would mean for our family. We knew we wanted to have an expat experience since we met at university and we had lists of places where we would love to live and places that would be dealbreakers for us. Budapest was not on either of these lists. I know now that it allowed me to make a choice fully based on the job and not biased by its location.
Since you were out for adventure, it seems like the ideal place.
We considered our move, not just to Budapest but to anywhere outside where we already were a significant risk. We were young, yes, but we had a very full life. We asked ourselves, often, whether we were ready for a new start. Of course, we were: we pragmatically maximized our chances to make it work while planning for a possible failure. It would have been an amazing learning experience anyhow. In the meantime, we had our first baby, Marie. She was 1 year old when we moved to Hungary. I immediately reconnected with the energy you get when working with new people on projects. It was ideal: I had the trust and support of company leadership, and I was bringing the structure and knowledge that was needed to make the team develop further.
What was your action plan once you got started?
Even though R&D was well-established at PPF, we needed a clearer strategy and a way to encourage collaboration among the company’s formulators. Each of these experts in the different plants had been developing their own approach and ways of working. We needed more interdepartmental and interdisciplinary cooperation. We made that happen by getting out of our routines and attending client meetings. Doing that was energizing, was pushing our experts (including me) to get out of our comfort zone, and to challenge our ways of working and products. It allowed as well to reduce the misunderstandings and response time in our tendering process. For me, it was so much fun discussing new ideas with clients–a real adrenaline rush.
You are now the general manager for France. What is the backstory?
I remember asking PPF’s upper management about the state of our business in France. France is one of the top 4 Petfood European markets. Why was the French market not more of a priority for us? Could we do better with sales? They encouraged me to try it myself and play a KAM role towards Leclerc, the top 1 retailer in France. Within six months, we got our first deal with them, their premium pouch range. This was such a memorable moment for us. At the time, we were astonished at what we had achieved. I was so full of nerves when all of this was coming together. Torsten Jacobs, my boss and PPF’s Chief Operations Officer, told me, towards the end of negotiations, that we had nothing to lose. That gave me the push I needed.
Nothing succeeds like success, as they say.
It legitimized my work and gave me credibility to develop the French market strategy and ultimately be appointed General Manager. When I started, PPF’s French business had an annual turnover of about €10 million. Turnover is now close to €70 million annually, and team building continues. We started with a startup mindset, with the certitude that we had to be as lean and agile as possible for as long as possible. This operations model could not work with a 100-person team, and it would be a waste of resources for us to work out of an office. I recruited talented KAMs from our competitors. We found French-speaking people in Budapest, creating the base of our Shared Service Center. All of this team was concentrated to a single goal: offering the best experience to our clients. This was about being proactive, meeting prospects very regularly, feeding them with market data and anticipating their needs. And deal after deal, we grew our presence from 3 retailers in France to the entire retail horizon and key Pet Specialist and Co-manufacturing players.
What is behind that 600% increase since you took over?
Work, with passion and dedication. We visited clients often and did not simply wait for tenders. We began our sales push by advising clients about what they needed: “Here is what the market is doing, this is what you should do. We can help.” It came down to category management and gap analysis. We spoke to procurement professionals within these companies and made sense of trends together. We delivered on our promises and gained the trust of our clients.
We had built such an agile system and way of doing business that we did not feel any disruption during the pandemic. In 2020, while others were trying to find their footing during lockdowns, we were all about closing deals. Our team had been working remotely since it began and every one of our clients was used to our approach. We were already negotiating deals live from clients’ kitchens.
How was your family’s experience living in Budapest?
It is among the best memories of my life. Our eldest daughter was one when we moved and our second daughter was born there. We integrated quickly. Hungarians have an incredible affection for children. Our family’s setup was nonstandard–dad at home, mom at work–though every time my husband went out with our daughters, people were so welcoming, so friendly. I felt the same warmth from everyone at PPF, certainly. We did not want to fall into a French bubble. Given the terms of my contract, we could have been in Hungary forever. In Budapest, we felt we were living in a national capital but human-sized. It is a beautiful city as is the countryside, with an amazing history and architecture. We were part of a wonderfully diverse community, delighted to enjoy goulash together, and although we were happy to go back to France, we knew we would miss Hungary. Maybe one day we will be back.
