Global Management Trainee Program(GMT)

"I strongly believe that consumer tastes always evolve, and a business needs to keep pace with such tastes. At Budweiser APAC, I see resilient and humble people, who share my belief and are never satisfied with the status quo. Also, my passion for beer and its culture, in no small part, is a key spark for working at an international beer company like Budweiser."

As a graduate from Fudan University, I joined as a Global Management Trainee Program Intern in 2018. Later, I joined Budweiser Logistics Planning team as a 2019 GMT. I am responsible for the implementation of various planning-related projects.

One of the key challenges I faced, was to create a prediction tool to account for the risk of finished goods. Handicapped by a lack of operational and business knowledge, I witnessed humility and resiliency among my colleagues, who joined hands to help me in data preparation, in designing and in improving my domain knowledge. The prediction tool is now in pilot and soon will be scaled out nationally.

I believe that keeping an open-mind and asking for help when in doubt are key aspects that are differentiators when working on any project here.

"At Budweiser APAC, irrespective of your age, background and work experience, you can be successful – if you are ownership driven and deliver results. This motivates me every day to push myself outside of my comfort zone."

After my Master's in Technology Management from the University of Warwick, I joined Budweiser UK & Ireland in 2012. Later, I moved to the Belgium office and then in 2016 to Shanghai office. Currently, I lead APAC's Technology Operations and am responsible for a team of 50 people.

What I particularly enjoy is our workplace dynamic, thanks to a truly global team from different nationalities and cultures. Given my position of driving technology as a global enabler in our operations, the heavy interaction between global counterparts is particularly amazing.

My personal challenge was when we came together to deliver a Proof-of-Concept for end-to-end traceability for our domestic products. Bringing together the motivations and requirements of all parties on the same page - from sales and supply chain, to procurement and legal was only possible because of an in-depth understanding of how the company operates.

A successful proof-of-concept not only validated our initial hypothesis but also validated my personal hypothesis on how 'ownership drives success' at Budweiser APAC.

"Be resilient, believe in people and take ownership for ensuring results – that's the magic mantra to succeed at Budweiser APAC."

5 years ago, I joined Budweiser APAC as a GMT. During these 5 years, I have worked in diverse locations such as Xiamen, Suqian and Mexico City. Now, I'm working in the logistics team as an Associate Director in the Logistics team in Shanghai.

In the spring of 2018, I took on the challenging role within Budweiser APAC of being a Logistics Manager for one of our mid-sized breweries. In this role, I had to lead a 100-people team with individuals on an average 5 years older than I was, manage 2 production lines and a significant budget.

With near zero experience in either production or team management, I relied on the support of our headquarters and excellent colleagues. Faced with a disturbing outcome that Budweiser APAC could lose sales during the summer peak seasons if we didn't improve production efficiency, we were under immense pressure.

However, fortunately, this story has a happy ending. We improved the production line efficiency by 8% in the first three months of embarking on this project and delivered the highest monthly sales volume ever since the brewery was established. As I left, the production line efficiency improved by 22% and I can say with pride that my leadership, business insights and problem-solving skills improved as well.

"The high stakes, the fast pace - It keeps me up and going. Every day brings along new opportunities and new challenges and we grow at a pace of our own talent here."

As a 2018 Global Management Trainee (GMT) from Australia, I have been exposed to many opportunities at a relatively early stage of my career, for example, when I was selected to move from Australia to work at our largest zone HQ in Shanghai, China. Amidst this huge cultural shift, I was fortunate to make a 'soft landing' with support from colleagues and managers within Budweiser APAC, some of whom have themselves navigated such moves.

When I look back at my impact in the GMT program, I particularly feel proud of my contribution to Beverage Analytics - a platform to track point of sale of draught beer in real time across venues. We were set with an intimidating target catalysing the adoption, scaling up and execution of Beverage Analytics within three months in the Australian market. We started off by talking to our customers and then revisited each step to become aware of the existing points of friction.

We went back to the drawing board and collaborated across diverse teams such as QA/QC, our salesforce and other stakeholders to deliver a revamped frictionless customer on-boarding journey.

Not only did we achieve our initial target of '400' unique POCs (venue adoptions) for Beverage Analytics, we set up effective project management rhythms to continue this beyond the initial setup. In this project, I witnessed true 'cross-team collaboration' and an undisputed 'customer centric focus', both qualities that everyday vindicate my choice to work at Budweiser APAC.

"From a fresh graduate to a senior sales leader, I am still happy with my choice after 10 years to work with Budweiser APAC."

On completing my 2010 GMT training after graduating from Xiamen University with a master's degree, I started in the role of a Sales Representative, gradually growing into Sales Supervisor, Sales Manager, BU RTM Director, Sales director and currently China Wholesaler Business Development & Battlefields Strategy Director throughout having approaching a career of my dreams step by step.

Front-line Sales experience and Sales fundamentals not only nurtured my whole career in the past 10 years, but also helped me especially in situations where I encountered super complex and difficult business challenges.

For sure, front line sales life is not easy, but that is what makes a real challenger. My experience has taught me that fighting along with the team in overcoming challenges always involves give and take. One of my most precious assets in my career so far was leading a problem market with five years of sales decline, and to turning it around and achieving national Sales Director ranking No. 1 for 2 years in-a-run.

With Budweiser APAC, we foresee infinite possibilities. I believe we can grow even faster in terms of both business and career? Challenge accepted!