Employee Profile

“My main reason for choosing Cargill was that it was a company that took on graduates without work experience and gave them an opportunity to learn from the best management practices.”

I joined the company when I was still quite young after finishing at Voronezh State University in 2006. My course mates decided to conquer the big cities and were very sceptical about my decision to go back to provincial Efremov. So why Cargill? My main reason for choosing Cargill was that it was a company that took on graduates without work experience and gave them an opportunity to learn from the best management practices. It also gave me the opportunity to interact with colleagues from other parts of the world, to get involved in business projects and to play an active role in implementing social initiatives. Also, Cargill offers a competitive salary.

I started my career as Assistant Administrator in the Procurement Division. I wouldn’t say that it was difficult because I’d had absolutely no knowledge or skills working with such a major corporation; but I would definitely say that working there was extremely interesting and great fun from the first day. Now, looking at it with hindsight from my perspective as Head of Corporate Materials and Service Procurement and having had a bumpy ride for eight years, I am in fact finding it very difficult to answer the question how I achieved such significant success, gained my colleagues’ recognition, acquired the relevant skills and experience in Procurement and climbed up four steps on the corporate ladder. I definitely hadn’t set myself the aim of being successful in my career at all costs, because I’ve never seen myself as a pure career person. I understood that it was essential to be fully focused and responsible at all times, not to be indifferent toward the things you do, to make sure you don’t let down your colleagues and help them in difficult situation, to be as customer-focused as possible and of course to keep developing, both professionally and in other areas of knowledge that might always be important for me as a buyer. It was probably my desire not to get stuck, but to acquire new knowledge that prompted me to study at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration of the Russian Federation (RANEPA), where I graduated successfully in 2014. Moreover, throughout that time I also went on training courses and seminars where I acquired further knowledge and then applied this in practice, enabling me to achieve better results in my work.

Of course, the people who played a special role in my development and in becoming a buyer were my first leaders whom I still respect greatly to the present day. So what’s going to happen next? Time will tell, and so will the results of my work in this new responsibility, but I can definitely say that, thanks to Cargill, I feel optimistic about the future!