Can you give us your background?
I graduated in accounting at New York’s Queens College and I joined, in 1999, Saint Gobain group.
I started with administrative responsibilities before replacing the financial controller and also taking care of some human resources (payroll etc) tasks. In 2007, SGD North America was created after Saint Gobain sold its glass subsidiary to a investment fund and my role was more focused on unpaid receivables collection. With a new shareholder’s arrival in 2010, some strategic change took place and, in 2016, the activities related to beauty and pharmacy were split and each entity had full autonomy. This is when I joined SGD Pharma and was appointed Controller of the NY sales office which employs eleven people and covering North, South and Central America regions.
Can you describe your job in more detail?
Actually I have a double role, Controller and Office Manager.
As a Controller, I’m charge of the NY office accountancy but also of the management of the administrative aspects (payroll management, health insurances, pension private schemes etc) for all the employees and also of the building management issues. It is a position very much focused on finance and administration but it is very varied since we are a small office and we need to be multi task!
Are there any achievements that you are particularly proud of since you joined the company?
I’ve been in the group for the past 18 years so I’ve been through many changes both on the capitalistic side or the size of the company and the tasks I was assigned to. The change related to the cosmetic and pharmaceutical activities’ split that took place in 2016 was a major one because it meant to set up new agreements and contracts with all suppliers and service providers (health insurers, retirement plans providers, the building managers etc) with an office that was smaller than before. I had to renegotiate various services with all our partners in a rather short time.
Is there anything specific that you like in your working environment that you would like to share?
What I like is to be part of a leader company with a global reputation but in a human scale office benefitting from a friendly atmosphere but also autonomy. We are lucky to have a local management that is able to pass on its enthusiasm to the teams and this is very appreciable, especially when you are in an dozen people’s office!
