The long road to marketing success

By Jim Davis

Long journeys have played an important part in Yulia Romanova's life. Born in the Far East in what was then the Soviet Union, at a very young age she made an 11,000 mile train journey from her birthplace, first to Moscow and then on to Ukraine. Later, given a unique educational opportunity, she traveled an equally long distance for post graduate study in California.  

Like most youngsters growing up in Ukraine, Romanova was not sure about what she wanted to do in life, but there were two points about which she was clear. First, she recognized that her mother's 30 years of teaching was a tough experience she did not want to repeat, and secondly that the breakup of the former Soviet Union and the arrival of new foreign companies might provide opportunities for those with language skills.

By the mid-1990s, Romanova's growing English skills gained in formal university training meant a chance opportunity to assist at an agricultural expo booth for the American agrichemical giant, Monsanto. For her services she was paid the first $30 earned in her life. More important, during this brief employment she made such a favorable impression that she was immediately offered a full-time position as an assistant to Monsanto's country manager. She was soon juggling the last year of university and a job that required 12 to 14 hours per day. After university, she stayed on with Monsanto for several years, and today recalls it as "actually a first business university for me."

When Tetra Pak, one of the world's largest suppliers of packaging systems for milk, fruit juices and drinks, and many other products invited her to join the company as a category manager, she chose to grasp the chance to gain greater  marketing experience. She found in Tetra Pak interesting opportunities, a great environment and outstanding company spirit. However, when the Muskie program, a U.S. sponsored post graduate educational scholarship beckoned, she jumped at the opportunity to gain an MBA in marketing and strategic management from California State University.

After her post-graduate studies in the United States, Romanova returned to Ukraine and spent the next eight years getting hands-on experience with FMCG companies that were fast growing and had owners that were willing to provide a qualified young manager freedom and responsibility to develop. Many of the companies that Romanova worked for in those years were her former Tetra Pak customers in the dairy and beverage industries.

For Romanova, the combination of her formal education, broad management experience and previous Tetra Pak employment almost inevitably led to her being offered the position of marketing director for Tetra Pak Ukraine. One of her greatest motivations for returning to Tetra Pak was that she knew it to be a company where marketing and corporate social responsibility go hand-in-in hand.

For example, environmental commitments and goals are embedded in Tetra Pak's mission, strategy and code of business conduct. Since 2004 Tetra Pak has participated in the United Nations Global Compact. In practical terms at the local level, Tetra Pak Ukraine pioneered a waste collection and recycling scheme. In 2007 Tetra Pak Ukraine committed to collect and recycle 5% of post-consumer beverage cartons with an increase to 10 percent by 2010. This will be achieved by sorting out used packages at Ukrainian sorting plants and than re-pulping the bulk of used beverage cartons at local paper mills. Recycled beverage carton fibers are used in production of various goods ranging from stationery, kitchen rolls and paper bags to cardboard boxes, thereby having a real impact on Ukraine's environment.

In additional to environmental concerns, Tetra Pak Ukraine provides financial and organizational support to Kyiv Mohyla University-EERC, the University of Food Technologies, Kyiv Polytechnic University and Lviv State University. The company established two regular scholarships, $10,000 and remains open to provide other support upon request. Also, Tetra Pak Ukraine offered financial and information support to the Ukrainian branch of international students network - ISEC. For the second year, Tetra Pak has offered a site internship/business project for London Business School students that the company sees as mutually beneficial for both parties. Further, Tetra Pak in conjunction with its key customers has supported for years the less fortunate children of Radomyshl orphanage, SOS Children Village and Chernobyl Children's Hospital by supplying them with milk and juice of high nutritional value.

There are tens of thousands of Ukraine's best and brightest young people who have chosen to develop their careers in Europe, the United States and other parts of the world. Yulia Romanova's choice was to develop her skills in her own country and to eventually rejoin a company that she knew provided the kind of environment and company policies that would allow her to have a positive impact now only on her own career but also on the future of her country. It is a choice about which she has no regrets.