Nigel B.
About me
| Nigel B. | |
| Biology | |
| Biochemistry | |
| Undergraduate | |
| Vanbrugh | |
| 1990 | |
| United Kingdom |
My employment
| Chief Operations Officer | |
| Health and beauty products manufacturer | |
| United Kingdom | |
| Engineering and manufacturing | |
| Large business (250+ employees) |
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A day in the life of a Chief Operations Officer in the United Kingdom
As an employer of graduates now, my advice would be "Always be inquisitive and be ready to learn". Resist the temptation to think for one second that you know more than those you will be working with, who are perhaps not as educated as you are.
Briefly describe the organisation you work for
I work for a company that develops and manufactures health and beauty products for our partners. Our customers range from global brand owners to entrepreneurs and start ups who need someone like us to scale up their products for manufacturing.
What do you do?
My role involves leading the 3 factories within our business so that our customers get the product they want from us at the right time. I am responsible for all of the Production, Engineering, Safety and Supply Chain functions.
It is a hugely complicated business, employing 750 people supplying over 500 different products to a wide range of customers. As we work in the beauty and cosmetic industry there is a huge amount of change so a lot of what we do is short lived before the product is replaced by something else.
Imagine what is involved in tracking down and buying all of the raw materials and packaging items for such a wide range of products and getting them to our factories on time for them to manufacture them, then having to manufacture them to a very tight specification, often having to comply with tight regulatory requirements.
On top of that, imagine having to do all of that safely whilst making sure that we consistently get more and more efficient, so that our customers get better value for money from us in the future.
In the end. my role comes down to how well the large group of people involved in making our products are lead and managed, allowing them to turn up to work each day delivering their best possible performance.
Factory life is never dull - there is always a problem to solve somewhere and there is always the opportunity to be a little bit better tomorrow than you were yesterday.
Reflecting upon your past employment and education, what led you to your current career choice?
I have done a range of progressively senior roles since graduation, culminating in my current role.
When I left York I was lucky enough to join Nestle in the city on their graduate development scheme within the York factory. From there I have worked in a number of food and non-food FMCG ( Fast Moving Consumer Goods) businesses, including fresh food where the short shelf life nature of the product creates a huge amount of urgency, 7 days a week, 52 weeks of the year.
On graduating, when I was considering the range of graduate schemes available back then, I chose Operations ( aka Production, Manufacturing, Supply Chain - depends on the company and the job profile, but they all tend to cover the same type of thing ) as I felt my strengths were working with people across all levels. Operations tend to have the largest teams in businesses so you end up with responsibility for leading teams at quite an early stage of your career.
Is your current job sector different from what you thought you would enter when you graduated?
Although I entered Food manufacturing when I graduated, the skills and knowledge are transferable to most areas of FMCG manufacturing so I am currently in a sector that is similar to what I was expecting when I graduated.
Describe your most memorable day at work
Possibly memorable for the wrong reasons but sadly, I have had to close a couple of factories during my career.
On this particular day I woke up knowing that I was heading into work to announce to 300 people that we were starting consultation with them to close the factory and that they would in all likeliness be losing their jobs.
However prepared I was for that moment I was so nervous standing on a box, taking the microphone and telling everyone the bad news, conscious that by doing so I was creating huge concern and anxiety for so many people.
I had to remember that I needed to do the job as professionally as possible and recognise that my role at that moment and until such time as the site did eventually close, was to support the people affected as much as possible and in any way the team and I could.
The challenge for me was wearing 2 hats all the time. When wearing the first hat I was expected to protect the companies interests and keep the factory going right up until the end, making sure equipment was transferred to another site effectively. When wearing the second hat I was expected to support and help those people who were out of work as a result of that decision.
The process lasted around 10 months from announcement until final closure, during which time I think I successfully managed to wear those 2 hats at the right time!
Are there any challenges associated with your job?
Plenty - 150 customers, 500 products, 12,000 raw materials from around the world, 750 people. Lots to go wrong - and remember, if only 1 material does not arrive on time ( for example there was a fire in their factory, global demand for that material has gone up or the batch that they sent to us wasn't to the right quality standard ) the whole production plan has to be ripped up and started again.
Getting all those resources working together to deliver the product on time and to the right standard and cost is a huge challenge.
Also, trying to predict what the market will look like in years to come so we can make the right investment decisions now ( which type of product do we need to buy more equipment for, how many people will we need in specialist roles ) is not the easiest thing.
What’s your work environment and culture like?
All the businesses I have worked in have been very different but generally, what is ever present in manufacturing businesses is urgency. When something happens and you have a line full of people standing with nothing to do, you need to quickly decide what to do with those people straight away. In a factory you can't say "let's sleep on it"
What extracurricular activities did you undertake at university and what transferable skills did you develop through these?
Mostly sport and the Derwent weekly bop (Thursday night without fail!!)
The most useful thing I did however was an Insight into Industry residential in the final summer break before graduation. That helped provide some real insight into the different roles available within business and helped me focus on Production and Distribution as my first choices
What would you like to do next with your career?
Given my relative elder years (I now have daughters who have graduated/are undergraduates) I'm not planning on gaining more senior roles. My aim is to help my current business continue to grow and improve and help develop the younger talent coming through the business
What top tips do you have for York students preparing for today’s job market and life after graduation?
I recognise that things are very different now to how they were in 1990 and it is a much more fragmented, less structured, more competitive graduate job market.
As an employer of graduates now, my advice would be "Always be inquisitive and be ready to learn". Resist the temptation to think for one second that you know more than those you will be working with, who are perhaps not as educated as you are.
Everyone in a business, whatever their role, can teach you something
What topics from students are you happy to answer questions on?
Happy to receive any questions that I can help with - specifically ones relating to Production/Manufacturing/Operations. I have experience working for major food brands, supermarkets and Health and Beauty - so questions related to those industries also welcome.
I have a particular interest in leadership development as well so happy to share my experiences in this area too
Is there anything else you’d like to tell us?
I know it was a while since I graduated, but I now work with Graduates and sandwich students (as well as having daughters of Uni age too) so I am still reasonably well connected to the issues graduates of today may face - if I can help in any way please get in touch
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