What’s the nature of your work with Henkel?
I am Head of Innovation Management for detergent and cleaning materials product development. It’s here that we link up two different sectors. On the one hand it’s about improving and/or making the best of all the innovation processes that are in operation here. We try to steer development processes and to introduce new initiatives. Then of course it’s also about controlling, in that we want to see how successful the innovations and products are. We are particularly interested in how we can best track them, and make them measurable - and in what we can do better in the future.

What brought you to Henkel?
I studied chemistry and, after my doctorate, took a further training course in industrial economics. My first job was in the field of Marketing & Sales for an American pharmaceutical company. Then, in 1997, I applied to Henkel, attended an assessment centre, and was accepted. For the time being, I’ve landed up in product development for detergents and became involved with the development of Persil tablets. 

Have you served abroad?
Yes, I was in China for two years and worked on the central setting-up of Product Development there. At that time, China was about 20 years behind Europe. It was all completely different from the short decision trees right through to what consumers were demanding from detergents. After that I was with Henkel CEE in Vienna, in the field of cleaning materials product development. In June 2004 I came back to Düsseldorf again, but left cleaning materials and detergents, changing over to internal auditing of the production and engineering department. I was in fact the internal auditor for the department. In October 2005, I was then offered the job of taking over as Innovation Manager for cleaning materials and detergents in the Strategic Controlling department.

What do you like about the work you do?
We act as a strategic “switchboard”, and we initiate innovative processes that do not hang around in isolation but intervene as processes covering product development as a whole. This means that a large number of interfaces are operating together here, not just with the development groups, as one might imagine, but also with the marketing department, the supply chain, with other sectors of the company and with many outside firms that we work with. This interplay and contact with other departments is very stimulating.

What has been particularly memorable for you?
The tour of duty in China impressed me enormously, and was very much to my liking. I managed to implement my own ideas promptly, and had the feeling of making a difference and working in an entrepreneurial way. I got a lot out of it. When you then get back to company HQ, one endeavours to transpose this experience and seek out shorter decision trees.