What's your job about?
International and local solutions for the transport of goods; from the physical move to simplifying the tracking and managing of freight – we like to see ourselves as a solution provider rather than any particular service – this way we can fit into any organization and become necessary.
I personally jump into the Customs team, Imports, Exports, find & recruit new team, preparing official documents, lots of excel, setting up systems, process’s, on boarding new customers, having a voice in new quoting systems, troubleshooting issues, eliminating common errors, if it occurs to me – I do it! Anything to make the branch run better and keep morale high! The issue is picking which project to do next
What's your background?
I was born in Dunedin, but grew up in Christchurch – I started working part time from a young age and loved being good at what I did, no matter the role.
After high school I went to university and studied a range of papers but majored in Management as I enjoyed the part time roles where I got to train up the teams and improve systems.
I enjoyed the freight forwarding industry from the start. Once joining Mainfreight, I was fully immersed in the world of Supply Chain Logistics; this was a new challenge as it was all foreign to me. I had to make many phone calls to various government departments and logistics services across New Zealand to get what now seem like simple answers – I hated it, but loved it. – This grew me as a person faster than university ever did.
After getting the hang of the customs side, I decided to take on the next challenge as import team leader – Taking this role and making changes that felt right to me wasn’t easy but I could see how great the team would be in the upcoming months
Then I have been lucky with my timings and hard work at Mainfreight that I moved again to be the Operations Manager, where I continue to be challenged every day. No two days are the same here at Mainfreight!
Could someone with a different background do your job?
You need to want to work hard and get a kick out of it – Enjoying the work and results will keep you motivated much longer than seeking immediate recognition from others. For me it’s not my background it’s my strive to make things easier, and then once it’s easy for me and the next person – find something else and make my job hard again – this attitude has really kept me growing.
What's the coolest thing about your job?
I love the people – surrounded by intelligent hard working people I find so motivating; The eagerness to learn and the solutions we find I know are the best in the freight forwarding industry.
I thrive when things get difficult or do not follow the norm in our industry (congestion, port omissions, significant delays) – as I know this is our point of difference to find solutions, and if we are finding it frustrating – so are our competition … but we can always outperform in these areas.
What are the limitations of your job?
It is endless, if you have an eye for improvement or system management you can continuously grow the branch, when you have your day to day work, but want to accomplish all these additional projects – you start doing long hours “by choice”.
There are peak seasons where it is required all to do significant hours, but I am always finding ways to make my entire year busy. – Often I might do long days or a weekend day just to finish something I can see adding value to the branch – I enjoy this – but it’s not for everyone.
We don’t live in a perfect world, - things go wrong, and satisfying customers isn’t always easy, or possible, but it is great to have opportunities like this to understand the complications of doing business.
3 pieces of advice for yourself when you were a student...