Thought Lines Issue One AUGUST 2015
Inspiring conversations about dreams, journeys & career paths
The innovation & license company of Maire Tecnimont
STAMICARBON TEAM Kirk Ofei Frederique Timmerman Erik Mestrom Barbara Cucchiella Manish Abraham Wim Heinen
SITTARD / THE NETHERLANDS 51.0000° N / 5.8667° E
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Thought Lines Issue One AUGUST 2015
Inspiring conversations about dreams, journeys & career paths
Thought Lines is an internal newspaper created from an inspiring series of conversations that highlight the dreams, aspirations, journeys and career paths of the Stamicarbon team. We have a geographically and culturally diverse team and these conversations clearly confirm the value of our pioneering organization as we strive to make the world a better place. Included in our first issue are Kirk Ofei, Frederique Timmerman, Erik Mestrom, Barbara Cucchiella, Manish Abraham and Wim Heinen.
Kirk
Problem solving has become a part of who I am.
When I was a kid growing up in Ghana I wanted to be a pilot. Our apartment was actually quite close to the international airport and in the evenings I used to sit and wonder where the flights were going. It was my dream to see much more of the world. My father used to work for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, so my first trip abroad was when he was posted to Ethiopia. That’s the first time I was on an airplane and found it quite exciting. I was in my mid twenties before I traveled abroad again which was to the United Kingdom and it really triggered my passion for wanting to see more of the world. After I finished my bachelor’s degree in Ghana, I moved to Aveiro, in Portugal to continue my studies. I remember I arrived there in the afternoon and suddenly I couldn’t communicate with anyone. No one spoke English. I thought, I can do this, so I took some Portuguese lessons in the first few weeks. I later realised the younger generation do speak quite good English. In a way I felt like I was living in sort of a bubble, because although I was in Portugal my programme was international. But I made great friends. One of them invited me to Chinese New Year in Singapore, which wasn’t a destination in my plans. My next step was Denmark and I stayed longer than anticipated as I got a chance to do an internship with a Danish company, via my master’s programme. It was quite different from being in Portugal, because in Portugal everything was really relaxed, everyone does things in their own time. In Denmark it was different as everyone was really time efficient. They don’t work more than they need to, but they get everything done.
The same company offered me a job, but it was around the time of the financial crisis and they needed to freeze the position for a while. So I thought, why not go back to school and improve my skills and research? Something that I liked doing. I found this project in Delft University, it was going to be a sort of problem solving, practical Phd. So I applied for it, went for the interviews and fortunately got in. I made the move to the Netherlands and now, years later, problem solving has become a part of who I am. When you start a project you have a problem and possible solutions in your mind you are working towards. But sometimes the result is totally different than what you expected. You have to be imaginative, of course you need your analytical skills, but you also need to have the ability to imagine solutions outside what is presented to you. Stamicarbon is not your typical Dutch company. If you have ideas, people are willing to listen and tell you what they think, but it’s backed by facts, by reason, they don’t say things just for the sake of it. It’s direct, not rude. What I like about this position I have now, is that I get to do research, development and actual engineering work. I don’t see myself as someone being in a lab nine hours a day. I want to be in the field, do different stuff, so actually this puts all the things I want to do together. Plus the traveling, I have seen far more places in the world than I thought possible, even when I was a young boy. I still don’t have my pilot license yet, that is something I want to get at some point.
NAME kirk ofei Position Materials & Corrosion Specialist Born ACCRA, Ghana
Accra / ghana 5.5500째 N / 0.2000째 W
NAME Frederique Timmerman Position Assistant to managing director Born Bentelo, THE NETHERLANDS
BENTELO / THE NETHERLANDS 50.8500째 N / 5.6833째 E
Frederique I have always been driven by a five star mentality.
When I look to the future of Stamicarbon I believe we are going to grow towards a wider perspective and impact and have better technologies in order to serve more of the world with increased knowledge. We are working hard on getting more technologies created in-house than we have currently. Fertilizer is the most important technology we have now, but we are actively expanding into its surrounding technologies.
I have always been driven by a five star mentality. This started when I was growing up with horses and competing in professional dressage competitions. I trained a lot and whenever I entered a competition I only went if I thought I could win, otherwise I didn’t go. I have always aimed to be the best I can be. So when I studied hospitality management in Maastricht I already had a five star mentality to be the best that I could be. In addition to being the best, it is also about managing expectations and striving to exceed expectations. If someone is used to a two star experience it is easy to exceed their expectations with a five star experience. The challenge is in exceeding expectations when people are used to a five star experience. Before I joined Stamicarbon I did not know about this technology business. When I first arrived, I really had to get to know the business and the people. And after working for two years, I have to say it’s still a lot of fun to deal with all the issues in my job, from sending flowers to someone who is ill, to organizing a five star event – recently an event with clients around the European Finest Art Fair here in Maastricht. A five star event for five star people. My job is about connecting the business part with the social part. As an assistant of the managing director I sometimes act as a filter. If someone is hesitant to interrupt the managing director I help them talk about the things that are important to them. So in this way I help to connect the social aspects with the business aspects and vice versa. What is common in my work is the theme of being the best I can be and helping others do the same.
Stamicarbon has a lot to offer new people because I believe people can learn a lot in a company that continuously expands its technology and knowledge. We do this in a caring way; I would like to think in a five star way. For example, when I arrived on my first day, everything was ready, my email address was working, my laptop was ready and all the practical details. I got a tour around the whole company and was introduced to all the people that were there that day. It was a very warm welcome that was different from the other companies I had worked in. This warm welcome sends the signal that we are very professional and sociable. It makes you want to go the extra mile. We are one company and yet we have all kinds of people, all with very different characteristics working here. It’s diverse, it’s really diverse. And I believe this diversity gives opportunities, and space for you to be yourself. You get to grow with others. The culture of our company is defined by the people that are working here. So really it is up to each person to add to this, you get a lot of responsibility, so it is up to you to take it. There is a lot of trust. We are always looking for new ideas to develop our culture further. For example, we now have yoga in Stamicarbon. I had the idea because sometimes you need to relax and I don’t want to go to lunch downstairs every day, I can also do something else. This is part of our Vitality program, a program that adds to the culture of our company. Whenever someone joins I suggest they begin by walking around, talking with people, asking questions, have a coffee with people. Interact. Also, when they get a chance, go travel to see our clients and the work we have done. The Stamicarbon culture and a five star mentality extends into our projects all around the world.
Erik I am encouraged to take responsibility and get the job done.
I have always been interested in doing something creative where I could also help people, so I studied tourism. It was great that after working for a few years in a hotel and travel agency, I joined Stamicarbon and brought these interests to my job here. In my work as a management assistant I am responsible for 80% of the travel booking for Stamicarbon. Not only do we need to travel a lot, we also need to travel to particularly unusual places. So I often need to be very creative in how to solve visa applications. We are growing diversity in the nationalities of our company, and this brings unusual travel plans. A typical assignment is to get someone who is in China to Buenos Aires, tomorrow morning. Because of this work, I am in regular contact with many people in Stamicarbon, my direct colleagues of course, the licensing department, and the sales department. I am also in contact with many clients because in addition to travel plans, I also need to arrange the appointments with our clients, often rescheduling and shuffling a lot of things around. Sometimes it is hard work, but that’s what makes it fun. Ultimately, my work is about helping, supporting and, in a sense, making things work. The culture of Stamicarbon is very international. It is a fun place to work with a family dynamic, and because we are growing, there are a lot of opportunities within the company. There is a lot of room for growth and to develop one’s potential, because we get a lot of freedom to do our job. We are not restricted and are given a lot of responsibility. We nurture ideas. So in my work in getting someone from Beijing to Buenos Aires I am encouraged to take responsibility and get the job done. This creates a great sense of accomplishment, and freedom to do my job, knowing that I am trusted.
This sense of mutual respect is important because my work with clients is very diverse and sometimes hard. For example, when we are dealing with a culture that is very hierarchical, their view of my role as a secretary may not be very high. So you can imagine my experience in the hotel business is very important here to remain professional. I know Stamicarbon is a reliable partner, so when we bring you here for a visit we will take care of you. We will ensure that everything goes the way we planned it, and that you feel welcome. Part of the growth of Stamicarbon is our growing diversity, new nationalities. This means we need to learn how to approach people in a different way. And that’s something we all have to work on. We have been dealing with this for sometime now with our clients and now we need to deal with this with our own colleagues as well. And this can continue as you can imagine with the possibility of more international offices in the future as we expand into foreign countries. We are number one in our industry and we have a reputation that precedes us. I believe this is because we deliver and because we are here to serve our clients, whatever they need we are always there to help. So too am I in my role as management assistant.
NAME Erik Mestrom Position Secretary Born Sittard, The Netherlands
SITTARD / THE NETHERLANDS 51.0000째 N / 5.8667째 E
NAME Barbara Cucchiella Position Process engineer Born L’AQuila, Italy
L’Aquila / italy 42.3500° N / 13.4000° E
Barbara My life is a continuous evolution and I’m now starting to make my mark.
In the beginning, it was challenging. I wanted to prove myself in a different context, an international context, with different people, a different mentality and a different culture. To be honest, it was tougher than I had imagined. Today there is a real mix of people, but when I joined it was not like that. I was a pioneer! I think three or four years ago the official language of Stamicarbon was the Limburg dialect. And now it is becoming, not only Dutch, but even English and maybe with an influence of Spanish and Italian and so on. I’m from the Centre of Italy, from a small town called L’Aquila, unfortunately famous for the earthquake of 2009. I grew up on a farm actually, a completely different feeling to living in a big city, but it was there that I learned a lot about hard work and also about my love of being in contact with nature. My hometown university is famous for engineering. Although at that moment of my life I was actually more interested in becoming a veterinarian. Unfortunately I could not pursue this career as I have a lot of allergies, so I moved to engineering. I think that I actually made a good decision. I cannot imagine not being an engineer today. I think that I found my exact path in university. I started collaborating inside the university and I contributed to a European research project related to the hydrogen production. Also, in Italy the fun part of university was joining a lot of parties and meeting a lot of new people. When I left, it was a good moment for chemical engineers to be looking for a job. I started working for KT and stayed for five years with a lot of satisfaction. I also started working more with Stamicarbon. One day my boss stepped into my office and told me that at Stamicarbon they are looking for a process engineer. Do you want to go there? I said yes, why not? and so I moved to the Netherlands.
When I joined Stamicarbon, I thought it would be for a limited time only, but now I see my future here. It is more definite. I have new challenges to use my good skills in engineering but also in creativity and team work. I feel I can start to really put myself into the process and to put my personality in the process, to bring some fresh air and new ideas. For me, my life is a continuous evolution and I’m now starting to make my mark. My parents were really very cautious about their decisions. It is different now, I think I am a little bit more open minded than they were at that time. So maybe I have a better view of what is possible, what decisions I can make. My goal is to bring many new things into Stamicarbon. People in general are afraid of new things. I think we need more courage to do new things and to continuously learn and improve. We need to take responsibility to try something new and maybe in twenty years it will be part of Stamicarbon’s heritage. This is my culture, who I am, to always take a chance and learn from my mistakes. It is a testament to my parents and my grandparents. I learned these lessons working on the farm and putting a lot of effort into life to achieve things, and taking responsibility for my actions.
Manish I believe one of the key drivers of our innovation, is our diversity.
I am originally from The Republic of India and was born in the southern state of Kerala, however, I grew up in many different multicultural cities and states. I think this has made me adaptable and given me an insight into how things work differently in other places. I was always curious, always wanted to explore and always questioned things. I perceived things from different perspectives as I was growing up. This is still important in my work today. I continued my international experience through my work and educational experiences in the United Kingdom, in Austria, Malta, and Germany and I saw how every culture can be different. I quickly learned that even though people come from different cultural backgrounds, it is really their different skills that make them unique, not the countries they come from. If you understand this power in individuals, you understand how diversity can enrich your projects. At Stamicarbon this diversity is important because it brings different opinions to the table. As we have clients from different cultures, our diversity enables us to understand these clients and their needs better. Our diversity is of course also essential in our innovation processes. I believe that whatever ideas we have, we can always optimize them and strive for perfection. In order for our ideas to evolve over time we need to have different ways of thinking. We need people who think in different ways. Different kinds of people with different histories that can nourish the whole team. The key is to structure and finding a correlation between the ways of thinking. My goal is to better understand our clients and anticipate their needs. I manage multi-disciplinary project team members and other stakeholders by liaising with the project parties. I support ideas to be evaluated and act as a Project Manager in driving innovation projects once these are promoted to the innovation pipeline: from business feasibility, development and validation to timely commercialization and implementation. I strive to develop ideas with clients because sooner or later we may need a client to do the design validation. This is part of our guarantee, what we deliver is proven to work. By involving a client in our innovation process we not only gain new insights, we also enable the client to take ownership of the process.
By starting with a conversation to understand our client’s needs, we can involve them in our process of innovation. They become part of the process and therefore help with the validation of the new innovations. I also create and work with a pool of external diversified resources in cooperation with 3rd parties e.g. universities, engineering companies and potential clients in order to mitigate limitations of internal resources; in terms of innovation we call it “Open Innovation”. Looking to the future, innovation in our industry is essential. With the population of the world rising, there is a greater demand for food. Hence the increased demand for fertilizers. With this increase, new and more efficient innovation is needed. We must use less energy and make all processes better for the environment. Innovation is critical for us, it’s in our DNA, it drives growth. I believe one of the key drivers of our innovation, is our diversity. It is not one person or one way of thinking, rather is it about many people and collective thinking. This key driver is our diversity. It is also interesting to talk about risk. Innovation always involves risk. Our task however is to manage that risk with the diverse insights within our company and from our clients. In my past experience as an entrepreneur I learned how this can help turn risks into calculated risks. This I believe is part of the Stamicarbon entrepreneurial mindset.
NAME Manish Abraham Position New Product Development Manager Born Pandalam, India
PANDALAM / india 9.32째N / 76.73째E
NAME wim heinen Position Purchasing Manager Born beuningen, THE NETHERLANDS
Beuningen / THE NETHERLANDS 51.8667째 N / 5.7833째 E
Wim I’m fifty-eight and I still see a lot of ways to develop myself.
At that moment I thought, you have to sell everything. I imagined myself walking along the street begging for money to feed my kids. But my friends convinced me, “okay Wim, you are a good guy, there is a whole world waiting for you, go after it”. That is what I did, I put my energy into my network. And my network is still important today working for Stamicarbon. For me, it is very easy to get on the phone, call somebody and get some advice or get some help. From a purchasing point of view, I don’t pretend to know everything. If I need some special information or assistance or whatever, that is easily shared here. Generally, I believe, if I really had a problem, everybody would help to find a solution. From my youngest age traveling was in me. I knew no different. My father and mother were living on a ship before we decided to move to a house and even today, sometimes when I’m quite stressed, I like to go to the canal and just look at the boats. It relaxes me. All throughout my career I’ve traveled. I remember when the opportunity to move to Stamicarbon came along. It was a really tough decision, as I already had what I considered to be a good job. I then remembered somebody once telling me that if you are going to move from one company to another to write down a list as to why you are leaving the first company and why you should consider going to the next company. With Stamicarbon, the positives to move outweighed the negatives. It was the correct move. At Stamicarbon, if you do your part, you are given a lot of freedom and the opportunity to develop yourself. I’m fifty-eight and I still see a lot of ways to develop myself. After I left technical school, I worked as a mechanical engineer. I started working and I grew up. Thereafter, I worked as a sales guy, but I had small kids and being out all day was a little bit difficult to combine with my family-life. I left that job to work for a three man company. After that, I was invited to work for Heidelberg Cement as an international purchaser. I really liked it but at a certain moment the market for many industries, especially cement crashed and 50% of the people were told to find a new job due to the reorganization of the company.
As a company we are very close. The people here are really experienced, they won’t let you down. One of the best examples of this I heard was when one of my colleagues had a heart attack whilst working abroad. In the shortest time our travel desk arranged a ticket to the location so that his wife and colleagues could be with him. With our technology we give people the opportunity to do something good in the world. One of the nice things about our technology is that we can feed the world indirectly. It’s a great feeling. So yes, this is definitely a good place, but my experience tells me you never know what might happen in three to four years. I always wanted to visit one country since I was a kid of 6, 7 or 8 years old which is Australia, because for me that is a country with an open view. And what happened? Back then I was 20. I had a job here, a car and then I met my wife. Do we want to go to Australia? Not right now, but you never know. Maybe if I received an unbelievable job offer from an Australian company, even better than Stamicarbon, maybe then I would have to write down new lists. Right now I live in Belgium and every day I have to cross the border. The shortest way is via the ferry, I always tell people I start and end my day with a (mini) cruise. It only takes three minutes, but everyday I get the same feeling - I’m going on holiday…
Thought Lines Inspiring conversations about dreams, journeys & career paths Issue One august 2015 stamicarbon
At Stamicarbon we like to lead the way. We strive to develop and apply new techniques, explore unchartered areas of knowledge and engage in new activities. We also encourage our employees to balance ownership and entrepreneurship as they undertake responsibility in the search for the best solution for your problem, because that’s when we can share the most exciting discoveries. Interviews conducted by Bob Gray & Paul Hughes Adaptive cultures Photography by matthew thompson designed by red&Grey Design printed by newspaper club