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Michel
SEGALOWITCH
French citizen
Totalgaz. Sales Supervisor, Domestic Segment,
Lyons, France.
Pau Ecole Supérieure de Commerce
graduate.
Has spent over eight years working in Sales
and Marketing.
My very first job after graduating was with
a university press organisation. It was
a fixed-term contract and I was their Sales
Manager.
Choosing Totalgaz.
I was also looking for a job at the time,
and remember applying for an Account Executive
position that Totalgaz had advertised in
the newspapers. They had positions across
France. I had also been in touch with other
companies. But I chose Totalgaz because
of the culture, the array of business lines
and the career-development opportunities
they could offer.
Even though I’m from Nîmes,
in the south of France, I started out as
Account Executive in Limoges, which is roughly
in the centre. I was in charge of developing
sales of propane to the Domestic Segment,
and of a network of prescribing heating
specialists in my area. I spent three years
there, and time just flew by.
Sales to Marketing.
Then I moved to Headquarters as Marketing
Manager for the same Domestic Segment. It
was a logical and expected move. I set up
new tools and ran operations for sales teams
and the prescribing heating specialists.
However, I’m more at home in the field
and, two years down the road, I felt ready
to go for a new field experience.
I was appointed Regional Manager for the
Toulouse area and discovered a new market,
Fuel GPL. My job still involved developing
sales, but there it was through the service-station
network and among GR cardholders. It was
a chance to work with the network (which
is the Group’s main showcase in France)
for a couple of years.
Team management.
Then, in 2004, I moved to Lyons to serve
as Sales Supervisor at Regional Headquarters.
And I moved back to the Domestic Market
I had started out in. It was my first management
experience, too. I was supervising a team
of nine Account Executives selling propane
in tanks across the Rhone-Alps region.
Now? I’d like to spend the next three
or four years doing a good job where I am,
and then move on to another region or market.
I trust my company, and I understand where
it strikes the balance between mobility
and patience. And I know it will offer me
exciting challenges.
Career development is not a goal in itself.
I just think it’s the natural outcome
of investing a lot of energy in what you
do. Hard work can move mountains.
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