Toni Brendish
Managing Director, Danone Dumex (Malaysia)
Toni Brendish is the Managing Director of Danone Dumex Sdn Bhd in Malaysia, part of Danone: a Fortune 500 company which is one of the most successful healthy food companies in the world. Toni is responsible for the Malaysian and Brunei businesses as well as the Nilai Supply Point which supplies South East Asia. The business she oversees employs in excess of 450 people covering Manufacturing, Finance, Sales and Marketing.
Prior to this role, Toni was Managing Director of Nutricia Australia and New Zealand (another Danone Groupe company), where she was responsible for spearheading the firm's growth as one of Australasia's leading manufacturers of baby food. During Toni's management, Nutricia secured the position of fastest growing product in Australasia for the Baby Food category and doubled the size of the business in only four years.
Toni's previous experience spans companies such as Kimberly-Clark Australia, Unilever Australia, Coca-Cola (UK), Rank Hovis McDougall (UK), Colgate Palmolive Australia, Telstra (Australia) and Orange/Hutchison Telecommunications.
Toni has a Bachelor of Commerce from Melbourne University, a Post Graduate Diploma from the University of Sydney and she is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. Toni is married to Mark Baker and has two children, Joshua and Catherine. |
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Expat Women's Interview with Toni |
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| Expat Women: Toni, what has your experience been as a Managing Director in Malaysia, in terms of respect from employees in each of your manufacturing, finance, sales and marketing divisions, and in terms of your access to key business people in a predominantly Muslim and male-dominated society? |
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Toni: Firstly I think it is important to distinguish between being respectful and being respected. In the former, my experience is that Malaysia, and in particular a society where Muslims are the dominant religious group, is incredibly respectful. 'Being respected' is in my view something that takes time; you need to prove yourself and you need to be consistent in what you say and what you do, over time, to earn the respect of others. Having been in Malaysia for only just over one year, I think that I am working my way into that respect and am very conscious of the need to be consistent in what I say and what I do.
It is true that Malaysia appears to be a male-dominated workplace at very senior levels in companies. However, coming from Australia where we have less than 9 percent of women represented on Boards in our most significant companies, I am not really in a position to cast aspersions. Interestingly, I do find that in the Government sector, where we do a lot of work, there are a lot more women at senior levels. Also with our major customers, I get to work with a lot of very senior and competent women. |
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| Expat Women: Coming from Australia to Malaysia, what differences have you found in how you market your company's food products to your target consumer group? |
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Toni: The main difference is the fact that Australia and New Zealand are such large dairy markets. They have enormous access to fresh milk and associated dairy products. What we see in many parts of Asia and Malaysia is that fresh dairy is more limited and thus there is a greater use of powdered milk products. This requires us to adjust our strategy in how we position our products. |
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Expat Women: Toni, you were at the helm of Nutricia when it impressively doubled the size of its business in Australasia. What strategies can we learn from your successful outcome?
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Toni: The key thing for me is developing a clear Vision; what it is that you want the company to be or look like in five years. Then, agree with the team how you are going to get there. Once you have that alignment, the MD's job becomes pretty simple... to get out of the way and allow people to make it happen! Of course, there will be obstacles and then you need to move them or find ways around them, but I firmly believe when you have a great team, then what they want to do is get on with the job.
The other success factor was to develop a set of Values for the company that would provide our framework for working. It gave people more empowerment in that instead of thinking is this in the policy or outside of the policy they could ask themselves, "Do I think this is in line with our Values?" I believe this was one of the reasons why we had such high staff morale and ultimately, why we were successful as a business. |
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| Expat Women: What has been your biggest career challenge and how did you overcome that challenge? |
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Toni: In 2007, we had a business crisis (in Australia/New Zealand) involving a bureaucratic dispute with a Government department. The crisis went on for 20 months and was incredibly draining on all of the team involved. We were ultimately successful and vindicated in court, however it provided a huge learning experience for all of us involved in the process and while at the time I found it incredibly exhausting, I am grateful for the experience. It taught me the importance of resilience, the need to involve and communicate effectively with internal stakeholders and also how to engage external stakeholders. |
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| Expat Women: What five tips can you offer to career women aspiring to reach the CEO level? |
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Toni: The first thing I would say is, everyone is an individual and unique and therefore what works for one will not necessarily work for another. These are the things that worked for me: |
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Do not be a superwoman: use all of the resources that everyone offers you – and this includes family and friends who offer to look after your kids, feed you or anything else that helps you juggle your life. |
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Forget work-life balance; there is no such thing. There are times when work is in balance and then when life is in balance. It is rare that they both balance at the same time! |
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Be generous – with your time, your advice and your experience. Mentor when you can, give back as much as you possibly can to others who are aspiring to improve their careers. Also be generous to yourself, take time to keep fit and keep healthy, relax and take time out for you. |
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Get out of your comfort zone – make sure you are continually challenged so you are learning and open to new ideas. This means stepping outside your existing industry and network; and |
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Network all the time: make the time to meet new people, and again, be generous with your time and experience. |
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| Expat Women: Finally, you brought to Malaysia your accompanying spouse and family. What words of wisdom can you offer to senior career women like yourself who struggle to juggle work and family responsibilities? |
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Toni: I have been incredibly lucky to have an extremely supportive husband and two amazingly adaptable children. When we were considering this move, our main concern was the children and how they would cope. That turned out to be the least of our worries as the children were the first to adapt and make friends.
My advice would be that moving is a great experience if you come with an open mind and are prepared to accept that things are different and the difference can be very exciting. Also you do need to do your research: listen to what people tell you about suburbs, schools, relocating and so on, and then spend time looking and forming your own views.
The best piece of advice I got was "be nice to each other" in the context of your partner. Moving is very stressful and you rely very heavily on each other, so be good to each other.
Finally: enjoy it and make the most of it. It is a great experience for me and I am learning so much in my role here, plus we are seeing so many new places and meeting so many interesting people. This is exactly what we hoped it would be – an adventure. |
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| Expat Women:Toni, thank you very much for sharing your hard-earned wisdom with us and we wish you all the best in Malaysia! |
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August 2010 |
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