Becoming an airline pilot and flying all over the world. This was the childhood dream of Anja Meulemans, a GROUP T Electromechanics Engineer. Although she never became a pilot, she still harbors a travel bug and an interest in other cultures. Anja's career has a strong international focus and the cherry on top for her was a job as Process Specialists Lead-Customer Service at the Nestlé Globe Center in Rhodes (Australia).
Anja Meulemans: “Engineers do it with vision. GROUP T’s slogan from my student years is still my motto.” (Foto: Filip Van Loock)
It is easy to refer to Anja as an all-round engineer. A true GROUP T engineer who not only has strong technical skills but who is also entrepreneurial, who continues to evolve and who is willing to go off the beaten path and accept new challenges, not only here in her own backyard but also and preferably in far-off places. In her last year of high school, Anja went on a school-organized study trip to Russia. “That was precisely at a decisive moment in history”, she recounts. “The Berlin wall and the iron curtain had come down, communism had imploded and the immense country was undergoing a real metamorphosis. Coincidentally or not, a couple of years later GROUP T started an exchange program with the Power Engineering Institutes in Moscow. Working with the university college and our Russian friends, I organized two ambitious projects: two weeks in Saint-Petersburg and Moscow for the GROUP T students and a couple of months later, two weeks in Leuven and Flanders for the Russians. Russian entrepreneurs also came along then. They sponsored the trip because it was a unique opportunity for them to set foot on soil outside of the Soviet Union for the first time.”
Blitz career
Anja graduated in 1994 and could start immediately at Hessenatie Logistics in Antwerp. There she started a true blitz career. First as a simple interim, and then with a fixed contract after just one week, and less than six months later she was already a manager, responsible for the construction of a European distribution center for a customer of Dupont de Nemours. “It was a hectic period”, she vividly recalls. “But also a great learning experience. You could really show what you had going for you in every way, not only technologically but also as regards management, communication and organization skills, you name it.”
In March 1997, Dupont was taken over by Stirling and Anja's international career kicked into high gear. The company asked her to guide the implementation of SAP with customers in local branches in Delaware (USA). As Customer Lead, she then worked in Canada and the USA for eight months.
“As time went by, I felt less and less at home in Belgium”, Anja continues. “After a couple of holidays with a friend in Australia, I made up my mind. From now on, I would focus on fulfilling that dream: being able to live and work in this immense country.”
Breakthrough
In 1998, Anja transfered to Price Waterhouse Coopers to guide projects abroad. Her job brought her to Liverpool with General Electrics and subsequently a year in Hungary and a couple of months with Philips in Eindhoven. In 2000, she took four months off to embark on a great journey to places like Singapore, New Zealand, Hong Kong and, where else, Australia.
That same year, her career took an important turn. Price Waterhouse Coopers sent her to the headquarters of Nestlé in Switzerland to support the company in drawing up the SAP globe template. “Along with a design team, assisted by three globe centers in Germany, USA and Australia, I provided the support in implementing SAP in the local branches of the company. I did that for two and a half years in Switzerland and subsequently for more than three and a half years all over the world, Chile, Peru and mainly in UK.”
In May 2006, there was a decisive breakthrough: there was a job vacancy at Nestlé in Australia. Considering her Nestlé track record, Anja's interview was a pro forma operation. “Nestlé arranged everything for my accommodation and moving my stuff to Sydney. I stayed in a hotel for a while and from there I made all my arrangements. Where do you find a car? How does the tax system work? The insurance? In late February 2007, Anja moved into her own apartment near the ocean.
Healthy balance
Anja describes her average day as follows: “Get up, go for a swim in the ocean until the traffic jams are finished, then drive 24 kilometers to the western suburb, get home around 6 or 7 pm, immediately go outside again, swim, bike, run. You work hard, only 20 days off every year, but life and work is less stressful in Australia than in Belgium. There is a healthy balance between job and private life, also because Australians mainly live outdoors. After all, there are about 340 days of sun per year.”
In Australia, Anja leads a team of nine that takes care of the customer service for the entire Australasian continent, Asia and Africa from the Globe Center in Sydney. Because there is a time slot of ten hours that needs to be bridged, Anja's Globe Center is busy almost 24 hours a day.
Anja's future is in Australia, that much is certain. Now she has the status of permanent resident, but meanwhile the procedure for dual citizenship has been started. “Then I will be a true citizen, although as permanent resident I can already make use of all services”, she says.
Vision
Anja’s best memories are from her studies at GROUP T. It was a great period and not only because of the Russian adventure. “What I learned in Leuven, I can summarize in one word: vision. Daring to think differently, coloring outside the lines, examining every facet of a problem. 'Engineers do it with vision', GROUP T's slogan from my student years, is still my motto.”
Yves Persoons
