Leadership Series: From translation dreams to leading Customer Experience at Unibake
We introduce Jane Leth Jørgensen, our Senior Manager of Customer Experience & Communication at Lantmännen Unibake Denmark. Jane joined Unibake in 2010, and her journey has been anything but typical. Check out this interview series and find out how.
When I was young, I wanted to be a translator working in the EU. I took a degree in English and French at the university and got an internship during my studies at the Royal Danish Embassy in France. I quickly realized two things. Translation in real time is hard and quite boring. When I finished my education, I got a job as PA at Lantmännen Unibake Denmark in 2010. Today, I’m responsible for the Customer Experience & Communication team in Unibake Denmark Frozen. We develop internal and external marketing campaigns and communication.
In 2015, I was appointed Group Digital Manager. Up until then digitalization in Lantmännen Unibake was roughly speaking a matter of having a website with nice imagery and contact information to customer service. Digital wasn’t perceived as a business-critical capability, so we had to start by understanding its potential and how to scale. At our yearly kick-off event, I remember giving a presentation with the headline “Digital is the new black”. I stood on stage and talked about how we could use digital investments to support our business and increase sales. During my presentation there was spontaneous applause, and I could tell from people’s eyes that I nailed it. Afterwards our CFO came up to me and asked what we could achieve if we invest significantly more in our digital capabilities. That was a defining moment for me, my career, and our digitalization journey in general.
My best career advice came from an external consultant. In a sparring session I took her through my areas of responsibility in Unibake. As part of the session, she asked me to name my biggest results, and when I repeatedly said that I had been ‘lucky’ with this and that, she firmly said: Your successes can only be explained with your talent and your hard work. It has nothing to do with luck. Remember that! She taught me to own my ambitions and take pride in my wins.
You probably know the saying: You can’t be what you can’t see. During my time in Lantmännen Unibake, it has been important for me to have these role models to look up to and be inspired by both in terms of performance and behavior. The very first role model I met in this company was our CEO at that time. She was in her early thirties, had a couple of kids, and was powerful and very dedicated. I came straight out of college, and I hadn’t experienced that kind of leadership before. I also remember that she had a great deal of confidence in me. I have tried to use that feeling of being trusted as a compass for my own leadership style.
There are several things I look for when I hire new employees. Firstly, we want team players. Results are something we achieve together. Secondly, we always try to imagine what kind of competencies we need in the future to keep our front-running position in the market. For instance, being data-driven is a top priority for the entire company. Consequently, we need to bring in strong competencies within data analysis and visualization. Because we know that navigating by data will become increasingly important for us.
Lantmännen Unibake has a strong culture of execution, and we take a quite structured approach when we execute – especially on the strategic projects. Nevertheless, we also
sometimes make mistakes. At some point I invested in expensive marketing automation software that proved to be way too complex. Afterwards, a colleague said to me: Sometimes you win, and sometimes you learn. What I learned from that experience is that at times I need to take my foot off the speeder and stay curious. 8 out of 10 decisions in our day-to-day job are taken rather quickly. The hard part is to know when to hit the brakes, stay curious, and ask for advice before you decide what’s next.