Harriet Watson

Sales Executive – Trading

I grew up on a farm and I have always been passionate about understanding where my food comes from. I studied Agribusiness and Food Marketing at Lincoln University to develop the skills and tools so I could contribute to taking the New Zealand story to the world. I feel like there is plenty of opportunity at ANZCO to share premium New Zealand products with people around the world.

I’ve been at ANZCO since April 2018 when I started as a Sales and Marketing Intern during my first holidays when studying at Lincoln University. I was fortunate to be able to come to ANZCO every holiday throughout 2018, 2019, and 2020. As part of the intern role, I spent time in various departments around the business including with the logistics team, the local sales team (Including working at some food shows), working with the export sales team and reception, giving me a good understanding of the wider business.

In my current Sales Executive – Trading role I support the team with order entry, following up shipments and keeping customers informed. I also work on some marketing projects.

Everyday there are new challenges to tackle. I enjoy working directly with customers to reach solutions to challenges, that suit ANZCO and its businesses. The people at ANZCO make it an awesome place to work. I enjoy being able to come to work, learn and achieve things, and also have fun at the same time.

The opportunity to work at ANZCO during my holidays helped me significantly throughout my degree. Being able to learn in the industry at work, and then relate what I was doing, back to my courses at Uni was very helpful. Having real world knowledge and experience gave me a much more thorough understanding of what I was learning and enabled me to get some alright grades too!

In addition, the opportunity to step into my current role before I had finished Uni gave me huge confidence in myself, and also enabled me to improve my time management skills and focus on prioritising what was important to me. I feel like this has set the foundations for me to have an ideal work-life balance as I head into my career. The variety in my current role keeps me interested and engaged in my work – I enjoy coming to work each day.

And, I enjoy being able to contribute to an industry which is so important to New Zealand. I feel like there is huge potential to improve the image of New Zealand’s meat industry on the global stage, and this is something I am excited about contributing to.

I’ve enjoyed seeing ANZCO’s focus develop to be increasingly about adding value to customers with a focus on delivering quality. I am excited to see this continue to develop in the future.

As part of the sales team, we are lucky to be able to collaborate with many other teams at ANZCO. In my role, I work a lot with the logistics team. It’s great to understand the processes they go through. I also enjoy engaging with the rest of the sales team, and understanding the challenges and opportunities they have in their markets.

Through University I was also supported by the Meat Industry Association (MIA). I’ve been fortunate to be an MIA Scholar for the past three years and I’m now part of their alumni. Their support to work in the industry, and their involvement throughout my time at Uni, really solidified my interest in the industry.