Procurement for growth

Since October 2023, Christine Berg has been Chief Procurement Officer (CPO) at Beiersdorf AG. Her responsibility covers an organization of around 300 people in nearly 40 locations worldwide. Whether buying ingredients, packaging, logistic services, creative TV spots, agency services or investments for our sites: Procurement is strategically overseeing more than 100 spend categories for all our brands and functions. We spoke to Christine about her focus for procurement.

I took the first 100 days as an opportunity to listen and analyze. I have been working in procurement for more than 20 years, and this was the perfect point of time to reflect and get an outsight in view. I did more than 60 onboarding talks with stakeholders and sessions with over 20 teams from all areas and regions. This was an immensely enriching and valuable input. In addition, we looked at benchmarks, reviewed your digital readiness and revisited all strategic parameters to find the perfect way forward.

Over the past few years, we have successfully undergone a transformation to a global, efficient and effective organization. Now, it is key to stabilize our new ways of working and optimize our operational excellence to provide a competitive edge for Beiersdorf. We want to go “forward together for growth” – this is the headline of our procurement compass.

In line with our company strategy, we focus more than ever on growth. This is reflected in our vision and in the ambition and cascaded down in four strategic priorities. We will more than ever strengthen collaboration with the business to work together on strategies for growth, be it to find innovations from the market or work together on our sustainability pledges like net zero as well as human and labor rights. Our ambition is to be more closely connected to the company’s overall objectives. A central topic will also be talent attraction and talent development for a future fit organization.

Julia is responsible in the Corporate Communications team for communications around Beiersdorf's NIVEA brand and our OSCAR&PAUL brands, e.g. Skin Stories. Her focus is on global topics such as brand positioning, brand purpose and social mission, and the body care and sun care categories.