Tristan Bower MInstD

My focus is to help global companies in chemical, food, beverage and other industrial markets with their challenges and pain points. Its also to support my team’s success. We are at the start of Floveyor's journey supporting end users directly in specific regions. We have traditionally run through agents in most parts of the world so we have many exciting and insightful times ahead!

I support my wife's start-up well being, health and fitness brand. It's hugely important that we focus on our health & wellbeing in all facets of life; there are so many individual, social and family benefits in doing so. It's great to be involved in a start up. We have learned some very important business essentials, and made a lot of mistakes, over a short timeframe! Such a rollercoaster ride starting a business from scratch; even more wild when your wife is the founder and entrepreneur :-)

The purpose of my role was to establish and grow a new B2B business unit. This sat within a large and mature retail / FMCG focused company. Key responsibilities included leading a multi-location sales team and own the function’s P&L. I was to also develop our sales model covering business development, prospecting and account management, and build a strategy for current and new markets in NZ and overseas. To be successful we also need to build new relationships with decisions makers and influencers across many segments. Internally I needed to influence stakeholders to drive positive change for the Commercial Business Unit. Be a key S&OP contributor, drive product development and be the customers' voice for innovation. What the team achieved was staggering: • Double digit revenue growth, and a <200% customer acquisition rate, in spite of a global pandemic and 1-in-100 year droughts which negatively effected 80% of our product portfolio. • A pipeline valued at >250% annual sales with national and overseas prospects • Led the establishment of a new supply hub to service North Island customers from the Christchuch head office, NPD for new commercial herbicides and CRM implementation. • Developed the “Kiwicare Sales Process” to guide us. This was in conjunction with my team to ensure they owned the process as well. The result gave us the ability to be more agile and focused on higher yielding opportunities. It also provided for a shortened sales cycle and a standardised, high quality customer experience • Established and nurtured relationships with NZ’s largest Councils, key central government departments and major infrastructure and facilities management companies at C-suite, GM, Procurement and Ops Management levels

This role saw me lead a culturally diverse, international sales & support team spread across 3 countries and 4 offices. I owned the function’s P&L. Main Responsibilities • Management of GEA’s global powder handling and packing "Engineering, Procurement, and Construction" sales activities involving mechanical, automation, electrical and process scope. Solutions enquiries varied between $NZ 0.5M and $NZ 35M, and our total pipeline value was $NZ 600M. • Negotiate contracts with many of the world’s top food producers, ensuring GEA’s key business risks were managed, and acceptable profitability was achieved. • Set annual targets, KPIs and forecasting budgets which were cascaded down from the overall business plan. This provided clarity to our operations team for their resource and capacity planning. Major Achievements • I managed sales activities during high growth periods. We doubled revenue between 2013 to 2016. • I led the development of sales tools including a costing database and risk assessment and stakeholder management model. These provided for a consist methodology for sales quoting and minimised risks for the project once it was handed over to the execution & engineering teams. • I led the commercial “bundling” of GEA’s powder packing (Avapac) & powder handling (Nu-Con) solutions. The resultant offering gave a key point of difference. I managed the combined sales function from 2015. • I was able to develop and strengthen relationships with many of the globe’s top dairy and food producers, along with GEA agents who acted as some of our sales channels. I drafted and negotiated formal agreements (NDAs, MOUs) to facilitate new business opportunities with partners around the world. • I developed and rolled out the business' sales strategy. This leveraged key GEA sales offices in Singapore, China, USA and Brazil. • I co-led, with the SMT, the change management process for the global restructure. This implemented the “OneGEA” model into our NZ entities

The sales leadership function was split to provide focus on the growing F&P segments. I led 2 direct reports to grow revenue across current accounts and prospects for all our products. Over 1 year we achieved an additional $1M of revenue. I learned how to coach team members and provide them with “guard rails” to enable them to make more decisions themselves. I also ensured that their KPIs were specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and timebound, and they were accountable for their results. I created a tool to ensure prospective business was able to be provided for by the main internal functions such as Production, Supply Chain and Procurement. This was to eliminate over promising and under delivering to our customers and strengthened my S&OP skills.

I saw that there was opportunity to increase the “share of wallet” with current products across our larger industrial customers. I presented a business plan to our Managing Director and this was approved. I then owned the execution of the plan and deepened the relationships with Carter Holt Harvey, Coca Cola Amatil, Fletcher Challenge, Fonterra, Open Country Dairy and Refining New Zealand. As their single-point-of-contact, I captured $0.6M of additional revenue across the accounts, and negotiated equipment changes which contributed to annual savings for ALNZ of $0.1M. I learned more about what the world looked like in our customers’ eyes. I was then able to propose solutions to reduce their OPEX and increase productivity.

This role was the start of my commercial career path. It allowed me to develop skills around negotiation, relationship building, stakeholder management, strategy and business plan setting and execution. I had exposure to all major industries in NZ including food, beverage, agri-chemical, pharmaceutical, healthcare, utilities and oil & gas. During my tenure I secured $3.1M of new supply agreements negotiating with multiple stakeholders between C-suite and middle management. Deals were often complex as they involved a high level of capex on both sides, many influencers and decision makers and a long contract term. I also led customer focus initiatives such as developing a contract management system for customer contracts and price management, and adapting AL’s generic P&L tool and supply agreement to better represent local market conditions & regulations.

My very first taste of a management role where I led a team of national service engineers. We were responsible for design, installation, commissioning and ongoing maintenance of capital equipment. This was to provide uninterrupted supplies of gas to customers in almost all industrial segments in NZ. The overall programme of works I managed was $5M and my annual maintenance budget was $1M which I underspent across all 3 years in the role.