Nord Anglia International school (NAIS) is a top-tier British school in Shanghai, member of Nord Anglia Education group. I teach Business Management and Spanish (KS3, IGCSE and IB), and work as University Counsellor.

Contract position, in charge of the global sales & marketing team for a leading manufacturer of candy toys and novelties, with the project of modernizing and internationalizing the firm, opening new customers and markets, develop, register and launch at ISM 2025 the manufacturer’s own brand, and reorganize the sales team to cope with future business.

I independently set-up and managed the Buying Office in Hong Kong of Spain’s most successful toy company. This project included setting-up the legal entity, bank account opening, office renovation, recruitment, training, definition of organizational procedures, and the management of all operations (administration, new product development, QA-QC, production & logistic operations, both in Hong Kong and Mainland China.

I managed the sales subsidiary in China of the Spanish lighter manufacturer FLAMAGAS (CLIPPER brand) from April 2013 until Dec 2019, with a dedicated Sales and Marketing team (10-20 staff). Until Sep 2018, I also acted as Sales Area Manager Asia for Japan, S.Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong, supporting the Regional Sales Manager-APAC in those markets.FLAMAGAS, one of the top-3 manufacturers of lighters in the world, is the FMCG division of the PUIG Group (www.puig.com), a family-owned Spanish conglomerate founded in 1914, with interests in high-end fashion & retail, luxury perfumes, fragrances, cosmetics, and FMCG (lighters, stationery and consumer electronics). CLIPPER lighters, with their unique round shape and features (refillable, ISO 9994-certified, trendy & collectable designs, with tobacco pressing tool...) is the worlds favorite top-quality plastic refillable lighter, undisputed # 1 in many key markets (UK, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Turkey… among others). In China FLAMAGAS has its own manufacturing facilities and a commercial subsidiary. Nowadays Clipper is one of the leaders of the quality plastic lighter market, and it can be found online and offline in the best e-commerce platforms (T-Mall, Taobao, JD...), the leading convenience store chains (Meiyijia, Family Mart, Lawson, 7/11...), and the main traditional wholesale markets across the country. It is also regularly used as a promotional lighter by the largest tobacco and beer companies in China (China Tobacco and Snow Beer).

I managed in Spain the structure of the Belgian retailer of home decoration and small furniture CASA. I had full P&L ownership, with responsibilities over +100 million Euro of sales, +100 shops, and +1,000 staff (50% of them franchises), including a back-office team of Area Managers, Administration and Maintenance staff. I also coordinated the Portuguese subsidiary (+20 shops, +200 staff) during an interim 4-months period due to the maternity leave of the local Manager.CASA (www.casashops.com) is part of the BLOKKER holding, a family-owned Dutch company that owns several chains of stores and is active in 12 countries with almost 3,000 stores, including large retail chains as Blokker (general appliances retailer, +800 shops), CASA (home decoration retailer, +500 shops), Intertoys & Bar Smit (toy retailers, with +300 and +230 shops respectively), and many other smaller specialized chains. In 2015 the holding had a revenue of 2.1 billion Euro. CASA itself has +500 shops in 8 countries, being Spain the second largest operation after France.

I managed the Hong Kong and China (Dongguan) buying offices and commercial showroom, in charge of all the global activities of Product Development, Order Processing, Purchasing, QA/QC and Shipping of IMC Toys. I had full responsibilities over +50million US$ of FOB sales, a budget of +3million US$, and +60 staff (including Engineering & Production, QA/QC, Printing, Finance & Administration teams).IMC Toys is the largest Spanish toy company, focused in electronic licensed toys (it is one of the main licensees of Disney, Mattel and other top licenses). IMC Toys’ products are sold to the main distributors worldwide (TRU, Wal-Mart, Carrefour, Auchan, Tesco, Metro, ECI...). See www.imctoys.es

Reporting to the President of the company in Spain´s HQ (IMAGINARIUM), and the General Manager of Hong Kong´s subsidiary (ITSIMAGICAL HONG KONG LTD.), I worked in the areas of Retail Expansion & Product Development. I directly coordinated with HQ and external partners the first expansion projects in Hong Kong for Imaginarium (expansion strategy, market research, screening of potential franchisees, negotiation with Landlords, coordination of the opening project, recruitment...), opening the first 3 shops in Asia. I was also directly in charge of the Product Development & Purchasing of a range of educational toys of the vendors/categories assigned to me (negotiation of costs, product development and samples, order follow-up...).IMAGINARIUM is an up-scale Spanish educational toy company that operates a chain of almost 400 shops in 28 countries (see www.imaginarium.es).

Reporting to the General Manager of Asia, and the Director of Marketing of the Export Department, I set-up the structure in Asia of the Candy Toy business unit of JOYCO GROUP (4 staff), and independently coordinated all Purchasing, Sourcing and Development activities of candy toys in China for European markets, including negotiation and selection of suppliers in China (factory selection, audits, price negotiation, product development follow-up...) and QC/QA issues (including product QA testing in the lab, pre-shipment inspection...).JOYCO (with well-known brands of kids confectionery such as Boomer, Solano, Chimos, TaTa...) was the confectionery division of AGROLIMEN, a family owned multinational Spanish holding founded by the Carulla family in 1937. In 2004 AGROLIMEN sold JOYCO (by then ranked #1 Spanish confectionery company, and #9 worldwide) to the American multinational chewing-gum company Wrigley (that in turn was acquired by the giant Mars in 2008). Currently (2016) AGROLIMEN is present in many different sectors, and is still the owner of many famous brands & companies: Gallina Blanca (soups), Pans & Company and Bocatta (fast-food chains), Affinity (#6 pet food in the world) and BiCentury (dietary snacks). In the past, the holding also invested in other known companies, such as Click Air/Vueling airlines, Trinaranjus drinks, Arbora & Ausonia (a JVC with Procter & Gamble in Spain, with brands such as Dodot, Ausonia, Tampax...).

Summer internship during my MBA studies. I supported the Regional Marketing Managers of SMINT preparing analisys of competitors, market intellegence reports, helping to execute merchandising projects, giving administrative support...CHUPACHUPS (www.chupachups.com) was a Spanish multinational confectionery company founded by the Bernat family in 1958 (the SMINT subsidiary brand/company, part of Chupachups group, was founded in 1994). In 2000 it was #10 in the ranking of confectionery firms worldwide. The company was purchased in 2006 by the Italian multinational corporation Perfetti Van Melle, and its products (including Smint) are sold in +150 countries

During my final year at High School, and all along my studies at University (1990-1997), I took different seasonal and part-time positions compatible with my studies, both in the the UK and Spain (in F&B retail chains and hotels). Among others, I worked for PEPSICO/PIZZA HUT (1992) in Valencia/SPAIN and PIZZA EXPRESS in York/UK (1996 and 1997)