Name: Sylvain Darnil
Born: 7th of February 1980
Nationality: French
Status: Single
Function: Team Leader, Nestlé Group Audit
Hobbies: Trekking, Sailing, Biking, Photography, Squash, Soccer & Golf. 2000: Assistant to an Export Manager at Henkel (France).
January 2001: Financial Analyst for Sun Microsystems GmbH (Germany).
June 2001: Post Graduation in Business Administration - ESSCA Management School - Angers (France).
2002: Financial Analyst for Peugeot (Brazil).
2003/04: Co-author of " Heroes for the Planet / Around the World in 80 People ", a book highlighting sustainable development companies throughout the world and the entrepreneurs which created them. (50.000 copies sold, translated into 7 languages and winner of 2 national literature prizes).
2005: International Auditor at Nestlé Group Audit (missions in Tunisia, Middle-East, France, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, Canada, Ivory Coast, US).
2007: Promoted to Team Leader (mission in Switzerland).
SYLVAIN'S TESTIMONIAL
As a young graduate, I was eager to learn the most and the fastest possible to deeply understand how a company is successful in the long term. Not only focused on finance (as audit is usually associated with) but on a broader set of areas such as sales, marketing, supply chain or sustainable development. I do not know any other position that enables young professionals to learn as much in such a short period of time. During those 2 and ½ years, I got to drastically improve my hard skills. But most importantly, I learned management and leadership styles as I found myself dealing with top managers straight from the beginning. Thus, I built a strong network in all the countries I was sent to, from the factory floors to the market heads' offices.
Within the department, I got to meet people from various countries (23 at the moment), all brilliant, open, curious and often wild. I can still remember my team leader flying me on a small Cesna throughout the West coast of the US, playing soccer with a teammate and young kids on the beaches of Ivory Coast, enjoying the Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro or seeing U2 in the mythic Stadio Azteca in Mexico.
But this crazy life has also some drawbacks. From a personal viewpoint, I am away from my home country at least 36 weeks per year; I do not see my girlfriend, my family and my friends very often. This can be tough at some stage and hard to deal with, especially as the workload is significant (you hardly ever work less than 12 hours a day) and you're constantly under time pressure. I believe that to succeed and sustain in this position, you have to be energetic, patient and really know what you're aiming for in your next career step.
As far as I'm concerned, one of the main reasons why I joined NGA was to get a chance to participate in the Popular Priced Products initiative after audit. This project aims at selling Nestlé products in slums of developing countries by fighting the same misconception as micro-credit at its birth: "stop considering the poors as non-consumers". To reach them and bring nutritional solutions that meet their specific needs, one must come up with highly innovative products and routes-to-market, totally different from the mainstream. That is what Nestlé is already doing in Brazil with huge business perspectives. If I can be part of that, I will be aligned with the substance of my book. I am deeply confident in the fact that the NGA experience and exposure will help me to get there!