Going Global While Building Relationships that Endure

As the COVID-19 pandemic rapidly spread, a past colleague from the Middle East emailed me with this very personal message: “I always think of you during my praying and ask my God to protect you.”

From Cairo to Mumbai, I’ve been receiving messages like this from past colleagues or as I call them, my “global family.”

For twenty years, I led a company that became a worldwide player and influencer in food diagnostics. We made the world food supply safer. We succeeded largely because of the relationships, trust, respect and reciprocity we developed with our global distribution partners.

It took a deep, intentional understanding of each country’s culture, marketplace and competitive landscape. These understandings were founded on relationships we built person by person. Now I work to inspire other businesses to do the same.

I led a team that grew our firm from doing business in one country to over 100 — a true global network. We celebrated not only our success achieving top market share worldwide, but our ability to create a safer food ecosystem.

Our work provided a sustainable, living wage for our suppliers. The products we sold ensured a safe food supply in their countries while providing income for hundreds of individuals worldwide. Many extended families — sisters, brothers, cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews — depended on our business for their collective livelihood.They all worked in their family business to help grow it; they became a part of our global family.

For us this wasn’t charity, nor was it paying lip service. We truly cared about one other. The upshot: we achieved continual market share advantage and high profitability. We constituted a worldwide family who knew about one another’s markets and how to succeed in those markets, and nurtured what came to feel like our own global village.

As we celebrated expanded market share growth, new product rollouts, increased profit margin and key accounts wins, as well as marriages, new arrivals and anniversaries around the world.