I studied supply chain management and logistics. From the very beginning, I was passionate about how companies work together, even though they are on two different continents. While discovering the whole world of logistics, I originally decided to focus on the purchasing aspect. I studied international trade and did a masters in purchasing.
My first internship was in the automotive industry. Even though I had no passion for cars, I started to work with automotive parts, developed curiosity on how to build cars, and thanks to this internship, I began to get jobs always related to large scale industries. Once you have a foot in that world, it seems like it's easy to switch companies. I started as a junior buyer, just buying parts daily. Then, I took on bigger projects, so I became a project buyer. My last job in the industry was managing projects related to purchasing, supplier management, and supporting new car parts’ development.
It was interesting to see that whilst I was in the job I was dreaming of doing, after several years it felt that there was something missing or blocking me and I think the cost pressure you can have in the industry was very exhausting. Getting pressure to save only two cents on the parts was an intensive part of my job. The other interesting parts of my job were not as present any more Then, I moved to a generic project manager role, so I left the industry and moved to the e-commerce world with Zalando.
I worked as a project manager in customs for a couple of years, and now I work as a senior program manager for logistics operations. Every experience I had in the past has helped me today. I gained a bit of experience in different roles , which I can use for any project I manage today.
I love travelling and learning foreign languages. I was always interested in jobs that bring cultures together or bring travel into the mix. So, it’s logistics. It's connecting companies, or it's connecting a company far away to a customer. I think this is what brought the interest in me.
I like having the choice and having the flexibility to move around that world as well, but the industry was actually a big surprise. Sometimes you get opportunities you were not planning to have, and working on different car spare parts was something I never learnt about, but I loved it because I could work with different engineers who could teach me about various technologies. I was never a technical person growing up, but I discovered naturally some curiosity about how to make rubber, to develop rubber parts, or how to make plastic for plastic parts.
Then, I realised how those technologies are used for basically any product we use in our daily life. Everything I was learning in the industry, it helped me to understand even better the world around me. I think that's why I liked it, because it's not only specific to my job, but I'll also develop a lot of general knowledge about everyday life.
People tend not to know what logistics operations mean in general. Even though some have a high-level understanding, still there are so many jobs.
When I work on a project, I always need at least six or seven experts from different parts of logistics. What is great is that you have a high level of information. You don't need to be an expert, but you need to understand a bit about the transportation, the warehouses, and what an operator is doing. It’s important to understand the technical background and all the systems developed by our colleagues from Tech Logistics. That's what I love, not being focused on one topic, but having a full understanding.
Project management is great in general because you work with people, and each project is different. I must adapt my communication based on who I talk to. I manage the people, the information, the challenges, and the conflict differently every time.
In this role, you learn a lot about people, and you learn about yourself as well. This is why I really like my job.
This milestone is both private and professional. Ten years ago, I moved from France to Germany on my own. I was curious about the country, had a few German friends, and genuinely liked the language. That decision had a huge influence on my whole career.
At that time, Germany offered more opportunities than France. I got the job, but I didn’t even have an apartment yet. I just moved to the city with a one-week Airbnb booking. Joining a bigger company meant getting to know new technologies, learning the language, and adapting to the culture. It was a full learning experience for me.
Whatever we learn in life is often both personal and professional because the two evolve in the same direction. My first years were very challenging: I had to find my place in the company and in Germany, and both were deeply interconnected. What I learnt from German culture turned out to be incredibly valuable in how I worked and collaborated with my German colleagues. The better I spoke the language, the faster I was accepted in meetings. Sometimes, I was the only foreigner, and the only woman, in the room. Earning my place and making my voice heard wasn’t easy.
My second milestone is changing the industry. At the end, I had all the knowledge, I knew the industry, the companies, and the suppliers and I decided to leave. When I moved to Zalando to e-commerce, I started from scratch, discovering a new world, new terminology, and much more Tech-oriented.
Now, I realise that it all took a lot of energy, and I'm very proud of it.
I tried to take from the German culture what may have been missing for me as a skill. Living taught me always to be on time, because time management is important here. I also learnt to be more direct and more precise in my communication.
Now, I am very strict with time management, not only for myself, but for people. When I'm managing meetings, I don't want people to leave them 30 minutes late because they have other responsibilities afterwards.
Also, conflict management is crucial. Working in multicultural environments in big companies, you have misunderstandings leading to conflict. People don't have time, capacity, they're all stressed, they get emotional. I learnt how not to fear conflicts and that's something I use in my private life as well.
I could talk about this for hours. I wasn't lucky with the jobs I started throughout my career. Most of the time when I joined the company, the person who had to onboard me was on a long sick leave, paternity leave, or not physically present, which meant that in most of the internships and jobs, I had to onboard myself. Once, the person who hired me left the company after three months, and luckily, she gave me a heads-up, which means I had time pressure to familiarise myself with the company and my new role quickly.
Since I was an intern, I learnt to ask questions, and I used the coffee machine for that. It's very French to meet people there and talk about work. You can learn a lot from this area in the office. Now, I can advise everyone to go to the coffee machine and start talking to people. Find out who knows what and develop your network this way.
While working in the car industry, I had no clue about how you build a car and how you build parts. It was me asking engineers: can you please teach me how you make that, how you build this? What is the technology? Slowly it allowed me to have a network and then, naturally it became a good skill to have as a full-time project manager, I need to know who knows what.
My professional network was at some time almost entirely male, I was always seeking out experts in the field, and most of them happened to be men. I started to feel isolated, not having many women colleagues. Then, I thought that maybe I should develop my women’s network. It’s better to speak about other topics or challenges you can have at work, without feeling alone. That’s why I joined the Women's Network at Zalando, I realised how powerful it is to have such a network, how useful it is for my job, career, and my development.
The first challenge I experienced was during the first years of my career. I was putting too much pressure on myself to get a full-time, permanent contract. I had a three-month contract, then a six-month contract in a row, and no company was hiring me for longer than that. I thought I had no value until I got a stable job. I was doing too much because I tried to prove myself in the short time I had in the company, and when I was not hired at the end of my contract, I would beat myself up. Even though usually, I had positive feedback about my job. I was just replacing employees who were, for example, on parental leave.
I had an issue with pressuring myself, not having enough confidence and having imposter syndrome thinking “why did they hire me?”. No company kept me before, so why this one hired me? I had to fight with my self-confidence, and it took me a while.
All those inner challenges really slowed me down. I didn't trust myself enough, and I wish I had more guidance at that time. I was afraid to talk about those personal challenges because I thought that if I spoke about them, people would judge me or think I wasn’t ready for the role. Luckily, I managed to get a couple of mentors at work who helped me a lot. I also reached out to a career coaches outside of work to gain more confidence and clarity. The more confident I was, the better I did my job.
What helped me was to put less pressure on myself. I remember, I told my mentor, “I was in this meeting. I had no clue what people talked about. I understood nothing. ” And then the person told me, “Hey, Doriane, in those meetings, it can happen that no one has a clue what we talk about”. Then, when I started to ask questions in the meeting, I realised everyone was happy to hear the answers. It showed me that I needed to trust myself more. If I have no clue what's happening in the meeting, I'm probably not the only one.
So, the advice is: Just ask the question, I'm pretty sure it will help at least another person in the room you are in.
.png)
.png)
