In our latest career story, we speak to Rob Manning, part of our commercial team, about his role, his love of running and how Weetabix encourages a positive work life balance from the top down.
What’s your role?
I currently work in the commercial team and look after our category relationship with Asda. My main responsibility is to help Asda grow their share of cereal sales within the market. This can include supporting them with strategy through to identifying tactics that can help unlock sales at the point of purchase. The fast-paced nature of FMCG means that I must be aware of all current shopper trends and behaviours as well as daily data in order to be effective. Luckily this is where I get a lot of my energy from, so I thoroughly enjoy it!
How long have you been at Weetabix?
I have been at Weetabix for just over four years. I was fortunate enough to know a number of people that already worked for the company, and it was their values and approach that attracted me. I am a big believer in succeeding by surrounding yourself with great like-minded people and this is certainly the case at Weetabix. The fact that I also get to represent the nations favourite breakfast cereal is a nice added bonus!
What’s it like to work at Weetabix?
Weetabix strikes an excellent balance between a smaller company feel, combined with the process and infrastructure that you would expect from a major FMCG company. This allows everyone to be seen and treated as individuals and therefore build meaningful working relationships across the business.
What do you most enjoy about working at Weetabix?
The team of people that I work with are truly one of the best that I have worked with in my career. I find being part of a strong, purposeful and trusting team makes all the difference and contributing to this keeps me very fulfilled in my role. Weetabix is also big on encouraging the right work life balance and most importantly it is demonstrated from the top down, so this also creates a positive culture, which I enjoy.
What opportunities have you had whilst at Weetabix?
I have been fortunate enough to progress through different commercial roles during my time at Weetabix. My first role was to look after our commercial relationship with Aldi, Lidl and Iceland. This was a steep learning curve for me at a time of major growth for all of these retailers. This helped me develop in a number of areas, including negotiating and product development, which I hadn’t experienced much before joining this team. More recently, I have been heavily involved in a development project, which is something I am passionate about.
What do you love doing outside of work?
I have a pretty busy family life, with three young girls as well as my wife working as a full-time paramedic. That said, I am passionate about health and fitness and in particular running, which often involves me getting up at some fairly unsociable hour to get the training in! I somehow manage to squeeze all of this in and love every bit of it!
