People of DeLaval: Fiona Xu’s journey in China’s evolving dairy industry
Source: DairyNews.today
In China, the dairy sector is undergoing big changes. As the Market Development and Sales Support Manager for Market Area Centra and North East Asia (C&NEA), Fiona Xu, plays a crucial role in navigating and capitalising on these developments.
The beginning of her DeLaval career
Fiona kick-started her career at DeLaval in 2010 as a customer desk manager. She says the pulse—the excitement of being part of a dynamic, evolving company in a rapidly growing industry—and the people were key factors that led her to choose DeLaval.
“During the interview I felt that the culture of DeLaval resonated with me, and the people I met were the ones I would like to work with. Plus, the dairy industry impacts almost all aspects of our life – milk has such a crucial role to play globally.”
Fiona quickly advanced in her career; within three years, she became the Head of Project and Process Management at Local Sales Organisation (LSO) China. This transition shifted her focus fr om customer service to directly managing projects and engaging with clients, a change she embraced. “I enjoy working closely with customers to gain more business experience and explore new interests,” she says.
More changes afoot
During her initial years at DeLaval, Fiona had the opportunity to explore various roles that sparked her interest. “This is one of the main reasons why DeLaval is such a great company to work for,” she explains. “The supportive environment and opportunities for growth made it an ideal fit for my career aspirations.”
A new role came into play in 2016 when she was tasked with leading the Installation and Farm Planning & Design team as the Project Coordination & Technical Support Manager of Market Area China.
Since January 2024, Fiona has been in her current position as the Marketing Development and Sales Support Manager for C&NEA.
“This role is diverse,’ she explains, ”from identifying business opportunities in the local market to orchestrating campaigns and activities to boost products and the DeLaval brand. Additionally, I provide value-adding solutions to our customers and extend full support to our local sales, installation, and service teams. This involves delivering competence training, preparing sales materials, and offering troubleshooting support, among other things.”
Having a diverse skill set has enabled her to tackle any challenges that come her way. She emphasises that her current team needs a broad range of skills due to their wide-ranging responsibilities: “A combination of business acumen and technical expertise is crucial. Additionally, knowledge in areas such as finance, marketing, farm management, and proficiency in presentation, communication, negotiation, data analysis, and project management are equally essential.”
These skills play a crucial role in executing the global strategy, collaborating with Product Market Development/cluster Market Development & Sales Support of Cluster Asia-Pacific (MDSS team)/local sales team to achieve financial targets, increase market share, and ensure sustainable long-term growth in the local market.
She says if the team had a mission statement it would be the following:
To create market development: formulate appropriate product sales strategies based on product characteristics and local market demand to support sales to achieve business goals
Sales support: provide professional pre-sales and post-sales support to ensure right solutions to be provided to the right customers and product performance optimized
Customer intimacy: help the customers to improve their performance through our farm advisory, ISAI and digital services
Brand development: collaborate with marketing team to develop the appropriate marketing and branding strategies to expand the brand image and improve the overall brand perception in the local market
Fiona enjoys the opportunity to shatter stereotypes, which she certainly did when she found herself working in a predominantly male-dominated area.
“When I worked as the Project Coordination & Technical Support Manager I was leading a larger team with more complex responsibilities, requiring comprehensive capabilities. What made it even more special was being a female leading a team of over 40 people, all male, until more female employees joined in 2021. This experience prompted me to reflect deeply on leadership and management: how to guide the team towards achieving business goals in a challenging environment, how to motivate and support them, how to maximise effectiveness, maintain team cohesion, and foster a positive and optimistic team culture. Through this process of reflection and exploration, both the team and I have grown personally.”
And solving challenges is definitely something they have had to do together, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic and also the rapid development of the Chinese market.
“In the past three years, we were facing tremendous challenges: production and installation capacity issues because of the rapid development of the Chinese market, global supply shortage, new products launching but no on-site technical support available because of the travel restrictions. The whole MA team, together with the supply chain, clusters and PMD colleagues showed our excellent teamwork spirit. We put the customer first, took extraordinary efforts to support each other, to find different approaches to ensure all customer demands to be met with high quality in time. We achieved excellent financial results and customer satisfaction level as well.”
But this is something that they have been able to solve due to teamwork: “The culture of One DeLaval creates a very good foundation for teamwork. The culture of diversity and inclusion promotes an environment wh ere everyone can work together in harmony and strive for the same goal, while still retaining our own uniqueness. I think that is really great.”
When asked for what she would say to someone who wants to join DeLaval, she says: “The dairy industry is very closely related to the life of each of us, and it is a very missionary and fulfilling thing to witness the development of this industry and contribute to the development of this industry. DeLaval is a small but real international company. It’s fun to work with colleagues fr om all over the world and have a broader international perspective.”
And she definitely believes she hasn’t stopped growing and learning with DeLaval: “I have just taken over a new position. It is interesting to have a lot of new things to learn, to gain new perspectives and life experience, but there are also many challenges. I am looking forward to adapting to the new role, to integrating into the new team as soon as possible.”
When Fiona isn’t busy with her important role, she also enjoys travelling, hiking, and photography—other areas wh ere she excels!
Fiona kick-started her career at DeLaval in 2010 as a customer desk manager. She says the pulse—the excitement of being part of a dynamic, evolving company in a rapidly growing industry—and the people were key factors that led her to choose DeLaval.
“During the interview I felt that the culture of DeLaval resonated with me, and the people I met were the ones I would like to work with. Plus, the dairy industry impacts almost all aspects of our life – milk has such a crucial role to play globally.”
Fiona quickly advanced in her career; within three years, she became the Head of Project and Process Management at Local Sales Organisation (LSO) China. This transition shifted her focus fr om customer service to directly managing projects and engaging with clients, a change she embraced. “I enjoy working closely with customers to gain more business experience and explore new interests,” she says.
More changes afoot
During her initial years at DeLaval, Fiona had the opportunity to explore various roles that sparked her interest. “This is one of the main reasons why DeLaval is such a great company to work for,” she explains. “The supportive environment and opportunities for growth made it an ideal fit for my career aspirations.”
A new role came into play in 2016 when she was tasked with leading the Installation and Farm Planning & Design team as the Project Coordination & Technical Support Manager of Market Area China.
Since January 2024, Fiona has been in her current position as the Marketing Development and Sales Support Manager for C&NEA.
“This role is diverse,’ she explains, ”from identifying business opportunities in the local market to orchestrating campaigns and activities to boost products and the DeLaval brand. Additionally, I provide value-adding solutions to our customers and extend full support to our local sales, installation, and service teams. This involves delivering competence training, preparing sales materials, and offering troubleshooting support, among other things.”
Having a diverse skill set has enabled her to tackle any challenges that come her way. She emphasises that her current team needs a broad range of skills due to their wide-ranging responsibilities: “A combination of business acumen and technical expertise is crucial. Additionally, knowledge in areas such as finance, marketing, farm management, and proficiency in presentation, communication, negotiation, data analysis, and project management are equally essential.”
These skills play a crucial role in executing the global strategy, collaborating with Product Market Development/cluster Market Development & Sales Support of Cluster Asia-Pacific (MDSS team)/local sales team to achieve financial targets, increase market share, and ensure sustainable long-term growth in the local market.
She says if the team had a mission statement it would be the following:
To create market development: formulate appropriate product sales strategies based on product characteristics and local market demand to support sales to achieve business goals
Sales support: provide professional pre-sales and post-sales support to ensure right solutions to be provided to the right customers and product performance optimized
Customer intimacy: help the customers to improve their performance through our farm advisory, ISAI and digital services
Brand development: collaborate with marketing team to develop the appropriate marketing and branding strategies to expand the brand image and improve the overall brand perception in the local market
Fiona enjoys the opportunity to shatter stereotypes, which she certainly did when she found herself working in a predominantly male-dominated area.
“When I worked as the Project Coordination & Technical Support Manager I was leading a larger team with more complex responsibilities, requiring comprehensive capabilities. What made it even more special was being a female leading a team of over 40 people, all male, until more female employees joined in 2021. This experience prompted me to reflect deeply on leadership and management: how to guide the team towards achieving business goals in a challenging environment, how to motivate and support them, how to maximise effectiveness, maintain team cohesion, and foster a positive and optimistic team culture. Through this process of reflection and exploration, both the team and I have grown personally.”
And solving challenges is definitely something they have had to do together, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic and also the rapid development of the Chinese market.
“In the past three years, we were facing tremendous challenges: production and installation capacity issues because of the rapid development of the Chinese market, global supply shortage, new products launching but no on-site technical support available because of the travel restrictions. The whole MA team, together with the supply chain, clusters and PMD colleagues showed our excellent teamwork spirit. We put the customer first, took extraordinary efforts to support each other, to find different approaches to ensure all customer demands to be met with high quality in time. We achieved excellent financial results and customer satisfaction level as well.”
But this is something that they have been able to solve due to teamwork: “The culture of One DeLaval creates a very good foundation for teamwork. The culture of diversity and inclusion promotes an environment wh ere everyone can work together in harmony and strive for the same goal, while still retaining our own uniqueness. I think that is really great.”
When asked for what she would say to someone who wants to join DeLaval, she says: “The dairy industry is very closely related to the life of each of us, and it is a very missionary and fulfilling thing to witness the development of this industry and contribute to the development of this industry. DeLaval is a small but real international company. It’s fun to work with colleagues fr om all over the world and have a broader international perspective.”
And she definitely believes she hasn’t stopped growing and learning with DeLaval: “I have just taken over a new position. It is interesting to have a lot of new things to learn, to gain new perspectives and life experience, but there are also many challenges. I am looking forward to adapting to the new role, to integrating into the new team as soon as possible.”
When Fiona isn’t busy with her important role, she also enjoys travelling, hiking, and photography—other areas wh ere she excels!
