Why do you feel like an ambassador of Evonik’s innovative ideas?

Innovation is one of the keywords in my professional strengths! At first glance, in my role as a Regional Business Director, it may seem on the outside that I´m not contributing directly to innovative ideas. However, I support innovation in this role by adding my knowledge of our customers’ expertise and my 20 years’ experience with Evonik to products and services aiming for transformation. Digitalization in Animal Nutrition is an imperative trend in the industry, and we are benefiting from the huge amount of data we have. My main contribution to Evonik’s innovation is to sense the industrial trends and challenges and bring information on customer needs back to my colleagues who support further innovation in Animal Nutrition.

Evonik has identified Sustainable Nutrition as one of its six Innovation Growth Fields due to the industry’s attractive market growth. What drives you to support the mission of this Growth Field?

What drives me is my faith in the mission of Evonik’s Animal Nutrition Business Line: Using science to aid in solving the global food challenge. The challenges are all around us such as food imparity, safety, availability, etc. Some of these challenges have become pressing such as degradation of the ecological environment, let it be the land or the ocean. As a mum of two lovely children, I am keen to do something to leave a beautiful earth to future generations. This can only be achieved by everybody doing the right thing, right now. With Evonik’s innovation and system solution, we are providing food to the growing population worldwide affordably and sustainably. My contribution is tiny, but individual, small achievements from all of my colleagues and others in the industry will shape our future in 2030 and even in 2050.

How does Animal Nutrition plan to strengthen its competitive edge in the next years?

This is a very strategic question. I could answer with numerous cogent facts and figures, but most impressive to me is the passion of the entire team of Evonik Animal Nutrition. Our decades of success and trustworthy reputation in the industry underpin our vision for the future. We are changing from a single product provider to becoming a system solution expert in order to address the challenges in the animal protein production industry. This change is happening rapidly. Five years ago, as business manager, I only needed to present amino acids to my clients, but now, together with my colleagues, I am working with my clients for gut health, performance, alternative feed, and preventive solutions, and last but not least, the digitalization of livestock farming.

You joined Evonik Shanghai in 2000 just after graduating from the University of Xi’an Jiaotong University. In your 20 year career at Evonik, you have learned the business from scratch. What would like to share with young generations about working at Evonik?

Looking back at my career path at Evonik, I have been always driven by challenging myself to further develop outside my comfort zone - let it be learning new tasks, taking enlarged responsibilities, or working in different countries with different cultures. I am very grateful to my peers, colleagues, and management team for always recognizing and supporting me. I benefit from perpetually learning, being accountable, and being assertive but able to compromise to optimize team achievement. For recent graduates there is a great opportunity at Animal Nutrition to take on a lot of responsibility right from the start, work globally and develop in a wide variety of areas. I would like to say that young generations working in Evonik will not only inherit the value in our company’s DNA but also constantly meliorate it. Together, we will help push for the values and goals of the company.