Laura’s DOUGLAS Journey: From Trainee to Head

After graduating, I had a clear goal: to prove that it’s possible to have a sense of marketing and customers and still be as finance-savvy as possible – and to quickly land a position where I can have a significant impact on the company’s success. After starting at DOUGLAS, I took on my first major project after just four months and thus left my traineeship earlier than planned. That was also my start in payment. In the summer of 2016, I then took on my first management position at DOUGLAS. Since then, my range of responsibilities has grown continuously and now includes the entire payment including all credit and fraud as well as downstream processes in the Order2Cash area in our online stores and at the point of sale group-wide. The focus has always been on building something new rather than taking over what already exists.

In the assessment center for my trainee position, DOUGLAS convinced me right away: I like to face challenging situations. When I was asked to develop and present a business case for the launch of an online store within 60 minutes after the round of interviews and a few psychological questions, I knew that this was the right place for me!

Even after eight years, this is exactly how I would choose again. Why? DOUGLAS gives me the space to make my own decisions and leave my individual footprint in the company. I often feel like an entrepreneur. I appreciate the trust that DOUGLAS and my supervisor especially place in me every day.

In my team, you definitely need to have #PASSIONFORPAYMENT. With that, I mean that you should love what you do. I want everyone on my team to decide for themselves every day that their current position is the best on the market for them. I like to be challenged as I said, so this is also what I expect of myself as a leader. As a hard skill, I primarily look for the ability to abstract and no longer believe in the “red thread” in the CV with obligation to practical experience and appropriate studies nowadays. That’s why I prefer to test the candidates directly in individual case studies to abstract and adapt their own knowledge. For me, the top soft skills are bite and diplomatic skills. You have to know your goal and how to get there. My advice: Don’t give up after the first obstacle.

Keep an open mind and don’t set on one way but look for solutions! Especially when negotiating with external service providers, no one is your friend. Fail and learn from it. Be performant on the basis of clear goals and always ask yourself: How do I represent myself in certain situations? Where do I show presence and where perhaps consciously not? Very important: Be aware of your core competencies in the context of the company – and in case of doubt, these are not marketing, logistics or finance, but a feeling for customers and an understanding of processes and key figures. Learn to abstract also on a meta-level in your career!