Angela Meaney, Sales Manager for Wholesalers & Distributors, has spent the last 24 years at ABB, and has held her current position for the last 18 months. Angela’s story is one of personal growth, and discovering what it takes to go from being part of a team, to leading a team.
“I actually started out as an apprentice electrician working in a power station” explains Angela, “I learned a lot there, and got a huge amount of hands on experience. I went from that job to ABB where I started as Internal Sales in what was then the Drives & Motors division. Then I moved to Regional Sales, to Technical Sales for panel builders, before progressing to my current role as Sales Manager.”
Today Angela leads a team of five who are tasked with developing ABB’s wholesale and Tier 2/3 panel builder business across Ireland. Day to day, the team’s objectives are to increase business, find out what customers are buying, what they’re not buying, and what they could be buying, and keeping all customer information up to date. While Angela occasionally goes on calls herself, she coordinates her team to make sure that they’re hitting the right customers at the right times with the right products, while disseminating any useful feedback across the rest of the team.
For Angela and her team, it’s about cultivating existing relationships rather than making cold calls: “We have a good relationship with our customers, and this is in part because they know we’re not going to waste their time. We may have our own internal sales objectives and targets, but ultimately it’s all about finding the right solution for the customer, and making sure they’re getting the best out of ABB.”
Angela speaks to each member of her team often to find out how they’re doing, and to make sure that everyone is aware of how the bigger picture is looking. Regular team meetings bring the team together and ensure that everyone is on the same page.
Crucially, Angela doesn’t believe in micromanaging every individual. “I have to trust my team, and they have to be able to trust me. At ABB we’re given more ownership over issues, and more autonomy to do our jobs. I like to maintain an environment where anyone can come to me with any problems at any time. Every day is different, and I find the task of keeping the team focused, on-track and where they need to be an enormously invigorating one.
Making the transition from field sales to management was not without its challenges, as Angela explains: “It was very hard to let go of my customers and trust someone else with them, while also finding ways to delegate my old day-to-day duties. I did a management course which helped a lot, and one of the things I learned there was that if you’re still caught up in doing your old job, then you’re not doing the new job effectively.”
According to Angela, a lot has changed during her time at ABB, particularly for women like her. For years I went to customer sales meetings and found that I was the only woman. This had its advantages in some ways, as it meant the customer always remembered you!”
“Today things have changed phenomenally – now when I look at ABB’s management team I see that half of them are women. Electrical switchgear was historically a man’s world, but today I feel like there’s a really good mix. I’m keen to see more women coming through ABB. I got the opportunity to work with students at the TU University in Dublin to mentor them and help develop their careers. Having the opportunity to give back, and help the next generation is something I find enormously rewarding.”
