Shaping the future of family business

My Career runs in Women on Wednesday (WoW!). This week we feature Niamh Galvin from NBM

Name: Niamh Galvin

Age: 31

Lives: Douglas, Cork.

Job title: Business Development & Marketing Manager, National Business Machines (NBM)

Salary bracket: €60,000+

Education background: Scoil Mhuire Secondary School graduate, 2009. Then graduated from Commerce in UCC in 2013, followed by a master’s degree in Marketing from Smurfit College, Dublin, in 2014.

Hobbies: Foodie, health and fitness, wine lover and discovering new places.

Describe your job in five words: Driving the NBM brand and business strategy.

Describe yourself in five words: Positive-thinker and results-driven.

Personality needed for this kind of work? A creative thinker with a positive mindset to influence and collaborate with people.

How long are you doing this job? I have been in my current role with National Business Machines (NBM) for eight months after moving back from Australia where my partner and I were living for the past two years.

How did you get this job? I graduated from Commerce at UCC, followed by my Masters in Smurfit College after that in 2014. I quickly developed a passion for brand management and made the move to Dublin for my first role with the Kerry Foods Graduate Programme in Dublin, working across Sales, Marketing and Category management with Irish brands.

Heineken Ireland then came calling and I took up a role with the Heineken brand and sponsorship management team, where I gained invaluable experience, and had plenty of fun along the way, over my four years working on Ireland biggest lager brand.

In 2019, myself and my partner decided to pack up and move ourselves to Australia to experience living abroad. I took on a Senior Marketing Manager role with Heineken Australia, working with international brands such as Tiger Beer and Orchard Thieves Cider.

As my heart always belonged in Ireland, and Cork in particular, we experienced it all for two years and arrived home last year back to Cork. I am absolutely delighted to be back and joining the family business after nearly 10 years’ experience within the marketing industry. It has been a great journey so far, I am thoroughly enjoying getting to know a different industry and bringing my experience to date into NBM to drive the brand and strategy to the next level over the coming months and years.

Do you need particular qualifications or experience? Within my role specifically, it is quite diverse and I work with many different people within the business. It is a commercially focused role, therefore my business education background has helped as well as my marketing experience, especially when looking at the digital marketing and digital transformation area for National Business Machines. I would say commercial and marketing experience is more valuable than any certain qualification.

Describe a day at work: My role differs day to day, and hour to hour, which is what I love about it. I am involved in all aspects of the business to ensure a deep understanding of the end-to-end business, to shape and drive the NBM strategy forward.

My days can look like anything, from scheduling digital marketing campaigns to creating sales enablement tools and presentations for the sales team. 

My main priority is to ensure the sales team are equipped with the right tools to enable them to effectively sell to our customers and meet their needs. I manage all marketing activities from events, sales brochures, website development, through to our internal sales CRM system.

As part of the NBM management team, I am also focused on shaping the NBM business and commercial strategy for the future, to ensure that we are delivering the right products and solutions for our customers. I am thoroughly enjoying the variety within the role and am learning more every day. I am looking forward to the coming years with NBM to see how I can help to shape the future. We are really lucky to have maintained business and grown our marketing share here at NBM throughout the past 18 months thanks so our strong customer base and resilient team.

How many hours do you work a week? Approximately 45 hours, depending on the week. NBM encourages a strong work life balance and flexible working, especially in today’s Covid times.

What do you wear to work? Business casual.

Is your industry male or female dominated? The industry is traditionally male dominated, especially within the sales environment. However, I think this is becoming less so across the market, which is great to see.

NBM in particular have a focus on ensuring an equal gender balance within the company and the sales team, with three new female Senior Account Managers joining the business in the past year…