Six appointments along the region's building-materials trade

Mandate

Build the Mocvanh brand into a quarter of sales without losing the private-label customers who fill the plants.

Outcomes

• Mocvanh-branded revenue from VND38 billion in 2022 to VND520 billion in 2025
• European range reduced to 29 traceable products, with plot-level data on every EU shipment by the end of 2025
• Benelux and Nordic launch through two distributors with Vietnamese origin stated on the box face
• Largest private-label customer renewed for 2023 to 2025 and held its 2021 purchase value

Decisions in context

I own the brand, trade marketing, technical documentation and the way customers receive our traceability record. Sourcing, production and export pricing sit with colleagues, so most of my decisions are made jointly with the sourcing director and the head of export sales, and several were made over their objections. The brand now sells through four state distributors in Australia, one in South Korea and two in Europe. Private-label customers still account for three quarters of revenue, which means every brand decision has to be read from their side as well as ours. I present quarterly to a board on which our founding family and investor sit, and since 2024 I have reported to its audit and risk committee on European traceability. The cases on this site describe three decisions from this period that cost revenue or price before they paid back.

Reason for the move

Current appointment; seeking one non-executive seat alongside it.

Mandate

Prepare an own-brand plan that the board and the largest private-label customers could accept.

Outcomes

• Own-brand plan approved by the board in November 2021
• Map of every major private-label customer's markets and specifications
• Recorded factory tours that kept importer audits running through the 2020 and 2021 travel restrictions

Decisions in context

I joined a company with an excellent private-label reputation and almost no marketing of its own. My first year was spent learning the factory and its customers rather than designing a brand. I mapped where each importer sold, which widths, finishes and wear layers it treated as its own, and how much plant capacity it took. When travel stopped in 2020, my team filmed veneer selection, pressing and moisture testing so customers could continue their audits remotely; two importers placed first orders on that basis. Neither had visited Vietnam before ordering. The own-brand plan I took to the board in 2021 set out the sequence by market and the customers it would affect. I learnt that the useful work before a launch is mostly about who might lose, and how they will hear.

Reason for the move

Appointed chief marketing officer when the board approved the own-brand plan.

Mandate

Build dealer programmes for the company's own tile brand in three export markets.

Outcomes

• Australian dealer network grew from 64 to 141 stores
• Claims process with a published ten-working-day response
• Installer training for about 1,900 tilers across three markets

Decisions in context

This was my first role selling a manufacturer's own brand through dealers rather than through a distributor or importer. The tiles were good; the dealers' problem was installers who blamed the product for preparation faults, and claims that took months to settle. I built a programme around display standards, installer training and a claims process with a published response time, and tied our support budget to activity a dealer had agreed to carry out. Australian stores carrying the range more than doubled over five years. I also learnt the limits of a manufacturer's influence. Dealers set their own prices and priorities, and the programme worked only when it helped them run their businesses. In Vietnam I also saw how differently dealers there bought from those in Australia. That lesson shaped how I later set up Mocvanh's distributors in Australia.

Reason for the move

Joined Mocvanh to build a manufacturer's own brand from its beginning.

Mandate

Support existing private-label accounts and broaden the customer base beyond two UK merchants.

Outcomes

• Private-label customers increased from six to thirteen
• Legal-harvest documentation packs ready for European buyers when the EU Timber Regulation applied in 2013
• Share of revenue from the two largest customers reduced from 58 to 41 per cent

Decisions in context

Merbaulin taught me private label from the factory floor. Two UK merchants took most of the output, set the specifications and owned every relationship with the builders and households who bought the doors. My task was to make the company less dependent on them without antagonising either. I prepared specification and documentation packs for new buyers in the Gulf and mainland Europe and attended their audits alongside production; most concerned documentation rather than the doors themselves. When the EU Timber Regulation began to apply, I worked with the sourcing team so that our European buyers had legal-harvest evidence before they asked for it. Two of those buyers later named that preparation as a reason for staying. I left with respect for private label and a clear sense of what it could not give a manufacturer: a name of its own.

Reason for the move

Moved to Bangkok to learn dealer distribution for a manufacturer's own brand.

Mandate

Choose which supplier ranges to promote and support contractors with accurate technical information.

Outcomes

• Technical sheet and installation guide in place for every promoted range
• Flooring suppliers reduced from fourteen to nine, with fewer site complaints
• Quarterly contractor sessions attended by about 120 firms a year

Decisions in context

At Kallangvale I sat on the buying side of the relationship I would later manage from factories. Suppliers from Europe and Asia competed for space in our range, and I recommended which to promote. The decision rested less on catalogues than on site experience: which floors produced complaints, which suppliers answered a contractor's question within a day, and whose installation guidance matched what installers actually did. I reduced the number of flooring suppliers we promoted and wrote technical sheets where suppliers had not. The contractor sessions I ran became the place where problems surfaced before they reached a project. Several contractors I met there later bought from factories I worked for, which showed me how long trade relationships last in this region. I learnt what a distributor needs from a manufacturer, and that lesson has guided every distributor programme I have built since.

Reason for the move

Joined a manufacturer to see the private-label trade from the factory side.

Mandate

Sell stand space and help exhibitors prepare for two annual building fairs.

Outcomes

• Stand sales grew from about S$700,000 to S$1.1 million a year
• Exhibitor briefing on planning visitor follow-up adopted for both fairs
• Regular exhibitors increased from 41 to 63 manufacturers across the region

Decisions in context

My first job was selling space to exhibitors at two building and interiors fairs. Most clients were manufacturers from Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam, and many treated the fair as a place to be quoted rather than remembered. I helped them plan stands and, increasingly, asked what they intended a visitor to do afterwards. The exhibitor briefing I drafted on follow-up was adopted for both fairs, and several regular exhibitors told me it changed how they staffed the stand. The role gave me a broad map of the regional building-products trade and a lasting caution about counting business cards as results. It also showed me how buyers from Australia, Japan and the Gulf moved through a hall and whom they stopped to see. I left because I wanted to be responsible for a product, not for the hall it was shown in.

Reason for the move

Wanted to work for a company whose products were on the stands rather than for the organiser.