– I am Ryan. I joined CellMark in 1999.  In my role, I focus on assessing credit risk and supporting business decisions. In simple terms, it’s about taking every request for a credit line, gathering information, analyzing it, and reporting it back to the team so they can decide how to move forward.

In reality, it’s not always that straightforward. A big part of my role is bridging the gap between our team and the customer. I spend a lot of time gathering information, and sometimes that’s easier said than done. Most companies don’t really want to share their financials, so you have to find ways to work with what’s available. You’re constantly deciding what information is reliable, what isn’t, and how strong it really is. 

At the same time, we’re not just there to say yes or no. If something doesn’t work, I look for solutions. That might mean working with banks, insurance companies, or adjusting the structure of a deal to make it feasible while keeping the risk at an acceptable level.  

My day usually starts with clearing my inbox. Because I work with global teams, I often come in to messages from Europe and Asia, and I try to respond before their workday ends. From there, it can go in many directions. I follow up with customers, review accounts, support traders, and resolve issues—whether that’s something with a payment, a bank, or a credit request. Some days are focused on regular routines like collecting on accounts or reporting. Other days are more about problem-solving, setting up new accounts, or working with customers to get the right documentation in place.

At the end of the day, my role is really about supporting everyone in the company. I answer questions, help resolve issues, and step in wherever needed to keep things moving.  A lot of the work happens before anyone else really sees it. There are days when it’s just the customer and me, working through issues and finding solutions. I can have 10, 20, sometimes even 50 conversations going, trying to move things forward before I bring it back to the team.   

I also spend time helping colleagues find the right people, fixing issues, and supporting new employees who are still finding their way. That’s not always part of the job description, but it helps everything run more smoothly.  

For me, “mission accomplished” is when a complex situation finally comes together. Setting up a new account is a good example. It can take time—working with customers to get documents, coordinating with insurance companies, finding different solutions, and sometimes going back and forth several times before something works. But when everything is in place, the deal goes through, and things start running smoothly—that’s when it feels like a real success. 

It’s even better when the customer pays on time, and everything continues without issues. That’s when you know you’ve done your job well. At the end of the day, I enjoy solving problems. I like to step in, figure things out, and help fix issues. It’s also important to me to be someone people can rely on, even if it’s outside my direct responsibilities. 

For me, it’s about helping others create deals, while making sure we’re protecting the company at the same time. 

– I am the general manager for the Sunset Trading Group within the Recycling division. Our group consists of approximately 100 professionals working across the globe. We have specialists in stock lot paper trading, scrap metal trading, dedicated support staff, and our Semper CellMark team. I’ve been with CellMark 13 years, which is by far the longest I’ve been at one company. It has flown by, as there are no dull moments at CellMark!

During 2027, I will have the pleasure of taking over the role of Divisional President for the Recycling division. The transition is going well so far, mainly because of all the support I’ve received from everyone, including Jimmy Derrico (current Divisional President for CellMark Recycling), the Management Team, our Board of Directors, Sunset & Semper Teams, and the bigger CellMark Team.

It’s been both humbling and refreshing to go from thinking you know a lot and have good command over the business, to being a beginner again. It’s like being in the EMBA program all over again, which is like constantly drinking from a fire hose. I love it. It’s also exciting to see others on the team step up into leadership roles of their own and take on new challenges.

I feel like we already have an amazing team, so my focus will be on making sure we’re all aligned in our goals and ensuring everyone has the tools they need to succeed. I also hope to bring fresh perspectives. Although I’m relatively new to the wastepaper world, I have a background in supply-chain, stock lot paper, and scrap metal. Additionally, I aim to set the bar higher than what people might be comfortable with, encouraging growth and innovation. At the same time, I’m committed to preserving CellMark’s unique culture, which I believe is key to our success, while fostering a workplace where everyone feels encouraged to reach their full potential.

Lastly, if someone is considering joining CellMark, I would say: if you’re a good fit for our culture and have the right skills, joining CellMark is probably the best career decision that you will ever make. I’ve worked at some fantastic companies before, but CellMark is on a completely different level. It’s hard work, a lot of fun, and extremely rewarding.

– I am a Qingdao native. I joined CellMark in 2005 on April 1st. Actually, last year was my 10th anniversary with CellMark. We had a small anniversary celebration with cake in our office with my dear colleagues. I have 18 years of experience, working mainly with Scandinavian employers. Today, I work in CellMark China, Basic Materials division, as a source Manager.  

I typically begin my workday by checking emails from colleagues and partners in various countries around the world. These messages always carry a sense of warmth and connection, reflecting the collaborative spirit of our division. As our Divisional President says, our team is both niche and agile, allowing us to operate effectively in our specialized area. I have had the opportunity to meet some of our colleagues in person or through online Teams meetings.  

After checking my emails each morning, I organize them into categories such as general inquiries and correspondence, specific problems, and potential solutions. Once my emails are sorted, I officially begin what I call my “fighting time”. Working in Basic Materials is uniquely challenging compared to other divisions in CellMark. Our margins are low and fragile because we deal in commodities, which are unlike the higher-value specialty, pulp, and packaging & paper sectors. Any small change, such as shifts in ocean freight rates or currency exchange fluctuations, can have a significant impact on our profits. 

Beyond these daily operational hurdles, we also face larger external pressures, including geopolitical issues, changing tariff policies, and broader economic recessions. These factors require constant vigilance and adaptability. I find myself fighting not only for my own success, but also alongside my colleagues.

My top achievement last year was that I truly felt fulfilled with my daily work. Our office, which primarily focuses on documentation and related tasks, requires careful attention to detail. Sometimes you think it could get boring, but last year I really felt fulfilled with my daily work.

It is not just for work, but also for the learning process and the bond and partnership that came from the work I set up last year.  I will give you an example: I collaborated closely with our colleague from Latin America. Together, we established a successful sodium methylate business. This product and market were brand new, and we were mostly starting from nothing. I guess maybe because of it, we worked closely to solve every problem together, and we bonded. I learned a great deal from him. I thought he would focus merely on the sales and not too much on the documentation, but he paid attention to every little detail to support us in the best way. For example, when we requested a document in Portuguese, he utilized AI translation, refined the format, and delivered both a Word and PDF version to ensure ease of use for our team. Through these experiences, I gained insight into why he is so successful in this business: he consistently considers the customer’s needs. I hope he has also learned from me.  

At CellMark, we must work even better to surpass expectations. I have been working with this for 18 years, and it is great that something new is still happening in my daily work, and I still feel challenged and fulfilled. That is my biggest achievement.

This year, from a corporate perspective, I am optimistic about continued business growth, building on the stable foundation established last year. I also hope to identify additional opportunities in sodium methylate and further strengthen this segment of our business throughout the year. 

– My name is Karen McGuire, and I work for Semper CellMark at CellMark’s Recycling division. I do customer service and some inside sales. I’m also the office manager for the Chicago office, responsible for ensuring everything is billed correctly by the end of the month. That’s pretty much my job description. I do just about anything they ask me.

I have been with Semper CellMark for 34 years, and with CellMark since 2017, when they acquired Semper CellMark (at that time Semper Exeter). CellMark has actually been great for us. They’ve treated us well, and we appreciate that. I think we care for each other really well at CellMark, especially in the Chicago office. We’re a close-knit team, always in touch and ready to help, whether it’s work-related or personal. 

One thing I truly appreciate about CellMark is CellMark Cares, which allows employees to recommend local charities for company support. When I learned about the initiative, my first thought was: “Oh my gosh, I’ll nominate The Chicagoland Dog Rescue!”. This organization is an all-home foster dog rescue, meaning every dog lives in a loving home rather than in cages or kennels. I actually fostered to adopt a dog about a month ago. It was emotional as it’s easy to get attached,  but it’s comforting knowing the dogs are in loving homes.

I follow the rescue online and always find myself looking at new dogs. We recently lost our dog Nala, who was 12, and we haven’t decided whether to get another. Losing a dog is incredibly hard – it felt like losing a child. That’s how I knew about the rescue and why I nominated them.

When the donation came through, the rescue director was skeptical at first, thinking it was a scam. But I reached out, confirmed it was real, and she submitted the application. They were incredibly grateful. They’re a small, home-based rescue, and while they usually get very small donations, the donation from CellMark made a big difference to them.

– I’m Vincent Dorrestein and I’m one year younger than CellMark itself. I’m married with four kids – two boys and two girls. I live in the Netherlands, in the area of the beautiful tulip fields and I currently do order management within CellMark. I check which sales and purchase orders we have and how to best connect them to optimize the results. On top of that, I do some logistics for Benelux and Eastern Europe, and I just started as a team leader for the Order & Logistics Coordinators.

I started working at CellMark in December 2019, just before COVID kicked in. So, it’s almost six years now. It was special… We found out that we grew too fast and needed a bigger office, and we found one. And at that point, the pandemic started. From coming to the office every day, to working from home every day was a big change. But I guess now everybody is used to the hybrid role and working from home. So, it’s a fun change. Today, I don’t think we can imagine being in the office for five days a week.

I have recently taken on a new role at CellMark, and as always, the transition has been exciting, difficult, and challenging. I’m very happy with my new role, and I’m also very lucky with the team and with the wonderful people we have. To start off the day, we have a daily check-in meeting at 10 in the morning just to see how everybody is doing. It’s a great way to set a positive tone and create a focused, uplifting start, and to identify any concerns we should address before we begin the day.

I really enjoy seeing more of the team these days. Previously, it felt like we were all working on our own little islands. We’ve grown rapidly over the past five years, and while everyone has been working hard, it’s mostly been in isolation. Now, we’re actively trying to change that by dividing the team into smaller groups to help build new connections and strengthen collaboration. Personally, I used to work as an Order & Logistics Coordinator, but stepping into the team leader role has made the work even more enjoyable for me.

If I could switch job with someone for a day, I would love to be a wildlife photographer someday. It would be amazing to spend time out in nature, capturing beautiful moments, and getting paid for it would be a dream come true. I would love to go to the U.S. to the main parks or the big nature sites. I’ve only been in the U.S. once, thanks to CellMark, but I would really like to go back.

─ Before I joined CellMark I was working as Sales Representative for Spain and Portugal at BCS Company. One day, a friend of my father, Ventzi Andreev (both working with BCS Company) proposed to me to go and meet with a certain person for another job. That person happened to be Ersin Alkan, current president of CellMark Basic Chemical division.

CellMark Basic Chemicals was born, and I was onboard. Getting the chance to be a part of this new CellMark project made me feel very fortunate. I love new challenges!

Today, I’m still very motivated, proud and happy to belong to the CellMark team. My colleagues are great, and I really appreciate the humanity that is within the company. CellMark is like my second family and I share several passions with the colleagues in my office. Sport is one of them. We also like to do outdoor activities together and make tapas routes around the city.

Barcelona, where I work and live, is a Mediterranean and cosmopolitan city surrounded by the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean Sea. The city has a fantastic meteorology and considered a cultural capital with the largest tourist affluence in Spain.

There are many places to visit in Barcelona; streets, neighborhoods, modernist buildings, parks, and museums. There are also a great gastronomy of tapas, fish and seafood, as well as an incredible traditional Catalan cuisine.

In my free time I do cooking classes and visit different restaurants, discovering exotic cuisines from all over the world. I like to travel and to explore new countries and cultures.

I also like sports. Since 2015, four or five times every year, I participate in obstacle races called Spartan Race. To finish these races, I need to dedicate my free time to lots of training. My weekly training routine is two days of 10─15K running, and four days of cross fitting and fitness training. We have a dedicated team called AA Spartan Racers Team. Please feel free to follow our journey on Facebook and Instagram.

Together with a non-profit organization called Positive Egoism, I also participate in sport events for children and adults who for any disease use wheelchairs. Positive Egoism organizes marathons, half marathons and 10K training running through different cities in Spain and Portugal. By pushing the wheelchairs while running, we compete together in a party atmosphere. Seeing these people having a really joyful time is the greatest personal satisfaction I have ever experienced in the world of sport.

– My major is international business, so after university I worked in a chemical import and export company for five years. I got the chance to learn the business from the ground, including documentation, whole procedures of import and export, accounting and financing and international trading.

In 2008, I joined BCS Company as sourcing manager in the China team. In 2012, Ersin Alkan (current president of CellMark Basic Chemical division, ed’s note) established CellMark Basic Chemicals with nine colleagues from BCS Company. So, I joined Ersins’s team and officially started my career in CellMark in April 2013.

Basic Chemical division provides sourcing and trading for a selected range of basic chemical products, such as acetic acid, acetyls, caustic soda, fertilizer, phosphoric acid, chlorinated solvents, and lignosulfonates. I love what I do, so am always having fun at work whether it is dealing with the daily work or travelling, immersing myself in different cultures, and meeting different people. Besides that, I also enjoy greatly the moment when I’m able to solve a difficult task, like turning impossible into possible!

In work, the feeling of accomplishment when overcoming challenges keeps me motivated to find solutions to improve. And also, the trust from our managing team, knowing that the company will support your ideas inspires me to open my mind to be creative with new opportunities and to identify it, to try harder to achieve it!

In life, my daughter keeps me motivated to try a little harder. I think kids are here to teach you to grow, to be a better human. Since I believe that children learn by example, I want to become a super model for my daughter. All the time I keep asking myself the same question: how can I improve myself and how can I do better?

─ I was born in Belgium, but all my family is originally from Poland. In my childhood, I spent 6,5 years in Brazil and 2 years in Indonesia, this was due to my father’s job. After I graduated in Belgium in 1999, I started my career as a financial auditor in Luxembourg with a “Big Five” accounting company. I liked finance, but my dream was to move to Poland and work in the industry, either in sales or purchasing.

In 2003, I made the step and got my first experience in sales and also purchasing with a Belgian company producing racking systems. In 2005, Alcan International Network, now CellMark, was looking for somebody to open an office in Poland, I felt that this was something for me, I applied and finally got the job. I started with the Metal division and was in charge of selling aluminium half-products. In 2010, I joined the Chemical division and today I am selling products in Central Europe. My role is to maintain the existing business and to develop new ones.

CellMark has been created and managed by very intelligent people who trust their teams. In my opinion, that is why CellMark has been a very successful company. This kind of trust is lacking in many companies. I have already heard from some of my customers or suppliers that they would love to join a company like CellMark.

One of my passions in life is environmental protection. This passion is something I share with my colleague Alina. Although Krakow is a nice city it has a problem with smog in the winter due to the fact that people still use coal for heating. Krakow will be the first city in Poland to ban coal and wood starting from 2019.  Me and Alina really look forward to this ban as it will for sure contribute to a better environment for our kids. 

What inspires me in life is my wife, my kids and my family. The are my first source of energy.  Meeting persons such as my colleagues or my customers who come from different horizons are also a source of energy for me. Being connected with them makes me happy. Thanks to them I am learning every day.

– After graduating Economics at Belgrade University, I worked for two production companies before I joined CellMark. I spend more than 13 years in the Serbian company, which was an important European Methanol and Acetic acid producer. During that time, I got a wonderful opportunity to meat Ventzi Andreev, a nice, experienced person and trustable business partner. We did a lot of Acetic acid business together and I was happy with the idea to join a global and open company like CellMark. 

Coming from the relatively small Balkan country and state-owned production plant, it was inspiring to enter something new and different. The business of distribution and trading is giving me a lot of challenges and new business areas for constant improvement.

Having friendly colleagues from different part of the globe dedicated to work and specialized in assorted products and services, is giving me a possibility for expanding horizons, understanding differences of various economics of the world and learning how to bring more flexibility for achieving better results.  

Most people don’t know that I am working from my home office surrounded with a nice garden and different kind of parrots originating from different part of the world. I am big lover of a nature and animals, so this atmosphere especially during the spring and summer time gives me a piece of paradise and helps me to reset myself. 

My family is giving me energy and inspiration in life with their different characters. I am happy spouse and mother of two nice children. If you feel loved, supported and happy than there are no limits, your mind is free and open for new challenges. 

– Sometimes I can’t help but believe that the world around you is all arranged and ready for you to step in, play your role and let things flow out as planned. Let me tell you my story.

In the early 1980’s Vietnam was still a very poor country after the war with USA. Everything had to be shared, every kilo of rice, each piece of meat, everything. Many people looked for better opportunities in other countries and a lot of them managed to go away illegally by boat.

One night in 1982 my uncle showed up at my family’s house. He had secretly arranged a boat trip out of Vietnam and wanted my family to come along. But my parents couldn’t do it. They both worked for government related enterprises and realized that they would be thrown in prison if they were caught by the border police, and if they weren’t caught they would still risk dying at sea. Not to mention that they had three young children – I was only two years old.

Very early next morning my uncle was secretly carrying food and water to the boat. Suddenly he caught a glimpse of my older brother (who was nine years old at the time). It turned out my brother had overheard some of the discussion from the night before, and had decided to wake up really early so he could get a glimpse of the boat.

As soon as my brother saw the boat, he got really excited and jumped onboard. My uncle commanded him to go back to the house and my older sister, who had snuck out with my brother, was crying and begging him to get off the boat. The other refugees started to worry about drawing too much attention to the boat and urged my uncle to resolve it before anyone got caught. Maybe in a state of panic my uncle quickly got on the boat and decided to take my brother with him. That was the last we saw or heard from my uncle and my brother for seven years.

One autumn morning in 1989 I woke up to the voice of a man calling my parents’ names outside the house, followed by the sound of my mother crying. The man outside the house was my uncle! He had returned to Vietnam to tell us that he had prepared all documents required for us to come to Finland to reunite the family.

It was a hard decision since my parents had worked their way up and were doing fairly well by then. If they decided to move to Finland they would have to give up everything they had worked so hard for, and start anew in a foreign country they knew very little about. On the other hand it would mean that the family could be together again, with my brother who they for seven years feared was dead. In the end my parents decided to bring the family to Finland. They left their jobs and gave away our home and our land to relatives on both sides.

I remember the flight out of Vietnam, it was my first time in an airplane. I was so excited and kept telling my mother how all I wanted was to fly a lot in the future.

Meeting my brother after so long was a bit weird, to be honest. It took us a few years to really be brothers again, but eventually we grew really close. And that’s how I ended up in Finland.

As the years passed I felt a growing desire to go back to Vietnam. Maybe it was because of my father’s sadness. He had given up everything – his career, their house, their land – and now he was a foreigner in Finland with nothing but memories, wondering what his life could have been like.

I saw the sadness in his eyes and I always wanted a job that was somehow related to Vietnam. I wished that I could go back there one day, bring my parents with me and show them that their decision to go to Finland was right.

After university I went to work for a Finnish company selling second hand equipment in the pulp and paper sector. After being involved in several projects in Vietnam and wanting to start building woodchip business over there, a friend put me in touch with a man called Fredrik Andersson who in turn put me in touch with a man called Craig Jackson.

We started doing business together, and right after I sold a pulp mill to Vietnam a couple of years later I was finally hired by CellMark to build more business for the pulp division in Vietnam! Craig Jackson is now my boss and Fredrik Andersson is now the President of CellMark.

So now I’m back in Vietnam. I have shown my parents that they made the right choice. And I actually do fly a lot!

Fate or destiny, call it what you want. All I know is that it has taken me this far and taught me to appreciate the opportunities that come my way. Now every morning when I wake up I can’t wait to see what the day will bring about – so many things can be done!

When I graduated as a tropical agricultural engineer back in 1983, my first idea was to go into development work far away. But I met my future wife and we got married before she finished her studies, so I had to earn some money… My father asked me to join him in his business and after quite a lot of “no thank you”, I finally agreed to do it. And now – 32 years later – I am still in the same business.

My father passed away much too young. My colleague Luc and I had just bought my father’s company. It was a hard time, but we managed to pursue my father’s business and even expand it a lot.

In 2002 we were acquired by a much larger company and things really changed. We were not independent anymore, but employees with a salary and extra duties like 5 year plans and tremendous amounts of meetings on how to sell more instead of actual meetings with the customers. We went through two more owners before we finally became a CellMark office.

Being at CellMark is more like we used to know it when we were self-employed: we are encouraged to take initiative, have more freedom to develop new opportunities and can focus on the business part.

We are only 6 people in our office. I have known most of them for more than 10 years and we are a real team, more a kind of family. There are no sirs or madams in our office; everybody is at the same level, which for me seems to be quite general at CellMark.

Our office specializes in the iron foundry business, which is a niche industry. We offer almost all consumables and equipment a foundry could possibly need, promoting ourselves as a one stop shop where the customers can buy not only material, but solutions as well. Hearing a customer saying on the phone ”I have a problem, can you help me?” is a call we like.

But besides work there is private life. Nobody can be happy at work or performing well if he or she is not feeling good in their private life. I went through quite a turbulent time myself: lost both my parents and other family members in a short period, and got divorced. But now it is OK again. The relationship with my children is (and has always been) great, I met a new girlfriend 6 years ago and found a new hobby that keeps me in good physical shape: 2–3 times a week I do long jogging tours and running in the nature is one of the most relaxing activities I know. When I go on a business trip I always try to take my running shoes with me. And humor – I think humor is maybe one of the most underestimated ways of getting out of difficult times.

– I think being in sales, it’s natural that you are just pretty competitive in nature. In this business you often get to see the results of your hard work immediately. That “instant gratification” is motivating and pushes you to the next level. I am always inspired by the outstanding group of colleagues here at Cellmark. Their professionalism, success and encouragement are such sources of motivation. They make you want to be your best every day.

Outside of work, my daughter is without a doubt my greatest inspiration and source of energy. Being a single mom is the hardest job I do any given day but she is my reason for everything and what makes the world so beautiful to me. I hope through mine and other amazing family members’ example, she grows up knowing the value of hard work but also how important it is to find something you love to do, and do it well.

I’ve been in the paper business now going on 17 years, but I was really born into the business. Or as we second generation paper traders say, “paper is in our blood”. My late father had a successful waste paper trading company that my mother now continues to run.

It was my father who introduced me to Tom Curran, my boss, after I had spent several years in retail management (my first job after graduating from the University of Arizona). That introduction set me on a career path that has been better than anything I ever dreamed.

I’ve been so fortunate because what I do for a living allows me to visit so many places in the world, and learn so much about other lifestyles, meet so many great people that I can now call friends, yet I’m still able to call Southern California home.

When Dad passed two years ago, on a personal trip overseas, a long-term business partner of both CellMark and my father’s company took the most amazing care of my parents in his country until we could bring Dad back home. I’m always deeply humbled and grateful for the relationships all over the world that I have made because of CellMark and being a second generation paper trader.

– CellMark has shown that diversity and strong ties between offices around the world will make a robust and flexible group of people. This office alone has a mixture of age groups and different specialties, where everyone is encouraged to share their thoughts and experiences to help each other out.

Discussing various topics with my colleagues, I find it very interesting to see other people’s views and gain knowledge and ideas through them. I know it is important to build connections with customers and suppliers, but I think it is equally important to get to know your colleagues. We can combine the energy of our younger team members with the experience of our senior colleagues – we have six people that have worked here for more than 20 years – and the future of this office is ours to make.

We are located in Shinjuku which is part of a terminal station. It is the busiest railway station in the world with over 3.5 million people using it every day. Although Tokyo is the third smallest prefecture in the country, it holds the largest population with 13 million people living here.

Tokyo is the political, financial and cultural center of Japan, and has a mixture of old and new together. You can have food from any cuisine from anywhere in the world. I assure you, it is nothing like what you would find in Europe or the Americas.

I love travelling and would like to travel more if I had the choice. Visiting new places, encountering other cultures and listening to different sounds and languages – not many experiences can compete with that. I feel that by putting myself into an environment which is totally different from my usual life, I can reset my mind and feel very relaxed. So I always have to make sure that the places I go to are Japanese free!

Returning from a trip somewhere always reminds me how important home is to me. My family is the reason for anything I do. We have a little daughter and in my spare time I like to put her in a baby carrier and go out with her on my back. We will typically go to a park, enjoy our time together and have lunch there. It might not seem like much but these little moments make me very happy.

– I worked for an international furniture company, importing from Europe to the USA. I was initially hired to answer phones and help administratively, but quickly grew interested in furthering my scope within the company. When I was presented the opportunity to move into customer service I jumped at the chance, and from there I went into management of our service team, and then finally logistics. Which now I know was when I found my true passion.

Working at CellMark, I find myself using our guiding principles more and more in my meetings. They add a different spin to a meeting and brings attention to what we are doing now and how we can do business better, together. I’m also inspired by CellMark’s philosophy that we have the capability to make anything great, no matter how small it may seem.

I love the challenge of solving tough problems and setting end goals that we can work towards together. When my sales team comes to me with; “Michelle, get ready to be very busy – we’ve concluded a lot of volume and need you to ship immediately,” I get so pumped up!

The San Francisco Bay Area where I live and work is a hub of culture and natural beauty. You can go from surfing in the ocean to skiing in the mountains within a matter of hours. This micro-climate is unique. And admittedly annoying at times! Waking up to heavy fog and dressing accordingly, only to find yourself needing shorts and sandals by mid-day. But this allows us to have the beauty we do, redwood trees feeding from the fog, to the many vineyards where grapes thrive in the heat of the day as they ripen, preparing for harvest. I’m proud to be a native Northern Californian and living in the middle of wine country, and I love every day of it.

– A normal day at the office starts with a croissant and pain au chocolat from the bakery downstairs, and then checking the Euro against the USD. A normal day at the office also means I am actually at the office and not on a plane or train to somewhere! I consider the group of people I work with to be pretty much a dream team. Knowledgeable, fun and supportive they all contribute to a smooth workflow where we can all focus on our own responsibilities.

I was born and raised in Hong Kong. While most of my peers pursued postgraduate studies in countries like the States, Canada or Australia, fate led me to France instead. I was granted a scholarship and continued my studies in Paris. Hence I am triple Franco-Chinese-’British colony’ culture. I speak all languages with accents except my mother tongue Cantonese. In regards to culture, arts and cuisine I am more French, but definitely 100% Chinese when I am doing business.

Having worked with grains and oil-seeds trading, and then cosmetic packaging, I got the opportunity to join CellMark in 2006. I’m still grateful to the management for trusting that a five-legged sheep (as they would say in French) who used to deal with beauty packaging could also handle complex molecules like 2-Phenoxypropionyl Chloride or Hexamethyldisiloxane.

Getting to know Paris has been a bit of an adventure. The city has a surface area of 100 km², consisting of 20 districts and more than 6,000 streets. My dream is to cover all 1,000 km of these streets – I have finished 8 districts already. During weekends I will go city-trekking and discover all these Paris-secret places.

For example, I have been to more than 180 museums and many of the unknown ones are very interesting. Like the Counterfeit museum, the Chocolate Story museum and the museum of Fairground Arts. Another hidden gem is the catacombs that form a labyrinth 20 meters beneath the very heart of Paris.

I will gladly be a tour guide for any visiting CellMark colleagues. Other than that, my advice for any visitors or tourists is: don’t hesitate to push front doors or gates, and you will discover many beautiful and unexpected backyards, gardens, cemeteries and other places you never knew existed.

– After graduating university with a degree in Chemical Engineering I spent three years working as a sales engineer at different companies. Then one day I ran into Ersin Alkan (Division President of Basic Chemicals) and he mentioned CellMark’s new project with rubber chemicals, especially for carbon black. Hearing about it made me very excited and without losing any time I decided to join CellMark. That is one of the best choices I’ve ever made.

CellMark is a company where everyone is an entrepreneur. Every member of the company is encouraged to bring new ideas to the table, and change is always welcome. Gaining the trust of our customers and suppliers – and maintaining our reliability – is very important to CellMark. Meeting set targets within deadlines really motivates me and gives me a sense of accomplishment. It gives me energy to keep going.

Believing that something can happen is the first step to making it happen. I use mediation to realize my dreams and connect to my inner voice. Concentrating on my breathing only, it helps me to control my thoughts and contemplate my desires. Additionally, my daily meditations give me the opportunity to reset myself each evening and find the necessary energy removing all the struggles for the next day.

Another thing to keep the creativity flowing is putting your own touch on the work space. As long as it is okay for all colleagues, I believe that making your work environment more fun and homey can make a big difference. I have a small garden near my desk. White, yellow and purple orchid flowers are the queens of my garden, and there is also some special kind of cactus – violets. Spraying water on their leaves and touching their potting soil is really relaxing and helps me clear my head.

We have a cat in our office named Corsy. During one morning traffic jam, I found her on the road, terrified and cold. She was 1,5 month old and I took her to our office that morning. While I was looking for a warm home for her, my colleagues made a democratic vote and wanted to care for her in our office, which made me very happy. Now she is our mascot!

– I live in Stamford, about 20 minutes by car to our office location in Norwalk. Having two school age children, it is nice to know that I can be home as quickly as possible if need be. Stamford is like a mini Manhattan so it is very busy place. I’ve lived there all my life and will probably never move away as I love my city.

For two years now I have been volunteering at the Stamford Hospital on Monday nights. I am part of the Tender Touch team which offers patients the gift of touch. I go to patients of all situations and cases. Some are very sick, some have just come out of surgery, some are pregnant or in ICU and about to pass away. My favorite department is the Mental Illness wing as those people are pushed to the side because others are afraid to go in there. Those people need touch and communication just as any other patient in that hospital and they look for me every single week.

The feeling that I leave with every Monday evening after working with the patients is more rewarding than anything that I have ever done. This is my passion, and my quest is to make as many people as I can in my lifetime feel special and to know that they are not alone.

I am also part of the NODA team which is the “No one dies alone” program at the hospital. I have been trained to sit with people who have 72 to 24 hours to live that have no family or friends. I offer comfort to these people at their dying hour. It is very intense but once again an incredible gift to carry.

At work I am inspired by the faith and trust that my colleagues and bosses have toward me to do whatever task I am given. To see their smiles and know that they had a nice time at, let’s say, a holiday party or a successful meeting makes it worth all the effort. Knowing that things went well in the end and all my hard work paid off motivates me to work even harder.

I ended up working for CellMark 20 years ago when we were still “Perkins Goodwin”. I got the job through a temp agency and my title started out as front desk receptionist. I had a switch board to answer with more lines than I could even imagine. There was no voice mail, no direct lines, no scanners, and no internet. The funny thing was when I started the job, about a couple of weeks into it I said to myself that I would stay at this job for a year and then move on. Well, it’s been 20 years now…

– When I was fresh out of college with a Master’s degree in Business Administration, I joined a certified public accounting firm in Gothenburg, Sweden. The firm just so happened to be CellMark AB’s auditors. I was put on the CellMark account and audited CellMark AB for six years, learning all about paper commodities, inco terms and FX contracts. Little did I know that this would be a more frequent element of my work life in the future.

After six years in Gothenburg, I decided that it was time to move on and see more of the world. Through CellMark AB, my firm had connections with CellMark Inc.’s auditors, Armanino LLP. In 2011 I joined Armanino and was put on the CellMark Inc.’s account, as I had CellMark “expertise”.

Then, after the audit in 2016 I was asked if I wanted to join the “other side” and it just felt like a natural step in my career. I didn’t have to do much due diligence. I already knew that CellMark was a great company to work for based on my 10 years of auditing them.

This is a very diverse and energetic office – many different nationalities and cultures are represented and we speak 15 different languages. Being service providers we always need to adjust to the changing world and market to stay in business. We always want to be one step ahead of the game to provide impeccable services to all our business partners.

But it’s also important to have fun. We spend many of our wakening hours at work – it becomes your second home – and there must be room for fun too. The people here love to bake and bring in to the office – and are also big on decorations. As we approach Halloween the office is filled with skeletons, witches, detached body parts and rats.

My motto has always been “I’d rather regret something that I did do – than I didn’t do”. Growing up I would always hear my grandmother say that she regretted buying my dad a moped instead of getting her own driver’s license. That’s when I decided I didn’t want to be old and look back and regret things that I never did. This took me all the way to California. Who knows where I’ll end up.

– To me it’s very rewarding when the reason a customer wants to buy from us is that we’ve earned their trust. The same goes for when a supplier expressly shows their gratitude after we’ve solved a problem for them. That’s when I know that we have done our job well.

Developing businesses, new or existing ones, is a source of inspiration. I’m always interested in new things. I’m interested in change, basically. Changes often lead to new opportunities. And with the whole world as my playing field I’m always on the lookout for these opportunities.

A while back a UK based company came to us with a request. They run a coal power plant and were looking to switch from coal to wood pellets. The reason they came to us was that they needed a complete supply chain from the Baltic States. Since there wasn’t one in place we connected eight pellet producers and set up two storage facilities, one in Riga and one in Ventspils. The objectives for the UK company is to pick up shipments from these storage facilities once a month. That’s the kind of challenge that gets me going, and it was really inspiring making all these pieces fit together.

I grew up in Australia so I’ve always been used to having international working relationships. For example I spent four years working at the Swedish trade council in Canada. Maybe moving around has made me more open to change. When moving to a new city or a new country, the trickiest part has always been finding a new dojo! I’ve been practicing full contact karate since I was 16, and still do. I guess it’s not the most common sport for people over 50 but I love it. It gives me great self-reliance and a sense of harmony.

If I were to give advice to another company – partner or competitor – it would be to contemplate the expression ”good things come to good people.” We fulfill every contract, and strive to be an honest company. Even if a supplier fails to deliver, we buy from someone else just to deliver on the promise with the customer. I think we have attracted a lot of business just by showing that CellMark is a company that you can trust.

– Many of us here at the office share a passion for travel. Working with as many different countries as we do on a daily basis, most realize there is no substitute for visiting a place, meeting the people and experiencing other cultures firsthand.

I really enjoy meeting new people and hearing their stories. I’m a firm believer there is something to be gained from every encounter. The person we ultimately become is simply a collection of a lifetime of interactions. At the end of the day we all have a lot more in common than we think, and have a lot more to learn from one another than we may realize.

Our location, the San Francisco Bay Area, is known for its diversity, ingenuity and natural beauty.  No matter a person’s social, political or religious views, there is a place for them here.  Whether working on the next big thing in tech, the arts, finance or blue collar industry, there is a place for them here. No matter if someone enjoys the snow, the beach, the farm or the forest, there is a place for them here!

I grew up here in Marin County, California. When I was 17 years old my curiosity and a call to service washed over me. In search of answers, I enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. After six hard years as a Longshoreman and Marksmanship Instructor (including a nine month deployment to the Middle East) I hung up my boots and renewed my focus on education.

Three years later I graduated from UC Berkeley receiving my bachelors degree in Sociology with an emphasis in International Relations. Following a year abroad in Bali, Indonesia teaching English, I returned home to combine my logistical training with my passion for foreign cultures, and joined the ranks of the CellMark family.

I find myself enjoying work the most when working in small teams to achieve a collective goal. I’m more driven by the pressure to perform for my colleagues, more engaged in the brainstorming process, and more confident that an individual’s strengths will shine through to help achieve the group’s objective.