Andrea Girke serves as the senior global procurement director of professional services at Mars. Up to this point, CW has been managed at the regional level and Girke is in the midst of a large-scale project to implement a global CW program at Mars.

Girke knew many of the rising workforce want shorter, more interesting assignments and prefer not to be tied down. She believed shifting from a regional to global CW mindset would position Mars to better utilize this talent pool. Girke assembled a global team to build the project from start to finish. Their goal is to “leapfrog by learning quickly. We have already formulated a walk-run-fly strategy for the long-term improvement of our total talent management.”

The team experienced a big win by allowing the four major regions at Mars to determine their preferred supplier. Surprisingly, they each selected the same one, which was the desired outcome. By giving decision-making autonomy to each region, Girke gained the buy-in and trust she will need when the initial phases of the project are implemented by the end of 2021.

Given the project’s scale, Girke likens it to drinking from a firehose: “The project is exhausting and daunting, but exciting. How many times in your career do you get a chance to make this big of an impact?”