One million containers handled per year for three consecutive years. This is the cruising speed of the port of Pointe-Noire, in Congo, since Sandrine Wamy took office. Since September 2020, she has been the operations director of Congo Terminal, a subsidiary of Africa Global Logistics. She is the first woman in the group, and even the first employee of any gender, to have moved from IT to operations. To do this, she had to accept geographical mobility and leave her native Cameroon. She returned there in 2006, after studying computer engineering in France, at the École supérieure d’ingénieurs en électrotechnique et électronique (ESIEE) Paris, and worked for three years in Europe.
In Douala (Cameroon), she climbed the ranks of Africa Global Logistics, a transport and logistics company, and became the first female regional director of information systems. In this position, she led one of the projects that made her very proud: the deployment of Maximo, a software IBM asset management. “These three years of project have challenged me a lot and made me grow. They have also given another dimension to my career. I have acquired new skills and a broad vision of the company, its processes, financial aspects…”
His career in three dates
- 2003 Engineering diploma from ESIEE
- 2006 Join Africa Global Logistics in Douala
- 2020 Becomes Operations Director of Congo Terminal
She then expressed the wish to switch to operations. And insisted. It would take her four years, from 2016 to 2020, to convince her superiors and obtain a position in Congo. The 44-year-old engineer is now very happy with this change, even if, she admits, the first year was tough. She remembers interrupting all social life, the time to absorb and understand everything. A challenge, especially since she had to manage at the same time the well-being and integration of her children, then aged 13, 10 and 7. Although she did not always have enough time to offer them, she claims to have been able to bring them a great quality of presence when she was able to be by their side.
Improved port productivity
On a professional level, she is pleased to be in permanent contact with the world’s largest shipping companies, in South Africa, France, Switzerland and Holland. She was able to use her taste for project management to improve the port’s productivity, shorten the waiting time for ships and truck rotation times. Organizational changes, investment in team training and the implementation of new processes have made these advances possible. Her IT know-how has also made it possible to select tools to promote collaboration between operational managers.
She claims to have a local management style, which helped her find her place in a very masculine work environment. Sandrine Wamy does not shy away from playing the role model and would be happy if, in the next change of function, a woman succeeded her. “The next logical step would be a general management position, but that’s not necessarily my dream!” For all intents and purposes, she is currently pursuing an executive MBA at HEC Paris in business management. “I don’t have a global view of the business world, I had to complete this part on an academic level.”
The work that characterizes her
“Whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward,” Martin Luther King quote
“I choose a quote from Martin Luther King, not a work. I am not able to summarize myself.”
Source: www.usinenouvelle.com
