Coca-Cola Oceania is delighted to announce that Julie O’Toole has been appointed its new Country Lead for the Auckland-based business.
Julie has worked at Coca-Cola Oceania for the past 18 years in a variety of roles, including marketing and innovation, strategy and planning, customer and commercial and franchise – while also raising two children.
She is a strong believer in career as an overall part of your life eco-system. Julie says: “We are enormously fortunate, as women, that in New Zealand we have options and a chance to customise our own employee experience, bringing the best of ourselves to work and home.
“I view my career as one thread in the fabric of my life, like a piece in the jigsaw puzzle – it’s not carved off and operating in a vacuum. Thinking this way helps shape the direction it has taken and how I am largely at ease with how my different roles fit together.
“When my children were younger, I thought differently about what career progression meant and looked for roles that challenged me in new ways and gave me opportunities for personal development and helped me balance my work and family life. I certainly feel lucky to have participated broadly in my children’s worlds as well as at work. This juggle, and my family priorities, have forced me to become increasingly efficient, persistent, pragmatic and philosophical,” she says.
Julie is a strong advocate in the power of building high performing teams.
“When you spend the time on people and culture you unleash talent and the results come. And this focus, aligned with strategy, has borne very strong, multi-year business results for the team at Coca-Cola Oceania.
“The theme of International Womens’ Day 2021 was ‘Choose to Challenge’. My challenge for women and businesses alike is to honour the multiple roles of women in society and continue to create flexible workplaces that bridge these roles. We will all benefit from supporting talented women in the workforce and the phenomenal roles they play in the home,” says Julie.
