Elias-Stulemeijer, Vice President of Communications, Public Affairs, and Corporate Responsibility at talabat, opens up on the impact of the pandemic on talabat’s growth, progress on sustainability, and how she puts family above all else
“There is this wrong belief that work should come before everything, and that is the wrong signal message to send…It is not sustainable to sacrifice your personal life over work for too long.”
Susanne Elias-Stulemeijer, Vice President of Communications, Public Affairs, and Corporate Responsibility at talabat, has led a long and varied career in tech; from working at Uber during its toughest times to joining FoodTech and Qcommerce talabat in January 2020, right before the start of the pandemic.
Sitting down with Business Today Egypt, Elias-Stulemeijer opened up on the impact of the pandemic on talabat’s growth, progress on sustainability, and how she puts family above all else.
Calling herself a “Wife Boss,” she is unapologetic about being a mother and prioritizing family above the job, particularly during the pandemic.
“As a ‘wifeboss,’ I am a mom of three little boys and a wife and I’m a boss to a team of wonderful people here at talabat”
“I try to live by the principle that my family is the most important thing in my life, work is important too, but my family will always be there, but with work, you may not know. It is very important for people at work to know, especially for those who are young without kids or a partner, that you can have both.”
Elias-Stulemeijer also pointed out that “you can’t have [work and life] both be perfectly balanced and everything, but having people tell you that it is okay to have kids, and that your family is a priority, is something I think is important, because when I was at an early stage of my career, there were not a lot of people displaying this message.”
“There is this wrong belief that work should come before everything, and that is the wrong signal message to send. In the end of the day, if your personal situation is not okay, then how will you do a good job? It is not sustainable to sacrifice your personal life over work for too long.”
At the start of the pandemic, Elias-Stulemeijer was at the forefront of COVID discussions at the company. “When I joined officially in January 2020, I was talking about COVID before anyone else in the company, and I remember our CEO telling me to stop talking about it because they believed it had passed.”
“I would say that the core thing is to be very organized, very structured and very committed”
“While at home, I was very structured because I realized I had to stay sane, and the only way to stay sane when being locked down at home with kids is building a routine to work remotely until the lockdown was over,” she reminisced.
During the pandemic, consumer demand for delivery services such as talabat were at a record high, with the company growing over 4x during the period. “During the first year of the pandemic, we hired almost 1,000 employees at a time when other companies where letting employees go, and that’s a proud achievement for us”.
“When I joined the company, there were 2,000 employees and now we are at almost 4,000. I think a key enabler for our growth is TMart, and the impact it had on our business. It is the speed and convenience of having what you need at the tap of your finger.”
Previously, no one believe that you could order and have it delivered in the same day, but that speed, convenience and getting precisely what you ordered through TMart is what increased trust in online shopping
“It is the reliability, trust, quality of service, and variety that we offered as what changed consumer behavior, making them trust more in ecommerce.”
According to the VP, talabat is currently looking into shortening waiting times to less than 20 minutes. The company is looking to open up more locations within the cities they already operate in, with possible expansion of up to 50 stores from its current 36 at the end of the year.
When asked about how talabat looks to the future when it comes to sustainability, Elias-Stulemeijer expressed her belief in avoiding green washing and that talabat has “hired the right team to tackle sustainability”.
“The way we are doing things at talabat is taking it one step at a time, but genuinely, which is a lot more powerful than having big words and no action and impact”
She also mentioned “there is a sustainability team [at Delivery Hero, talabat’s global parent company] that looks into topics that can only be addressed at a global level, like carbon mapping”.
“When it comes ESG [Environmental, Social, and Governance], we focus on two main topics; zero hunger, because it is close to our DNA, and climate action. [On sustainability, we are] looking at carbon mapping and carbon footprint, we are looking at initiatives such as electric vehicles, robots, drones, and etc. We are looking at technology in the broadest sense of the word, but the biggest challenge when you look at this sector is packaging.”
“This is where we can make an impact because [packaging] is 30% of our footprint. We have a talabat-developed sustainable packaging project and we are making it available to restaurants. These vendors play an important role. We are also currently working on how to encourage restaurants to not include plastic cutlery by default when no one has asked for it,” the VP added.
Balancing work and life is a tricky endeavor, and Elias-Stulemeijer’s advice to women is to realize that “you can have it all, but you can’t have it at the same time”.
“It is all about sacrifices and priorities. At work, I try to live by what is important, not what is urgent, because everything becomes urgent if you allow it to sit long enough. But if you have made a decision when it is just important and [there is] no pressure, it is easier to come to a decision,” she explained.
“At the end of the day, you have to prioritize, and you have to accept that you can’t get everything done and keep everyone happy. I always say be like a swan, gracious on the surface but kicking really hard under the water.”
