What is your role at Sofiprotéol ?
As communications manager, I help industrial sites and companies within Sofiprotéol’s Oilseed Division explain their activities and business. As a result, I’m involved in communications with the press, associations, and local organizations.
It’s important that Sofiprotéol help people understand its business, especially given the public’s apprehension toward the agricultural industry. We also want to strengthen our presence in France’s regions. Although Sofiprotéol’s head office is in Paris, our activities are spread throughout the country, much like the country’s regional agriculture.
Can you describe your career path ?
An agricultural engineer by training, I worked in plant protection before moving into marketing and communications. This career shift reflects my interest in explaining science and building relationships. I like using my technical knowledge to explain our activities and industries in a straightforward way.
Having both technical and communication skills is indispensable in my position, which involves playing interpreter among engineers, scientists, and the general public.
In your opinion, what other qualities are necessary for this position ?
My job requires the ability to listen and empathize. It’s also important to know how to adapt to different groups: local residents, journalists, local officials, and even young people when presenting at schools.
It’s not only an on-site job. Monitoring external events, gathering information, and creating communication tools are also an important part of my daily work.
In your opinion, what characterizes Sofiprotéol’s communications ?
Sofiprotéol has an economic model that’s unique in the industry. We don’t talk about our products, but rather our mission, the ways we help the agricultural industry, and the accomplishments we’ve achieved since our creation in 1983.
This type of communications—one might call it institutional—is conducted with a mindset inherited from the scientific and agricultural worlds. We stick to facts and tend to avoid making “big promises”. We want to express what we can do today in a completely transparent and unexaggerated way, even though it can be tempting for someone in communications to want to talk about what we will undoubtedly be able to do in the future.
