Consumer Care Expert, Lucozade Ribena Suntory.

Ria is a Consumer Care Expert for Lucozade Ribena Suntory in London. She is passionate about helping others become the best versions of themselves and loves working with others to encourage self-development, in and outside of their working roles.  A wealth of experience at different fast moving consumer good (FMCG) companies ranging from kitchenware, flavours and Energy drinks.

What Ria loves about working in Consumer Care for Lucozade is that not one day is the same as the other. Consumers continue to challenge you and bring new insights every day. Ria gets to work with different internal teams, like Quality Assurance, Legal, Research & Development and Finance and always learn something new. I am a real people person so working for a business where she can deal with consumers and internal teams, as well as working with others to encourage self-awareness and development is awesome. If you love working with people and being in an ever-changing exciting role, then Marketing is for you.

Ria’s journey involved leaving school at 18 years old with A levels in English & History and at a loss as to what to do next. She took on a part time cleaning job in Stockley Park in the various offices and whilst there was in awe of all the smartly dressed office workers and how life on the other side of a mop and bucket looked more appealing. Ria had very little knowledge on how to work a computer and knew that this was vital if she was going to get into an office environment, so she went and studied for a year in her local college in the evenings doing her ECDL (European Computer Driving License) which she became competent in all Microsoft packages such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, email and the basics. As a result, she started applying for administration jobs and looked to pursue a different avenue.

She was hired for her first admin role which handled Klix & Flavia coffee machines and later went on to work for a leading kitchenware brand dealing with House Of Fraser and Harvey Nicols. Ria then got into the FMCG world whilst working for Firmenich a leading flavours and perfumery company. Ria then went onto work as a Consumer Care Expert for Lucozade and has been engaging with consumers for the past 9 years there. Ria did a year’s secondment in Learning & Development which really gave her the appetite to do more for people wanting to grow and develop. She now runs a grow club session within her team every 8 weeks so that people can share learnings and make time for development. She is based in the same retail park and offices where she was a cleaner all those years before when she had that dream of being behind one of those desks.

Ria is also a mental health first aider and a qualified counsellor with great listening skills.

When Ria isn’t in the exciting world of marketing, she loves going hiking on Dartmoor National park and heading to the beach for the weekend. One of her passions is reading and being part of a creative writing workshop, she loves to write fiction and walk her dog.

A few top tips from Ria include:

• Always be yourself, everyone else is taken.
• If you see a gap in your skill set and it’s something that could help you towards your goal then do something about it, sign up for a course, there’s hundreds of brilliant free courses on LinkedIn and various platforms.
• Consider volunteering for an organisation that you’re passionate about, it builds character and is good for the soul, it will keep you humble and is a great talking point in future interviews.