Perform better, develop faster
People in this industry are traditionally ambitious and career-focused. If you’re the kind of person the likes of Reckitt Benckiser are looking for it’s no surprise that you’re already interested in where your career path could take you. The short answer is: almost anywhere! You won’t progress you until you’ve developed the right skills and experience, but it’s up to you how long that takes. The most elite businesses believe in keeping career paths clear for people - you won’t find any ‘backwaters’ in the best. Instead, performance equals progression, and progression means new challenges and more chances to outperform.

Clear road ahead
Some companies have a structured career path, others don’t believe in overly formal career routes as they don’t want career development to be restrictive. However they all equally want you to have the chance to achieve your career aspirations, however high they might be. See the path below as a general illustration of the route a career might take in any one function - but it is not a prescription and is simply intended to give you an overview.- Entry Level Professional [including graduate programmes]- Manager- Middle Manager- Director- Senior Director- Senior Executive

Sales
A clear career path can take you from local roles in field sales, trade marketing and key account management, to global sales at head office, and then beyond. Longer-term your career will be heading for sales director, then a country general manager.

Marketing
As most FMCG’s companies will be consumer-centric, marketing teams form the core of future leadership. However, ‘pure marketing’ doesn’t fit necessarily fit with strong commercial focus - a typical career path in marketing will always include some overlap with sales. This ensures that the best country general managers of the future are well prepared to deliver on the full range of commercial challenges they will face. The most elite marketing-focused careers will typically see you join as a commercial graduate trainee in a local business, moving between sales and marketing, from a brand manager up to category manager, then perhaps into a to global strategic role in head office (a global brand market manager for example). From one or two roles at this level, it is expected that you to be able to prove yourself able to step up again to be a marketing director of a country and eventually, a country general manager.

Research and Development
A typical career in R&D will see you start as either a graduate trainee, or perhaps an experienced analyst, stepping up to an associate position, then R&D manager with a team of direct reports and then a director level role. Though you may opt to focus on a specific technical area of expertise (such as electrical devices), we are more likely to see you progress along the more generalist route, which provides a broader scope of development across many learning areas and a greater number of career opportunities. Again with international mobility in mind, next steps from here could include global category R&D group director and, for the most successful, R&D senior vice president.

Information Systems
Building a career here involves exposure to different areas of the business but as discussed earlier there can be a variety of routes to your chosen career. At a fundamental level, your career path will be similar to that shown in the diagram above, taking into account the two key areas within IS - Systems Solutions and Production.

Finance
Like other functions, a successful career in finance will involve delivering in a spread of generalist entry level positions, to broaden your fundamental skills and experience. Moving upwards from here, the most promising talent are likely to take on roles across sales, marketing, supply and financial accounting teams. The career path is broad but still clear and once qualified you will have the opportunity to prove your capability in roles through manager, controller, country director, regional director and ultimately area director or senior vice president level.

Supply chain
Your career is likely to develop across key areas; these may include manufacturing, quality, supply services, engineering and purchasing. Expect to take on roles in more than one of these areas for each career stage. By the time you reach managerial roles, international exposure will be essential. This career path is designed to create high-potential senior managers with an understanding of the business that’s as broad as it is deep.

Human Resources
A typical career might see you beginning as a trainee or associate, and then broadening your skills to show how you can take on one or more HR manager roles, supporting manufacturing and commercial sites or even a specialist local function. Beyond this level your talents and international mobility will see you move into a more strategic role, heading the HR function for a small country or regional specialism. From here, and depending on your leadership skill set, you could become HR director of a country, then of a region (eg Eastern Europe) or global function (eg sales) and eventually head of an Area (such as Europe) or specialism (eg Compensation & Benefits). The final and most senior step in the HR career path is the Executive Committee role of senior vice president of HR.