Anne Berg: building a successful international manufacturing career

Vice President of Manufacturing for Agricultural Solutions in the Americas Anne Berg was recently inducted into the Women in Manufacturing (WIM) Hall of Fame for her “support of women’s advancement in the workforce by encouraging women to build career paths that utilize their unique talents and interests and supporting networking events that create an environment for diverse perspectives to thrive.”

Anne Berg was born and raised in Southwest Germany, in a small town one hour away from BASF’s headquarters in Ludwigshafen. From a young age, she was always drawn to math, and in high school, she was also accomplished in physics and chemistry, so naturally, a career along those lines would have been a good fit. 

Yet, with no links to the chemical industry and without the Internet to browse, her options weren’t as clear. “Back in the day, at the university, there was a library with folders where you could get information about the type of degrees available. There, I found chemical engineering, which combined a little bit of everything, and I went for it,” she explains.

After graduating as a chemical engineer from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in 1995, she applied to several large chemical companies in Germany and, after dipping her toe in different possibilities, decided to join BASF in 1996, where she has remained to this day. Learn more about her story below.

An unexpected passion

One of Anne’s first memories linked to BASF was interviewing at the Ludwigshafen site: “Back then, you were still allowed to drive in with your own car. I remember that coming from the gate to the location where I had to be for the interview, they gave me good directions, but after a long day of various interviews with different people, when I was done and said bye-bye, I thought, ‘How do I get out of here?’”

Reminiscing about that first moment interviewing at BASF, what tipped the scale for her was the culture and the people. “In hindsight, talking so much about what makes you feel like you belong somewhere, I think I intuitively took my decision based on that. The people I was talking to were very nice and approachable at BASF. I could see myself working there and feeling at home.”

Manufacturing wasn’t really a conscious choice at first for Anne, but a happy accident. During her first leadership role as Production Manager in the polystyrene plant at the Antwerp site in Belgium, she discovered her love for manufacturing, and it never really went away. In her own words, “It was nice being part of the plant, working with everyone there, sitting in the control room, trying to solve issues, partially based on the science that I had learned but also on talking to people and seeing what they had learned. I also enjoyed walking through the plant and seeing it happen in real life and not only in data. For me, that was the point when I realized I liked being in manufacturing.”

Today, 28 years later, she is still involved in the manufacturing scene. As Vice President of Manufacturing for the Agricultural Solutions business for the Americas, Anne is responsible for several sites across North and South America, making sure they are “operating safely, reliably, and efficiently” while ensuring processes are continuously improving, customers are happy with the products, and the team stays motivated and can develop.

Lessons in leadership

Anne has held leadership positions at BASF for the past 23 years, including three different positions as vice president for various operating divisions. Looking back, she remembers experiencing many of the common struggles of first-time leaders. “In the beginning, I didn’t have the confidence others had with far more years of experience, who knew all the details much better. Everyone else had way more experience than me at that point, and I had to lead this team, and also improve the performance of one team member. It was a big challenge to really sit with him as a newcomer, lacking the technical expertise he had, and give him that feedback, that performance needed improvement."

Anne recognizes the benefit of having good leaders to steer any career. Even though the concept of mentoring didn’t really exist when she first started, she found important role models in some of her leaders and got to observe and listen to them (and still does) learn from their example and incorporate behaviors she admired.

Female leadership at BASF has come a long way since Anne first started, especially in North America, where she has been for the past seven years. In the Manufacturing Community Steering Committee, for example, BASF’s leading manufacturing body in the region, the percentage of female members today is 45%. Even Anne’s own team consists of two female site directors, and in her view, this is becoming more and more frequent.

Among the main drivers for this growth, for Anne, are the open conversations acknowledging the gap. “I'm a firm believer that by addressing it openly, talking about it and creating networking events where you can exchange experiences or thoughts, the issue is in the open; it can be accepted and addressed instead of hidden. In the past, there was no other approach; I was part of the team, and I never thought about whether I was the only woman in the room or not.  And there is something to learn from that. If you're only focused on the differences and the challenges, you make yourself unhappy and place limits. Having a balance between not seeing it and actively addressing it is important. Just saying, ‘here are the challenges, but let's not get hung up on new challenges and rather try to find solutions and focus on what we can do to improve the situation.’”

She also recognizes the value of training programs such as Female Leaders Advancing Manufacturing Excellence (FLAME), which she is involved in, as well as networking events and mentoring activities that promote development opportunities.

A fierce advocate of work-life balance, for Anne, having flexibility is key to being effective in her job and an important part of her style of leadership. “I'm leading a team; I'm never looking at when my team is doing their work; as long as the work is done as needed, I'm not challenging in detail how many hours they are spending on it. If someone tells me that they are working a large number of hours to get their work done, I will rather try to find out what the reasons are for it. It could be too much on someone’s plate or that we are adding too much complexity and we need to simplify how we are doing our work,” she argues.

This very same spirit is what the Women in Manufacturing (WIM) organization praised her for when they selected her as one of their 2024 Hall of Fame Inductees. On October 6, after 28 years in BASF and almost seven working in North America, she became the fourth female leader at BASF to be recognized with this distinction. “I’ve had a long career in manufacturing, but I'm really happy that I was able to establish a network and find friends and colleagues who helped me perform at my best in North America. Getting this recognition and having people propose my name makes me very happy,” she reflects.

A different version

One of the most rewarding aspects of Anne’s career has been the international experience and being able to hold positions at different locations, from Ludwigshafen, Germany, to Antwerp, Belgium, to Tarragona, Spain, and finally, North Carolina in the United States. Each of these experiences was filled with joys, unique challenges, cultural shifts and more, and they all required flexibility, openness and a willingness to learn and make mistakes. “I've become a totally different version of myself. Not a different person, but a different version. And I notice that in small things. It made me much more aware of myself and of others. In Belgium, in Spain and also here [in North America], I'm actively listening and observing how others act and try to adapt as best as I can. I also try to keep some of the extremely positive things that I saw here and there, something that I wouldn’t have if I never left Germany in the first place,” she explains.

Variety has certainly been the spice of Anne’s life when it came to her career, and it’s also one of the aspects she treasures the most of her years at BASF. “I enjoyed maintaining and extending my network in the company while at the same time experiencing different cultures, different businesses, different roles and different challenges. I was never bored in any role. They all had very different content. I enjoyed the variety and diversity that allowed me to learn, grow and really contribute to the company. It just doesn't feel like I spent all the time at the same company.”

Published on October 15, 2024, by Mariana Licio.

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