In 1982, Gordon Perrins was in retail, working as a Branch Manager at Pick n Pay when he ‘jumped the fence’ (as he tells it) and joined the Chocolate Division in the sales team at Nestlé.
Originally from Cape Town, South Africa, he worked for Nestlé there for nine years before finally agreeing to move to Johannesburg in a role on the pioneering Key Accounts team, where he enjoyed being able to ‘cut the path’ and forge new relationships as a Senior Key Account Manager.
After only four months, despite having no intention of ever moving into Marketing, Gordon took up the opportunity to work on Crosse & Blackwell and then a year later, he became the Brand Manager for Bar-One – a perfect fit considering his breakfast had often been a Bar-One and a Coke on the road! A career highlight was South Africa winning the 1995 Rugby World Cup with the Bar-One logo in the corner of the TV screen.
Having been through multiple restructures over the past 43 years, it’s clear that Gordon took them all in his stride, following one of his favourite pieces of advice from a Rive Reine leadership course in Vevey: ‘Don’t worry about tomorrow, focus on today. If you excel at what you’re doing today, everything else takes care of itself.’
Gordon’s next career moves included Trade Marketing Manager in 1998 – where he describes his role leading the National Key Account Managers as a career highlight – and working on the Sales and Marketing Business Excellence (SMBE) team before being seconded to the ‘Generating Demand’ workstream for the SAP implementation. He enjoyed the work and delivered the results, working 16-hour days throughout the project which taught him to ‘do it right, do it once’.
Two years later, in 2005 when SAP went live, Gordon returned to Key Accounts responsible for Pick n Pay, then eventually Total Retail including Spar and independents, evolving within his role from category management to managing a full channel.
Gordon has fond memories of 2010/ 2011 when he was National Impulse Sales Manager, working with water, chocolate and ice-creams. He loves the trade probably because he loves a challenge, saying, ‘If you can excel at the coalface, the rest is easy!’
Gordon has many excellent pieces of advice but he says one of the best he’s ever been given was from Sullivan O’Carol, in his role as Unit Manager Groceries at Nestlé who said, ‘When faced with a decision, ask yourself, if this was your business, what would you do? You’ll inevitably come up with the right answer. I’ve found that always helps me to make the right decision.’
For a time, Gordon headed up Category and Channel Sales Development (CCSD) to bring discipline and alignment across the Business Unit, but he soon returned to Customer Business Management which he says is probably his favourite role: ‘I liked the challenges and overcoming them. I also like to see things happen so I like the short-term results and seeing execution come alive!’
It hasn’t all been sales and marketing roles, though. Gordon speaks very fondly of his involvement in the Graduate Programme, starting in 2001 when he was involved in establishing the initial programme, which he ran for 20 years.
‘Working on the Graduate Programme was my way of giving back to Nestlé. Every Friday I’d book the KitKat Room and dedicate my day to the graduates, taking them through different scenarios, using real examples to challenge them to find solutions,’ he explains.
After a consistently diverse and exciting career, cancer was an unexpected twist in Gordon’s tale – especially for someone who had never taken a day’s sick leave in 36 years. He says, ‘Guy Mungle was my very understanding boss. On my road to recovery, he allowed me freedom to manage my time.’
Thankfully, Gordon healed within six months but soon after starting to work with the Speciality and Impulse team again, Covid-19 lockdown happened. Gordon smiles wryly, ‘After 38 years of service, I suddenly had to learn a whole new world of working alone and working from home!’ With trademark discipline and practicality, he says, ‘I made a Nestlé office in my flatlet and I’d go to work and close the door behind me. That’s how I kept my routine going.’
Intending to retire after 40 years, Gordon took a call from then Sales Director, Guy Mungle, three quarters of the way through his 39th year at Nestlé, asking him to take up the role of Business Development Manager for Mauritius and Seychelles – a role he unsurprisingly accepted.
He speaks of his team in Mauritius with great admiration, saying ‘I will miss my amazing team of ‘can-dos’ – there is no mountain too high to climb for this team! We can all learn from their attitude: they find ways to get things done. They don’t wait to be told, they take initiative. And we’ve had a record year every year since 2022 which is all their doing, not mine!’
As Gordon heads into retirement at the end of April 2025, he is looking forward to heading home to South Africa as he’s missed his two sons and his daughter, all of whom are self-employed. Judith, his wife of 44 years, is already back home, as Gordon says, ‘worrying about me being unable to sit still.’
He reflects, ‘It might be nice to be idle for a week or two. Although I love DIY and I haven’t done any maintenance on our Johannesburg home while I’ve been in Mauritius – I do it all myself – so I have a lot of repairs to do.
‘Retirement is bittersweet – I’m a workaholic. I worked until midnight and I was on my way back to the office at five thirty this morning. I’m that person. I really sometimes believe that Nestle is my business!’
