Greetings from Atlanta!

After my time in our precast division, I was originally meant to join our finance team at Thomas Betong. However, while driving back from our plants in Heby I got an unexpected phone call from our CEO Hans. Our subsidiary in the US needed help with some business process improvement projects and clearing up some process bottlenecks. I was presented with the opportunity to travel to Thomas Concrete’s headquarters in Atlanta to assist with this work for four months, and of course I couldn’t turn down such an offer! Now here I am, with one month down and three to go.

Thomas Concrete has over 1200 employees and just shy of 80 plants, making it our largest subsidiary. Atlanta is the biggest division in the US market, as well as the fastest growing. So, as you can imagine, there is plenty of work to do on this side of the pond! I am involved in several business improvement projects, including moving processes between divisions for better efficiency, reducing paper invoicing, digitalizing application and payment methods, working with consultants to revamp our customer service call system, and some other smaller projects. The focus is quick wins – finding new ways of working that may save a couple of minutes a day, and a lot of time and in the long run.

I live in a great apartment close to the office and right by the Chattahoochee River where there are several trails for hikes/runs and places where you can rent tubes or canoes. Atlanta is a fun city with plenty of things to do, and of course, great colleagues to keep me busy during the weekends! For example, we’ve been to brunch downtown, hung out by the pool, and hiked up to Pinnacle Knob, a beautiful trail about two hours north of Atlanta. I can’t wait to see what the rest of my time here in the US has in store for me!