María Constantina Roca - Controller - Interfood Americas
Learning to interact with lots of people from different areas is a constant process.
Hi María, could you please introduce yourself?
My name is María Constantina Roca Acosta y Lara (my colleagues call me Cunsi), I’m 36 years old and I am a Controller within the finance team of Interfood Americas in Uruguay. Between 2017 and 2019, I was also in charge of our other company in Montevideo, known as Falmery.
I am married and I have the two most incredible daughters I could ever wish for, Francisca María who is 3 years old, and my youngest, Justina of 1 year old. In my spare time I like to meet with my friends and family a lot, something we Uruguayan’s appreciate very much. I’m also very interested in mindfulness and I will start a course this month. So maybe, I can become a coach of this amazing tool for all Interfood colleagues as well, you never know.
What was your motivation to start a job at Interfood?
To be honest, I was not really into trading or the dairy market, but the idea of being part of a family and multinational company at the same time was very attracting to me, and I wasn’t wrong. Being part of the finance team and having the chance to learn all the tasks that could be included in a finance role, such as AR, AP futures, hedging, reporting and almost all other activities that come along with the title “finance” is really interesting. Besides that I really love cheese!
What is your favorite thing about Interfood?
I love how dynamic Interfood as company is. I think that my role and tasks have not been the same for more than 3 months in a row. This allows us to pick up different tasks and learn better ways of working. Learning to interact with lots of people from different areas is a constant process.
Additionally, I like how Interfood understands the importance of our personal lives and our work-life-balance. At Interfood we get the chance to keep on growing personally and professionally, but at the same time we have enough time and space to take care of our loved ones.
About your job at Interfood, what does your average working week look like?
As commented, it’s not easy to describe my working week since we have a lot of different tasks and constant ad hoc requests. Nevertheless, we can probably divide our month in two parts. The first part is about focusing on EOM reporting and conciliating numbers of Americas and the HUB and the second part is about trying to catch up with everything else, such as credit limit analysis, cash flow forecasts and FX position analysis.
What do you like the most about your job?
What I appreciate most about my job is that, because of all the different tasks, I keep in touch with all the departments within the office. This gives me a better insight of what everybody’s working on and the challenges we are facing as a company. This gives me more perspective of Interfood as a whole and not just to be focused on the finance area.
Since you’re working for Interfood for almost 6 years now, what is your best memory of your time at Interfood until today?
I can’t describe one unique memory, but when I close my eyes and think of my best memory at Interfood I think about celebrations. At Interfood we celebrate all our business accomplishments, but also our personal achievements, which for me are very important as well. We celebrate when we get our masters degrees diplomas, when we get married, when we become parents, when we get promoted or when we have the opportunity to become part of another Interfood office. We celebrate all the good moments, but maybe more important, we receive support in the less good moments, which makes Interfood feel like home to me.
You’ve joined Interfood Americas back in 2015. What can you tell about the development and growth of our office in Montevideo?
Wow, that’s a long story. I started in an office in the free zone, just after trade flows where introduced. We expanded the office three months later, since the CFO was establishing in Montevideo. Later on, we opened Falmery office, close to our first office, to route all Uruguayan purchases through that company. I had the chance to be in charge of that small office, which I still miss. Last year, we fused both offices and moved to a smaller office, outside the free zone, but close to my own house, so again, happy to be part of the change. I have learned a lot in this transition we had to live and I feel this experience has enriched me as a professional.
What is your expectation for the years to come?
I expect to keep on developing myself both professionally and personally and to add value to the goals of Interfood Americas. Hopefully, if COVID -19 lets us, I get the chance to learn about other offices in other hubs and their ways of working, all to use the best practices in finance and to improve our business.
Finally, what would you say to potential new team members?
I would say go for it! You will find a multinational with great people willing to listen and coach you, allowing you to have your time and space to develop new skills. You will have the opportunity to learn a lot about the business and the industry and you will have a lot of opportunities to travel and develop yourself all around the globe.
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