‘What an adventure it’s been so far’. That’s what comes to mind as Maria Micallef charts her ever-evolving expedition in business, and her constant desire to advance and innovate.

Hers is a fascinating story that starts when she began her studies at university in her late teens. Although she’d wanted to be a pharmacist, the course wasn’t open that year, so she opted to study chemistry and biology instead.

In hindsight, that appears to have been a crossroad moment in her life and nothing was ever the same again.

“As a newly graduated chemist I applied for a job at General Soft Drinks because, at the time, the company was concerned about possible nitrates in the water table and it needed to run a chemical analysis. I was the first full-time chemist they employed, and I certainly wasn’t planning to go into business.”

But, like with most things in life, Maria soon found herself on her rightful path, and she progressed quickly in the organisation.

Having organised the laboratory as her first assignment, she was appointed operations manager at 24 and given responsibility on the production side of things, while also maintaining her focus on quality.

“The company was led successively by British and Canadian general managers at the time,” she explains. “So, part of my role was to help them communicate with the workforce and the union, and to provide them with any local context they might need to get the job done in the best way possible. I was by their side constantly, and their guidance certainly helped to mould me at a very crucial time in my own career.”

Although ambitious, Maria says she never envisioned she would be where she is today, but her climb up the ladder came very naturally. “Things happened, opportunities presented themselves, and I never thought too much about them – I just went for them,” she smiles. “That’s the advantage of youth! Today I reflect on things more, which has its benefits too, of course. But I don’t think I would be where I am today if I hadn’t just gone with it.”

By the age of 28, Maria was appointed general manager of GSD. It was a time when the company was losing money and had lost its direction a little. “It’s very easy to lose money in any business if you don’t focus your objectives. I went into the role at the right time and managed to mobilise the workforce, which turned out to be a defining moment for the company. I led by example when it came to the way we needed to work and people responded to that. It has remained a cornerstone of my leadership style ever since.”

For Maria, leadership very much centres around identifying a company’s vision and bringing it to life, before outlining the objectives and fleshing them out over a one-, three- and five-year plan.

“Along with that, you have to have the right people to execute,” she recommends. “The right team is the secret to success every time. In fact, my own success at GSD has been the result of the fantastic teams at various levels of the operation.”

And as things at GSD started to improve, Maria also found herself with other exciting opportunities to consider. Brian Mizzi, GSD’s managing director, asked her for help with other companies within the Group portfolio and, when she originally turned them down because she felt she had already reached the peak of her career, he encouraged her to take them on.

“The first was as executive director of IELS,” she remembers. “The organisation wasn’t performing at the time and needed a fresh approach. It already had a team but just needed a new vision, and we were able to turn it around.”

‘Turning things around’ is something Maria has achieved a reputation for since then, and she has gone on to make magic when leading other companies in the Group over the years, including the Waterfront Hotel and Arkadia Group of Companies (both of which she is CEO of today). Across all the companies, she is now responsible for almost €100 million in turnover and 900 employees.

“I go where I am needed,” she says happily, when asked to share the secret to her approach. “And I always have a plan.”

Today, Maria says that plan is made up of three clear objectives – namely to make sure everything she is working on has a relevant strategy with clear objectives, to have the right people to enact that strategy, and to make the companies as sustainable as possible.

“Sustainability is crucial to every business today, no matter what sector they operate in,” she stresses. “Here at GSD, it is one of our pillars and we have countless projects on the go to ensure we are as sustainable as possible. Water stewardship and environmental sustainability are our top concerns. The Coca-Cola Company has been dedicated to protecting and boosting international water security for decades now.

A few years ago, the global company set clear goals for each of its subsidiaries to hit by 2020 but, locally, we hit ours in 2015. They now see Malta as a pilot project for what could be achieved across the world, which is such an honour for us.

In 2018, James Quincey, president and CEO of The CocaCola Company, launched the World Without Waste project, a holistic plan that aims to collect and recycle the equivalent of every bottle or can the company sells globally by 2030, and to create packaging that contains at least 50 per cent recycled material by 2030.

In 2019, the Zero Waste Future programme was launched in Malta with the aim of creating a framework for zero waste cities and zero waste campuses in Malta.”

As she looks towards 2020 and beyond, Maria says she is more determined than ever by the challenges and opportunities ahead, and already knows what she wants to achieve in the next five years.

“I will be focusing on building strong teams and have already started work on my succession. I don’t want to stop working at 55 – far from it – but I do know I want to move on to other roles. So, by the end of the next five years, I would like to be working with the next generation of leaders across all the companies I am involved with, and to be passing on everything I have learnt to them.”

And with her eye firmly on the prize, she believes the coming year will be one that continues to position the companies she leads at the forefront of their respective industries – both in terms of their financial performance and when it comes to the targets that have been set for sustainability and human resources.

“2020 is going to be an interesting year because we do need to keep a close eye on the economy and other important impacts like Brexit and sustainability. I believe it will be a good year but, now more than ever, we have to keep our feet on the ground,” she concludes.

Whoswho.mt is proud to be serialising MaltaCEOs 2020, a high-profile publication consisting of 50 in-depth interviews with leading CEOs in Malta.