Sandra Yonter, Vice President of Marketing and Managing Director at Visable International, is an experienced digital and e-commerce executive with more than 25 years of industry expertise. Throughout her career, she has been instrumental in constructing, overseeing, and broadening online business divisions on a global scale. She holds a Master’s Degree in Marketing and Business Management from ISC Paris (1996), and has completed executive programs at renowned institutions such as the Stanford University Graduate School of Business in 2018 and the Yale School of Management in 2021, focusing on growing companies and women’s leadership respectively.
Having held diverse leadership positions in marketing and business across sectors including dating, fashion, home décor, education, and health, Sandra currently serves as the VP of Marketing and MD International at Visable. Her role involves driving the company’s mission to support small and medium-sized European businesses, executing an ambitious marketing strategy within a complex platform ecosystem catering to two-sided audiences. She identifies opportunities to establish a flywheel effect around user journeys and channel utilization.
Below are highlights of the interview conducted between World’s Leaders and Sandra Yonter:
Describe who you are as a person, inside and outside of the workplace.
I am a 50-year-old woman living at high speed! I am the mother of three gifted boys with ADHD, who taught me a lot about my own particular personality, operational functioning, and intellectual functioning.
I am passionate about everything I choose to do, from work to hobbies (ballet, yoga, languages, and cultures). I love to learn, and I do that permanently, through books, e-learning, courses, and educational programs.
I only choose to work for businesses I am passionate about, where I feel I can contribute significantly and be supported in the mission that is given to me. I give my best at work and often manage to accomplish my high-set annual professional goals, all in fewer months.
Tell us about the inception of the company. How did it all start?
It all started in Germany in 1932 with Wer liefert was and in 1982 with Euredit (now Europages), two print directories for company procurement teams in their respective geographic European regions, which moved online in 1995. Today, both platforms, under the Visable umbrella, bring together buyers and sellers worldwide for more efficient B2B procurement activities.
What has made you successful? What do you value?
My journey has been shaped by a myriad of experiences, challenges (failures), and learnings. I take every day as a greenfield opportunity for experimenting and stretching my experience and contribution to my environment and small world. I have never given up, although some experiences could have been dealbreakers. Determination, perseverance, focus, discipline, curiosity, and openness increase the chances of success, if not at least personal growth. Success depends on a lot of external factors, such as the environment, circumstances, contributors, etc. But personal growth fully depends on what you do about the experience.
I particularly value these qualities in the people I work with: reliability, courage, sense of ownership, teamwork, humor, openness, curiosity, inclusiveness, respect, empathy, and integrity. And I admit that only those who match those values get credit in my eyes.
Which are the major services of the company, and how does the company get ahead in the competition? What value-added services does the company provide?
We are Europe’s most effective one-stop-provider to reach B2B purchasers with our own B2B platforms and partner channels.
Visable consists of “visible” and “enable” and explains in one word what we are: success-enablers and visible-makers for our customers. As such, we support industrial SMEs, to make their products and services accessible to buyers on an international scale. With our own B2B platforms and online marketing services specially tailored to business customers, we offer a broad portfolio of services for increasing SMEs reach on the Internet. With our platforms, we reach 3 million B2B purchasers every month.
What are the most important aspects of a company’s culture? What principles do you believe in, and how do you build this culture?
A great company’s culture is one where employees feel considered, supported, trusted, nurtured, valued, and, on the other side, healthily challenged for the company’s benefit and to their own advantage, being encouraged to develop both professionally and personally.
It is about offering a transparent and consistent experience for all employees at all levels, up to the leadership team, that enables everyone to be supported in thriving in their work environment.
What is the significance of innovative ideas in the company?
The organization’s approach to innovation is fixed and focused on solving the problems of the users of our B2B marketplaces, which means everyone in the organization, at all levels, is engaged in a process where they are encouraged to explore ways to innovate and optimize the experience across the whole funnel.
On my side, I started a transformation process when I joined to lead the marketing department, focusing on agility, data-driven prioritization, and collaboration.
Today, we have more technologies at hand that are like fast-forwarding innovation. They’re not only speeding up the creation of new ideas and the availability of new services or products, but also opening entirely new paths to explore and implement to increase the value for our users, speed up delivery, or increase productivity.
This means that leaders like myself need to guide their teams through constant evolution and ensure that the organization stays ahead of the curve by considering and testing those technologies. By fostering a culture that embraces change and adaptation, we can ensure the organization is well-equipped to navigate the challenges and jump even more on the opportunities presented by disruptive technologies.
Specifically today, everyone has artificial intelligence in mind when referring to disruptive technologies, offering the capability to produce content using huge data models. AI allows the use of massive datasets to learn patterns and create content, leading to faster and more relevant initiatives across various areas like product development, sales, customer interactions, marketing, order management, and more.
In the case of Visable and our B2B sourcing platforms, AI enables us to help buyers identify the most suitable suppliers, discover relevant products or services that meet their specific needs, leading to faster and more informed purchasing decisions. But also remove the language barrier between purchasers and suppliers in their procurement communication.
Give us your opinion on; do organizations rely heavily on individual heroics or team processes?
I believe the answer is a subtle mix of both. On one side, successful organization require a good level of collaboration between team members within and across the organization, supporting each other, complementing each other, and taking advantage of the “power of many,” which is why diversity in the workplace is important, to ensure healthy challenges between team members, who have different backgrounds, experience, expertise, or even different cultures.
But on the other side, it is crucial to have models in the organization who lead by example, who raise the bar, who inspire others to reach the stars and do “heroics” when necessary.
What are your responsibilities as the VP of Marketing and Managing Director of Visable International?
As part of the management of Visable, I exercise my best judgment to participate actively in making the best possible decisions for the organization on all possible topics.
As VP Marketing, I have been shaping the marketing department, bringing all areas into a cross-discipline, cross-location (Berlin/Hamburg/Paris), international team of 40 members, addressing all marketplace audiences and brands to boost reach and increase value for both purchasers and suppliers, and transitioning the function into a tech driven marketing organization.
As MD International, I have contributed to integrating the sister company Europages (90 employees) into the group, mutualizing processes and resources to pursue the company’s growth strategy in its EU target markets. This resulted in a significant increase in the revenue share of both cases, identifying a vision based on the identified potential, developing a relevant, though ambitious, strategy, and translating it into an action plan, in partnership with the management and the company’s various departments.
What is the happiest part of your daily routine?
I am embracing every new day for what it will bring. I purposely add to my daily routine all the possible moments of joy, such as practicing yoga postures, having a nice walk with my dogs in nature, gently waking up and preparing my son before bringing him to school, and preparing a delicious chai tea latte.
What advice would you give someone going into a leadership position for the first time?
Practice self-compassion! Collect appraisals from colleagues about your contribution and success, and read them when your self-confidence is fragile. Regularly pause and acknowledge the progress made and your path to get there.
Continuously learn and adapt. Those will enable you to stretch your knowledge, navigate dynamic environments, stay updated with your industry trends, and adjust your perspective when and as needed, which is necessary in our heavily changing world.
