Saint-Gobain Cultilene is celebrating its 45th anniversary. To mark this milestone, we’re travelling back in time with various current and former employees. They’ll share their memories and wisdom, as well as their visions for the future. This time it’s the turn of Kim Harding, who worked at Cultilene from 1990 to 2018, first as Sales Manager and later as Manager Application.

Kim was with Cultilene for an impressive 28 years, during which he held various roles. He started out back in 1990 as a technical advisor for the UK, when Cultilene was still operating from France. His job took him around the globe as Sales Manager, visiting countries like America, Australia and Mexico. In his final years Kim was Manager Application and developed the framework for the Cultilene app. 

Kim has many fond memories of his time with us, even if it took him a while to find his feet in the role to begin with. He explains: “After I was hired, they gave me a car and a computer and sent me on my way with a simple ‘good luck’ from France. That was it – from then on, I was on my own. I worked from home but spent much of my time on the road visiting growers. Fortunately, I had experience: before I joined Cultilene I managed a large tomato nursery, which helped me understand the problems growers faced.” 

Finding new customers wasn’t easy at first. Kim explains: “Cultilene wasn’t well known in the UK at the time. To change growers’ minds, I gave them small quantities of our products to try out. Slowly but surely, I noticed a shift. Much to the annoyance of our biggest competitor: they had a larger team, but more and more growers were choosing Cultilene. Becoming the market leader in the UK felt like a victory.”

Bucket list
Once things were running smoothly in the UK, Kim switched to a sales role, which took him all over the world. “I flew to Australia twice a year,” he recalls. “I once took a stunning train journey from Perth to Adelaide, which went through the Nullarbor Plain and the gold mines there for three days. The views along the way were unforgettable. Plus, the Australians are incredibly friendly; they looked after me well and we had a lot of fun together. I have wonderful memories of my time there.”

The train journey he made in Australia is definitely one for the bucket list, Kim says. His travels through America were equally memorable. “The first few times we went to America we flew from one customer to the next. But constantly having to check in, wait around at airports and renting cars was a nightmare. Eventually we decided to rent a big car in Arizona and drive ourselves. That was fantastic. We visited our customers and in between we were treated to some wonderful scenery.”

Outside the comfort zone
One of the core values in Kim’s work was to always keep moving forward. He explains: “As a technical advisor, I took measurements for many different growers and noticed that they often had similar problems. So instead of solving each problem individually, I tried to find a general solution that would benefit everyone. I was always looking to see what I could improve.”

One wisdom Kim wants to share is not to stay within your comfort zone – even though it took time for him to take that lesson on board himself. He recalls: “I did a lot for Cultilene, but when people asked me to speak in front of an audience, I always declined. So when our then director asked me to launch the framework we had developed at a conference in Canada, I said ‘no’.”

But a few weeks later Kim found an email in his inbox confirming him as a speaker. “I panicked. Unbeknownst to me, he had signed me up anyway. I’d never been so nervous in my life! But I went up onto the stage, gave my presentation and conquered my fear. Since then, I’ve done a fair amount of public speaking. Looking back, I wish I’d learned this lesson 30 years earlier, because in the end you achieve nothing by staying in your comfort zone.”