Growing with responsibility

Growing with responsibility

Being a fast growing company open for input from its employees has made Alpine Sale a place where ambitions and determination is what defines the achievements of the employee.

Greeting you at the entrance of Alpine Sale's spacious and minimalist lobby is Nathon Maerungrong better known as Maem or by her office nickname Miss Fix-It. She is the general manager and handles everything from local authorities to the new telemarketing agents’ visas. She is a former school teacher, trophy winning golfer and a mother of two, even though sometimes she feels more like a mother of more than 35 employees. When new employees start at Alpine she will be their first local contact, and the one who helps out if they get lost in translation.

If you venture further in to the office you will most likely run into René Schwarz, he is the company’s 39 year old Danish accountant. He worked 11 years in the Scandinavian bank Nordea before he had had enough with Denmark and moved to Thailand.

Both Maem and René have become part of Alpine's backbone. They have experienced new challenges and an increased responsibility to match the growth of the company.

Taking the leap

Interviewing René on a Friday, he was dressed in knee long shorts, flip flops and a white polo. Even though Alpine urges its employees to dress in nice shirts and long pants for work, Friday is reserved for casual clothing.

”No day is alike, every day I come to the office anything can happen,” might not be the words you will expect to hear from an accountant, none the less it is the way René describes his daily challenges at Alpine.

Just 6 years ago René was still working at a bank in Denmark, saving every penny to follow his dream of moving to Thailand. Two years earlier René had visited Thailand for the first time. It was love at first sight and after three visits he did acted on his dream.

”In order to collect the funds I needed to move to Thailand I moved back in with my parents for a year,” he says and adds that moving back in with the parents at age 32 wasn’t all fun, but a little sacrifice should not ruin his plans.

Even though the company has a detailed career progression tactic, both Maem and René are living examples that hard work, your skills and ideas can make move you up the ladder in the company.

From school teacher to a devoted mother of more than 35 employees.

Maem does not dress down just because it is “casual Friday”. She prefers to be properly dressed if any authorities should pay a visit. During the interview she wore an elegant turquoise blouse with a matching belt and a thin necklace.

Before moving to Hua Hin, Maem was an English teacher. She started teaching at a public school and later ran her own summer school. Later she had to close her school because of the financial crisis and started working as a General Manager in another Danish company in Hua Hin.

Maem became the first full-time General Manager at Alpine Sale. With the growth of the company, her responsibilities have expanded both when it comes to paperwork and when it comes to pampering the new employees. With a smile Maem tells how staff members calls her night and day.

“I have been called in the middle of the night by employees because there was a snake in their house. I said: what do you want me to do? - call animal control,” she laughs and adds that she likes taking care of the new employees. At some point she started receiving quite a few late calls, and Alpine Sale’s CEO Rasmus Møller had to tell the employees to stop calling her at 2 or 3 in the morning.

Taking initiative

When Rene moved to Thailand, he started out with studying Thai and working with another Danish company in Hua Hin. In early 2012, he started working at Alpine Sale doing telemarketing. This was the first time in his life he had worked with telemarketing and he quickly realized that he couldn’t sell as much as he wanted to. René enjoys setting goals and then fight to reach them, so he sat down and had a talk with Alpine CEO Rasmus Møller.

“I told Rasmus that I wasn’t making enough money by doing telemarketing. He said ‘all right what else can you do?’ I said I was good with numbers, and he told me to try and play a bit with the numbers.”

René did, and since then he has experienced a steady growth in tasks as an accountant, he has no intentions of leaving the company. On the other hand, he could picture himself being part of an expansion of Alpine Sales somewhere else in Southeast Asia.

The boss actually listens

According to Maem the work culture in a Danish company is quite a different from what she has experienced in Thai companies. Danish companies tend to be more structured and have shorter deadlines. Even though this means that Maem has to prepare a lot of things in advance and work hard, she really enjoys working in Alpine.

“The management listens to me. They do not just give orders like if I was a robot. Once in a while I have arguments with Rasmus Møller. I even shout at him sometimes. But he always listens to what I say and consider my suggestions, even when I get too loud,” she says

Once in a while Maem misses teaching, but even though Rasmus Møller has allowed her to use Alpines meeting room for as a classroom, she rarely has the time. One reason is of course the workload, but when Maem is busy outside of the office, she likes sports and spends a lot of hours cycling and golfing.

Staying in Thailand

”Do you by any chance smoke White Prince cigarettes?” René asks every newly arrived Dane that enters the office. René does not miss a lot about Denmark, but the right brand of cigarettes, his family and friends are the exceptions. Thailand is his home now and he wants to be a part of the team in Alpine’s fight to become one of Thailand’s leading telemarketing companies.

Alpine Sale is a fast growing company that helps its employees setting goals for their carrier. For employees with ambition there is a thorough plan for how you can ascend in the company. But of course you can do like René, show initiative and prove your worth in a field where you are skilled.

If you are interested in becoming one of Alpine Sale’s new talents you can read more about the job here.