Aletta: We tied the knot for life three months after our move to the Far East. I really wished that Peter and I could have spent more time together. (2) Peter: If I wanted to succeed, there was no alternative but to travel. In Eindhoven too, where the executives were preoccupied with their own work, they soon realized that plenty of positive things had happened in Hong Kong during my first year there. Aletta: Sometimes I had the impression that political intrigues had a much higher priority at Philips than the actual business divisions. Peter: That doesn't matter. Anyway, one day we asked ourselves, “Why not also include other accessories, for example, microphones and headphones, in this business division?” (3) Aletta: Fortunately! Philips' CEO in Hong Kong felt that for reasons of prestige, Peter ought to be given a better office. His new office on the 26th floor of Philips' headquarters in Wan Chai commanded a gorgeous view. Peter: I moved there relatively quickly. We soon grew to become a team of nine. After four years, we were already generating a turnover off 36 million guilders. We earned an uncommonly high profit of eight million guilders. Aletta: That's when the problems started. Peter: you're right. Someone felt that Mr. Stas shouldn't be simultaneously responsible for purchasing and sales. But precisely that was the advantage: I knew what customers wanted at what price and I could pressure suppliers accordingly. And I could also negotiate the numbers of units. Aletta: I think one difficulty was that Peter was still quite young. His youthfulness didn't fit in a business with rigidly entrenched structures. Peter: yes, I see it that way too. So they promoted me out of the division and made me responsible for new business. An older colleague arrived from Eindhoven to manage the purchasing. From that moment on, things didn't run quite as brilliantly as they had before. good people left the organization. Peter: Negotiating with suppliers, developing and selling products, searching for technologies and solutions to problems: that's exactly what we do now, day in and day out, at Frederique Constant. No Fields Found.