Susanne Elias-Stulemeijer, talabat

Susanne Elias-Stulemeijer

Vice President of Communications, Corporate Responsibility and Public Affairs

talabat

Shaping talabat’s purpose

We sat down to talk with Susanne Elias-Stulemeijer, Vice President of Communications, Corporate Responsibility and Public Affairs at talabat about the pandemic, her role as a working mother and wife of an executive husband, and what sustainability meant, for talabat.

For an organisation that is approaching its 18th year, talabat, the region’s leading food delivery and q-commerce app, has a sustainability journey that is in its relative infancy. While undoubtedly, talabat has done a lot of good over many years, 2019 brought the first steps of a concerted strategy, when the organisation employed their first Corporate Responsibility Executive.

Susanne Elias-Stulemejier joined three months later, as Senior Director of Communications, Corporate Responsibility and Public Affairs, a title which in just over 15 months has been upgraded to Vice President.

For Susanne and talabat, the last year has been a whirlwind ride. Personally, having to juggle the home-schooling of three ‘energetic’ little boys (aged 2, 6 and 8) during lockdown, as well as her role at talabat, an organisation that was thrown into the spotlight as a care-taker of the F&B ecosystem, and as such, played a major role in keeping the general population safe and at home, was a massive challenge. ‘It really was, all-hands on deck.’ EliasStulemeijer says. ‘My boys were super understanding, and throughout the disruption, they adapted really well - however, trying to juggle everything together, family, and work, sometimes I felt like there weren't enough hours in the day!’

‘For talabat, from a sustainability perspective, we zoomed into our ecosystem - our customers, partners, riders, and local community. This included both physical safety and also business continuity.’

‘The pandemic enabled us to discover what we were made of as an organisation, a greater calling and an identity. Our people were the big driver of that. We wanted to be more purpose-driven, and have sustainability at the core of what we do. It was a very conscious decision.’

That conscious decision has led talabat to take on an unofficial mantra - we deliver for you, doing all that they could to shield, protect and grow their ecosystem, helping many vendors to not just keep the lights on, but grow during the pandemic. The organisation also went above and beyond to look after those in-need, facilitating the donation of over 343,000 meals, and delivering over 42,000 medicines to chronically-ill patients during the pandemic, as well as raising almost EUR 1.3M through the app, with strategic partners and other contributions.

Elias-Stulemeijer’s VP role allows her to act as a critical intersection between communications, corporate responsibility and public affairs, advising and empowering talabat’s efforts to make an impact on the communities in which they operate. She credits both her team, for being simply ‘outstanding,’ and also being able to enable this change through having a seat in talabat’s Executive Committee.

‘To be an effective leader, you need to have the right team behind you, and thankfully, I have the best team in the region! Not only that, I also really want to pay tribute to our CEO, Tomaso, and my colleagues in our leadership team, for having the vision to understand how important the three disciplines are for modern organisations moving forward - and how critical they are to customer, ecosystem, and government perception of talabat.’

As the region starts to take steps towards returning back to a new-normal, EliasStulemeijer believes it’s now time to really enhance sustainability efforts.

‘We are looking at all aspects of our business. Sustainability is not only about taking your responsibility as a corporate - both internally as well as externally, it’s also about how we enable sustainable practices in all aspects - logistics, cloud kitchens, q-commerce, food delivery, as well as within the employees in our organisation.’

It’s not only about us, however, as the leading player, we need to understand how we can promote and influence sustainable practices within our ecosystem and beyond. We’re here to continue to deliver, to benefit our communities.’

Lastly, but perhaps one of the most important points, for talabat, sustainability in the broadest sense also touches on equity, diversity, and inclusion.

‘Studies show that organisations with more diverse teams far outperform organisations that don’t have an inclusive culture and a diverse workforce. ‘Our vision at talabat is that “you can be you” when you join the team, which is something that we are extremely passionate about, and will continue to hold at the heart of our internal culture, moving forward.’

SUSANNE ELIAS-STULEMEIJER

Busy mum of three little boys, heading up and building the communications, public affairs and corporate responsibility function at talabat, MENA's leading food delivery and Q-Commerce platform. Previously leading EMEA Comms at Uber from London/ Amsterdam and lobbying at EU and national level, based out of Lausanne and Brussels. I am passionate about my family, the news, Swiss chocolate and cheese fondue (in no particular order) and last but not least - diversity, inclusion, and representation.