Silke Engelmann – Executive Assistant of Bayer Hispania Managing Director

Motivation and Dedication

How everything started?

Born in Germany, Silke moved to Spain in 1975, when she got married with a Spaniard. In September 1976, she joined Bayer as a Management Assistant for technical management, and during 15 years, she switched among different areas. After 9 years as the assistant of Bayer’s administration director, she started to be the Executive Assistant of Bayer Hispania Managing Director. Nowadays, she has been working on this position for 11 years.

What about now?

As Frank Bertram’s assistant, Silke is mainly responsible for the agenda planning, trips organization, personal assistance, tasks coordination and calls filter. In order to develop her tasks properly, she needs to be always in contact with the director: “We work without paper, that’s a novelty he has introduced. The laptop makes our teamwork easier”.

A good assistant...
“Should think about how to free her boss and has to be prepared to take decisions (she cannot be consulting all the time). An harmonious relationship should exist in order to know what he would do in this or that situation, in order to know how to adapt yourself to his methodology and in order to have time availability when required”.

A good boss…
“Is the one who creates this harmonious relationship and promotes a good communication. He should be honest, and he should know how to make negative as well as constructive comments. If our relationship were not good, I could not develop my work properly”.

What I like

“I never get bored! I am in contact with different departments in Spain and Portugal, as well as in Leverkusen, especially with other Executive Assistants, and we support each other. I share tasks with Pilar Tejero with a complete transparency, and I think it is a great way to work”.

Last change: Mar 18, 2009