Pandrea has the task of boosting Honeywell’s visibility and
turnover in Eastern Europe since she believes it is “frustrating”
to see how India and China develop, while the merits of states in
the region are not equally appreciated.
Pandrea, who is now running Honeywell Buildings Solutions’ regional
unit as regional general manager, left Romania shortly after
graduating college, a decision she made in a moment of uncertainty.
Pandrea has lived in Belgium for the past 20 years.
“The first company I worked for was in the market survey business
and I started out by doing interviews over the phone. I slowly
moved up and became the head of the sales and marketing department,
after four years. I came to Honeywell after a short one-year stint
at Gartner Group because the company I had been working for closed
its Brussels offices,” said Pandrea.
Born in Victoria town, near Fagaras (Brasov county), she
graduated the Polytechnic University of Bucharest and is currently
attending an MBA program offered by the University of
Edinburgh.
The study of foreign languages was vital for the start of her
career. In her opinion, in order to succeed managers must go beyond
national barriers.
“I decided to come to Romania because I am a Romanian, but also because Romania is an extremely important country to Honeywell, where it set out to grow not only through sales, but presence. I don’t know whether I would have ever thought of setting down in this country even though I traveled here on holiday or for business every year, but I felt it would happen,” said Pandrea.
In the EMEA region, Honeywell has over 32,000 employees, and the
countries in the area generated 29% of the group’s global revenues
in 2010.
“My personal challenge is to help grow the business in Eastern
Europe the way this area deserves to. (…) I would like to improve
the visibility of Eastern Europe and of Romania if possible,” she
added.
She says Honeywell is a company that grew a lot through
acquisitions and Honeywell Garrett Romania plant started production
in June 1998 under the name of AlliedSignal, when it had 190
employees.
The Bucharest plant now manufactures turbo-blowers for diesel and gasoline engines and is the world’s major turbo-blower plant. The Bucharest plant, with around 700 employees, is part of Honeywell Transportation Systems.
Honeywell also has a plant in Lugoj, with almost 600 employees, which makes smoke and fire detectors.
“By yearend, we will probably hire another 100-150 people. Romania is one of the countries considered by Honeywell for expansion, especially when it comes to research but we’re not ruling out manufacturing expansion,” Pandrea added.