Michelle's Traineeship to Project Manager Strategic Partnerships at Renewi 

After her traineeship at Renewi, Michelle started in her role as Project Manager Strategic Partnerships. 
After completing her degree in International Business Administration and masters in International Management at Tilburg University, the traineeship at Renewi unexpectedly came her way. "During my education, we were given training to prepare you for the job market. Here we learned to turn on notifications on LinkedIn, so I had done that for traineeships and sustainable businesses. Just a day later, I received a notification about the traineeship at Renewi and after the selection, I was allowed to start! The traineeship started even before I graduated, so I wrote my thesis alongside the traineeship." 
  

Learn and grow during the traineeship at Renewi 

The traineeship started with an induction month full of information, training sessions and site visits together with the other trainees. Michelle then started her assignments, working on a new assignment every six months within different departments of the company. "My first assignment was within operations, followed by a period in sales. Very nice because after that I had a really good idea about the business. That background knowledge helped me immensely in later assignments where I had to do more stakeholder management." 

A later project Michelle worked on was writing Renewi's CO2 reduction plan. "During that project, I was given a lot of responsibility, something was really going to happen with my plan. It's nice that you grow into that within the traineeship. I have also learnt that thinking strategically about the future and managing stakeholders is my area of interest." 

 

Project Manager Strategic Partnerships: Sustainable cooperation and innovation 

 "In my new role as Project Manager Strategic Partnerships, I will use Renewi's mission to look for concepts and collaborations that can help achieve this. For example, alternative methods of waste collection. I find it challenging and enjoyable to deal with these kinds of issues.'' 
 

Tips for future trainees at Renewi 

Michelle has always remembered an important tip her coach gave during the traineeship. "I am an OHC, which stands for Open, Honest and Curious. If you keep that attitude and take the time to figure things out, it always works out."