Meryem Tazi Labzour, Marketing and Modern Trade Manager at Zalar Holding
Location: Banchereau Maroc – Subsidiary of Zalar Holding
Employed with Seaboard or Location since: January 2017
What is your history/career path prior to Zalar Holding?
I went to France right after my high school diploma. I studied in a business school, completed a masters in management and marketing in Neoma Business School Rouen (Former Rouen Business School).
Before I joined Zalar, I went through several internships in France. First mainly in IT companies. Starting with Teradata for six months an EMEA PR assistant, then joined Microsoft for a year in the consumer unit as Office (Mac/PC) Junior Brand manager. After these two experiences, I wanted to be where the “core” consumer marketing is and try to get into the Fast-Moving Consumer Goods sector. I then joined Reckitt Benckiser as an intern for six months on the brand Finish, and then I was recruited in the company as a Finish Brand Manager.
After few years, my path crossed the one of Miguel Guerreiro, the GM of Banchereau Maroc, a subsidiary of Zalar Holding. He was looking for a Marketing manager for the company. I got to know more the project and I decided to bet on it and came back to Morocco to join the team in 2017.
What are your current responsibilities?
Currently I am the marketing and modern trade manager of the company. My role is to provide the insights and marketing strategy of the brand Dindy. On the modern-trade side, I manage big retail accounts such as Carrefour in Morocco, a significant French retailer located all around the world. I am their contact in term of negotiation. I manage a team of 4 zone managers all across Morocco and 78 merchandisers.
What do you enjoy most about working for Zalar?
What I value the most are the people I work with. It is important that when you come to work, you enjoy interacting with your colleagues and have the same values as theirs. Zalar is a company that puts their employees first. The human aspect, the sense of family is what makes it special. That is what I enjoy most, feeling at home.
What important values do you think Zalar delivers on?
1 – Zalar’s first value would be to always seek more and further.
2 – Social responsibility
3 – People first – Making sure of the work life balance of their employees
4 – Integrity
What’s your favorite story/memory about working for Zalar? 
My best memory of Zalar Holding was when we were finalizing a deal in Dakar with a distributor partner. First, because I consider it one of my biggest accomplishments. Secondly, because I felt the trust the company was putting on me and felt honored to be part of a huge project such as Zalar Senegal.
What surprised you most about the job or its location?
When I came back from almost 10 years in France, I was a bit scared of the change of management style that would occur in Morocco. I was expecting more hierarchy management like in most Moroccan companies, but instead I was pretty surprised with the openness of people, and their care for their employees.
How do you spend your free time? What do you like to do in the city where you live?
I try to make the best of my free time. I believe in work-life balance. I go to the beach, Surf with friends mostly. That’s how I can disconnect from work and life in general. I largely spend the majority of my free time at the gym. Practicing sport helps me brainstorm, shape and my planning, concentrate on my objectives and solve many problems.
What is your hidden talent? Or something most people don’t know about you?
I don’t think I have any hidden talent that people don’t know of. I take singing classes, and nobody has heard me sing. I guess we can take this a hidden “talent”.