Gemma Punshon
Property
Property Programme Manager
Joined Tesco: September 1995
"You can see I've had a challenging yet exciting career here at Tesco. I really can't think of a better choice I could have made as a fresh graduate."
"In a bid to start saving towards university, I applied to my local Tesco store aged 16. Two stores and six years later I joined Property in 2001. I wanted to use my degree skills and have a broader scope of work than I thought a property consultancy could give me. The culture and friendliness of the organisation really appealed to me.
"Since then I haven't looked back. My current role heading the Programme team enables me to work with nearly all the departments within Property plus Acquisition, Corporate Purchasing and Marketing. My job is all about creating Development Programmes for new space (new sites and extensions) and upgrading existing stores.
"I have to understand growth targets for the business and develop a property strategy to deliver new sales and space, at the right cost. In Tesco there really is no such thing as a typical day.
"I can be discussing potential new sites with Acquisition one morning, though liasing with teams around a new environmental store, to unlocking overdue stores and deciding strategy in the afternoon.
"As a people manager one of my core roles is coaching my team to achieve the best results. I feel proud when we create programmes that deliver fantastic stores for our customers."
Find out more about Property here.
