Matt Cannon is a BA Business Management (2021) graduate, now working as a Group Product Manager at Lyreco Group, Europe’s largest office supplies distributor.
We asked Matt about working and living in France and what advice he has for others considering moving to a different country.
How did your role in France come about? Did you always want to work outside the UK?
After graduating from Liverpool in the summer of 2021, I moved back to Shropshire and became Product Manager at Lyreco UK, Europe’s largest office supplies distributor.
After a successful year in the UK, the opportunity came to be Group Product Manager at our Headquarters near Lille, France.
I have been in this role for almost a year now, steering a global product category, negotiating with big-name brands, deciding my Group product selection, travelling between 10+ countries, and activating international marketing campaigns, and have loved every minute of it.
Like many, I didn’t always know what I wanted to do professionally, even after I arrived at University, but I did know I wanted to be internationally mobile, and I am very glad to be fulfilling that so early on in my career.
What advice do you have around settling in?
I currently split my time around 50/50 between France and the UK, and often visit other countries that Lyreco are present in.
It is of course quite daunting to be somewhere completely new and far from home, but wherever you are, try to get yourself out and explore what the area has to offer.
Ask questions, speak to colleagues, small shop owners, the kind of people who will have similar interests to you, to get local knowledge that you won’t find on the internet.
You will soon find yourself growing more and more comfortable with your surroundings and your confidence will only take the benefits from that.
What’s the best thing about working abroad?
You get to see new places, try new food, and experience different cultures. This year alone I have visited all the Scandinavian countries, which beforehand I wouldn’t have really considered visiting personally, but I found them to be very interesting parts of the world, and not always as cold as you would think.
I did consider myself quite well-travelled prior to joining Lyreco, but in truth, there really is so much I still haven’t seen, and I look forward to changing that!
Have you had any language barriers or awkward moments?
I definitely need to improve my French. In general, I think it’s important that wherever we go, we make the effort to speak some of the local languages, even if it is just the basic pleasantries.
Fortunately for me, despite Lyreco being a French company, the Group language is English, and many of my colleagues across the world are excellent at it. I don’t face too many issues communicating day to day, but that doesn’t mean I’m not guilty of sometimes deliberately speaking in broken English, thinking that it might be easier to understand than if I were to speak correctly.
I just hope I don’t follow in the footsteps of Joey Barton or Steve McLaren (English with an inexplicable European accent).
What advice do you have for final-year ULMS students who will soon become new graduates?
Enjoy every minute of it! During my final year at ULMS, we still had periods of lockdown restrictions, but I’m so glad I still made the most of it and will always have those wonderful memories of being at a Red-Brick University in a fantastic, lively city.
If you haven’t secured a role just yet, keep going, keep pushing, and keep putting yourself out there – it will come. I applied for multiple roles throughout my final year, some replied, some didn’t, and some I missed out on right at the last hurdle.
I thought nothing was going my way at all. However, soon after graduating, I then received 3 different offers in the space of a week. One of which led me to where I am now, extremely happy and with global responsibility at a huge organisation. All made possible by my years at the University of Liverpool Management School.
For anyone interested in sales, marketing, finance etc. – make sure to keep an eye out for opportunities at Lyreco!