Employee Spotlight – Nick Osmo

In this month’s Employee Spotlight, we talk to USA Branch Manager, Nick Osmo.

What was your first role at Redox?
I began my career at Redox in 2010 as a university graduate with little experience (grocery store shelf stacking and report writing). I started as the Store Coordinator at the Minto warehouse, managing inventories for our largest warehouse in addition to our contractor warehouses around the state. The role was an incredible introduction to the inner workings of Redox and had me closely working with our warehouse, logistics & shipping teams to ensure our Sales & Marketing staff had the stock they needed for our customers.

I loved that the scope of that role had me regularly working with every department in the company.

I attribute my success in that role to two previous Spotlight subjects Mick O’Brien as my first manager at Redox and Trudy Kelly who spent her mornings training me on how to manage the position efficiently and without getting submerged under the workload.

From Store Coordinator to USA Branch manager, your career has certainly progressed over the years, can you tell us a little about that journey?
Well, after 6 months as the Store Coordinator I moved into the main office and became a part of the logistics team as a shipping officer. I got great exposure to the upstream facets of our supply chain.

After 3 months in shipping I got an extremely unique opportunity from our IT Director Richard Coneliano. At this time Redox was operating on a legacy computer system (one that navigated by commands and mostly green writing on a black background).

I was invited to join the IT team as a Business Analyst for our forthcoming inhouse built ERP system called Redebiz. My task was to learn how every job in Redox was performed in the legacy system, advise the software developers what the new system needs to achieve, test the platform for bugs, then train the various employees how to perform their day to day roles in the new system.

Redebiz was ready to go live mid-2012, my role was to support, train and test in the years that followed.

In 2014 Redox was looking to expand its horizons to the West coast of the USA. I accompanied our Sales Manager Raimond Coneliano on a scouting trip to California where we interviewed candidates and who would become our first sales representatives of Redox Inc.

In Jan 2015 and only being married 2 months, my wife and I made the move across to LA. Our first office was a desk in the back of our contract warehouse.

In the 6 years since Redox Inc has grown to 13 employees, 2 offices and 7 warehouses across the US, servicing over 300 active customers. Despite the challenges COVID-19 has thrown at our Branch; 2020/21 continues our year on year growth, significantly exceeding last year’s sales.

What’s the most stand out personal achievement you’ve hit while working at Redox?
Order 2998433A/B/C/D/E. My ever first sale, 5 x containers of Choline Chloride sold to a customer in the USA.

What was it like moving to the USA and opening the branch there?
It’s hard to describe as my memory has sugar-coated it over the years. From memory it was daunting, exciting, exhausting, thrilling, stressful and exceptionally gratifying to have had this opportunity. At the same time, we’re still completely in our infancy and there is so much growth and development ahead. We’re just getting started!

I hear you love stand-up comedy & podcasts, what’s your favourite podcast and comic?
I am a voracious consumer of Stand-up Comedy and comedic podcasts ever since they were a fringe thing 15 years ago. Fortunately, some of my favourite comics have podcasts now.

There’s Real Time with Bill Maher, The Joe Rogan Experience, The Honeydew – Ryan Sickler, Timesuck – Dan Cummins and Mid-Flight Brawl – Nick Cody to name a few.

Do you have a nickname?
Yea, I have a few: NickO, Mr Redebiz, The American.

You also have a passion for big, American style trucks; what’s the allure and what are you driving right now?
Absolutely, this is what most Australian’s are missing out on above all, as the manufacturers don’t sell these vehicles directly there.

There’s nothing quite like doing a trip out into the country to visit customers, driving long stretches for hours at a time in such a huge, commanding, and comfortable vehicle.

I currently drive the “smallest” version the Ford F150, but we’ve since had our first child and do need to haul a baby-bag and stroller from time to time, so I may need to upgrade to an F250 with the Tremor package to deal with the extra payload.