My Career: ‘Having a job with a clear social purpose is important to me’

Thu, 14 Aug, 2025 - 07:47

Name: Rosie Fuller

Age: 38

Lives: Glanmire, Co. Cork, but originally from Killarney, Co. Kerry.

Job title: Account manager

Salary bracket: People in my role typically earn between €40,000 to €70,000 annually, depending on experience.

Education background: Certificate in Project Management from the Institute of Public Administration, MSc International Management from Trinity College Dublin, BComm and Spanish from University College Cork, Leaving Cert in Coláiste Íde, Dingle.

Hobbies: Sea swimming, cycling, and reading are some of my favourite ways to unwind.I make sure to get to Derrynane Beach with my dad at least once every summer.

I also love Lindsey Quinn’s Pilates classes in Glanmire. I keep hearing great things about joining a Mothers & Others team - so that’s definitely on my list for this year!

Describe your job in five words: Meaningful, challenging, analytical, motivating, sociable.

Describe yourself in five words: Passionate, creative, thoughtful, energetic, dedicated.

Personality needed for this kind of work? Resilient. Every day is genuinely different, so it helps to be a good time manager, well organised, a people person, influential, adaptable, and kind.

How long are you doing this job? Seven years.

How did you get this job? After university in Cork, I began my career in a graduate role at JCDecaux. I really valued my time there, but when the chance came to relocate to New York and explore my ambition of living abroad, I had to go! Funnily enough, I went all the way to New York only to meet a man from Cork and eventually found myself back in Ireland!

I then spent three rewarding years as a Project Manager at the Irish Universities Association (IUA) in Dublin.

While at the IUA, I first came across FoodCloud when co-founders Aoibheann and Iseult pitched their idea during a University Grant Round and I was instantly struck by their vision and passion. I began volunteering with them in 2017, driving a delivery van in the evenings to bring surplus stock from inner-city Tesco stores to charities across Dublin. A few months later, a role came up as Volunteer Coordinator, and I jumped at it.

Looking back, it’s obvious that having a job with a clear social purpose is important to me, something which not every job has. At the time, FoodCloud was looking for someone to manage the Corporate Volunteer programme as AIB had just come on board as a major funding partner and corporate volunteer partner in Ireland. The partnership was a huge opportunity, and I was excited to take on the challenge of mobilising over 2,700 volunteers to help us double our impact - proof of how many hands make light work! I’m proud to say now that we are still working closely with AIB seven years on.

Another huge part of our volunteer programme depends on our community volunteers all over the country. We have a great volunteer team in Cork, led by Hub Manager Kevin Keeshan. Plus our friends, Tony and Dominic, who have been driving vans as volunteers on a weekly basis since 2017.

From my knowledge of food partners through the volunteer programme, I was a good fit for the Food Account Management team, which I joined in 2019. I was able to transfer my skill-set and keep a lot of the same working relationships.

Sourcing consistent, high-quality food to our communities can be challenging, so we must continue to make it as easy as possible for food companies to donate their surplus to us. That’s why we work closely with our teammates in Policy & Activism at FoodCloud, keeping them well informed of the challenges food businesses face in Ireland, especially rising costs for small producers and growers. To support them effectively, we continue to advocate for policy changes and engage with the Government, especially on behalf of small producers and growers.

I do think it’s within our power to change the food system. My focus now is on building a stronger footprint for FoodCloud in Cork and Munster and increasing our visibility among local food companies, so events like Cork On A Fork will be an important step in growing our brand and impact here.

Do you need particular qualifications or experience?

While specific account management experience can be helpful, what’s most important here is a combination of adaptability, purpose-driven thinking, and strong relationship-building skills. We’re a wonderfully diverse team of 100 people, each bringing different strengths. Describe a day at work?

I work out of the Cork Hub, in Little Island, which is one of our three hubs around the country. Similar to Dublin and Galway Hubs, we work to redistribute large volumes of surplus food that is generated across the food supply chain. We receive regular donations of surplus from 185 food and beverage companies, but the demand is ever increasing. I focus specifically on sourcing from meat, fish, dairy, and fruit and vegetable categories.

I attend a lot of food industry meetings and Cork Chamber events, which helps keep me well informed.

A lot of my work involves relationship management with food partners, ranging from waste walks where we go visit them and identify what surplus they can donate, to understanding more about their factories, farms, or manufacturing plants.

For many companies, we help them set, reach and expand on their sustainability targets by providing detailed metrics of their donations and their environmental impact across both of our core solutions: FoodCloud Hubs and Foodiverse -our food redistribution solution.

I also manage Meade Farm and Sprout & Co. partnerships, both of whom were the first non-retail food companies to partner with FoodCloud through Foodiverse in Ireland. Foodiverse provides an end-to-end solution for food businesses to give their surplus food to communities, thus maximising their social and environmental impact, and verifies it for ESG reporting. I hope many more will follow in their footsteps in the months ahead, as it makes perfect sense for businesses to use it.

This year, for the first time, we are taking part in Cork On A Fork festival, with our ‘Inaugural Afternoon Tea on the Train’ event. The idea for this was inspired by a memorable trip I took with my mum and dad to the Orient Express in Glenlo Abbey in Galway.

The FoodCloud Kitchen has been a huge success since it first started catering last year, so I feel that the timing is right for this type of event. I hope we can put a ‘surplus spin’ on Afternoon Tea and create a memorable experience for our guests on Friday. We are very excited!

How many hours do you work a week?

The standard week is 37.5 hours, but it’s a job I’m always proud to go above and beyond for.

Is your industry male or female-dominated? Female! In saying that, we have a good mix across our team between senior management, operations, fundraising, tech development, HR, finance, and charity support.

Does this affect you in any particular way? We have two inspiring female leaders, Iseult Ward (CEO) and Aoibheann O’Brien (co-founder), who founded FoodCloud in 2012. Both are hugely supportive and operate with a flat structure focusing on strong communication, collaboration and support. It’s a privilege to be able to learn from them.

Is your job stressful? How? Rate it on a scale of 1-10:

6 - Most days are really enjoyable, but we do work within a very unstable supply chain, so we can receive large amounts of stock at short notice, which needs to be redistributed quickly onward. Our tech team ensures the smooth running of our Foodiverse platform, which powers donations across five countries to 7,000 charities internationally, which I imagine could get more stressful than my role in food sourcing!

Do you work with others or on your own?

I work as part of the ‘Food Team’, which is responsible for food sourcing and the management of our regular food donors and retail partners in Ireland. We are a team of four at the moment, each focused on different markets.

My priorities include working with food companies in the meat, fish, poultry, dairy and produce sectors, which keeps things interesting! I also manage Meade Farm and Sprout & Co. partnerships, both of whom were the first non-retail food companies to partner with FoodCloud through Foodiverse in Ireland.

Foodiverse provides an end-to-end solution for food businesses to give their surplus food to communities, thus maximising their social and environmental impact, and verify it for ESG reporting. I hope many more will follow in their footsteps in the months ahead, as it makes perfect sense for businesses to use it.

When do you plan to retire or give up working?

To be honest, I feel like I’m just getting started, so that feels like it’s a while away. I’ve been with FoodCloud for seven years now, with a few different roles within that.

FoodCloud was very supportive when I moved to Cork with my husband, Colm, in 2022 after 12 years in Dublin. We have two young children, so life is busy, and I’d like to be a good role model for them.

Best bits: Our team, working with our food donors, learning every day.

Worst bits: The EPA has released its latest food waste statistics that show food waste has now increased to a whopping 835,000 tonnes, with 37% of that coming from the processing and manufacturing stage, and our demand for food is ever increasing, so working to reduce food waste can feel like a very high mountain to climb at times.

Advice to those who want your job?

Do your research and follow our socials, which will tell you all you need to know.

If it’s an option, volunteering is a great way to test the water before you make the leap.

Any other comments?

It’s never too late to change your path and do something you love or make a difference in somebody else’s life. All that’s stopping you is yourself!