steven gouder
Steven has been involved in Business for the past forty years. The first sixteen were spent with the family business, which was a small import, distribution and retail operation. This is where he learnt to manage the different aspects of running a business. His next career move was joining Time International (today known as Hudson Holdings), where he managed a high-end watch business. After two years he left Time to join a logistics company but two years later re-joined Time and ended up in Algeria to open and run a high-end watch business there. During his stay, he successfully convinced Nike to give Time the contract for the distribution of the brand in Algeria, and lived there for three years until he set up and grew the business. Nike then gave Time the distribution rights for Tunisia and Morocco, which also fell under Steven’s responsibility. This way, Time now controlled most of North Africa and was aiming to grow their reach to more African countries. Today Hudson controls the distribution of Nike in thirty-eight countries in Africa.
Eleven years later he decided to find another challenge, and joined Rimus Riley Group in Malta, and managed the Trading arm of the company, with over a thousand clients in the food sector. Here Steven learnt all about the food business, as well as heavy involvement in the creation of systems to monitor and control the business through IT, since the FMCG industry is very data driven.
Steven’s next step was to join Salvo Grima Group, the largest ship chandelling company in Malta. The company had bought a Dutch company close to Rotterdam, and he joined Vladex BV as Senior Commercial Manager, and after a year took over as General Manager. In the 2 years as GM he re-engineered the company, and also created new projects for the future. After the two years, he was given the task as Group Project manager to launch new projects which are eCommerce based.
Steven has already taught at MBS for two years but due to travel commitments, he had to take a sabbatical. Now that he is back in Malta he has decided to come back to teaching as it is a passion of his.
His main hobbies are Crossfit where he is a Trainer, kayaking and pistol shooting.
Steven is also an MBA graduate of Henley, having graduated through the MBS in 2013.