My name is Laura Liessens and I am Finance & HR Officer at Celestia Antwerp.

I started my journey at the company in 2013, before the business became part of the Celestia Group, so I was here at the very start of Celestia Antwerp, which came into being at the end of 2019. This was a fantastic time to be here because there was a fresh start, new goals plus a strong and friendly team, all of which created the feeling of impetus and excitement.  We really do operate as one team. Although there were some challenges, as there always are when different businesses merge, we were all very motivated to create fresh successes, working with mutual trust and respect as our main values. What I learned from that is that challenges can open new doors.

At first, my job felt quite administrative in nature, and although in truth there are other parts of my role that I prefer, I’ve been working here for almost 10 years now. The reason for this is that at Celestia Antwerp you can follow your own path to find the role which fits you and the company best. The business works hard to keep its people motivated in their job - it’s good for the company and good for the people themselves. It’s a win-win situation. On top of that, there is of course a lot more than the job itself. It’s the whole package we get at Celestia Antwerp which keeps us motivated.

My colleagues are very important to me. We are all human, ‘’living’’ together at work and we need to work well together every day. We see our colleagues more than the people we see at home, so for me personally it’s important you have good rapport and dialogue with the people you work with. When I do something good for the company and for my colleagues, I go home happy. Seeing others happy, makes me happy too and I’m proud when I can give any kind of support to my colleagues when they need it.

I truly feel that Celestia engages with and supports their people. We can have conversations about anything because there is always someone who listens to what concerns us. People are open-minded and have respect for each other, even though we are all very different characters. So to anyone new joining our team, I would simply say just to be yourself.