Meet the Team

Name: Hajo Rau

Job Role: Senior Business Development Manager Europe 

Length of Service: Six years and eight months

What attracted you to Muddy Boots?: The combination of technology and sustainability-related topics. And definitely the people and the positive spirit at Muddy Boots! Really outstanding compared to a lot of traditional German companies that I have worked for before.

Tell us a bit about you and your work history?: I live in the city of Hamburg in Germany together with a wonderful family – my wife, my daughter, and my son. Although I have lived and travelled quite a lot abroad, Hamburg is the place I feel most at home – despite the awful weather most of the time. I enjoy being outside in nature running and travelling abroad with a campervan. I enjoy evenings cooking with friends and I am an eager fan of Prince music. In my work life, I have worked in quite a few different environments but have always pursued working in innovative companies using cutting-edge technology. In the last few years, I have worked primarily in business development and marketing roles.

What does your typical working day look like?: Thankfully never the same! Working at Muddy Boots and with our customers is really diverse. Due to the ever-changing requirements in the fast-paced food industry, it never gets boring. This is something, I enjoy very much, understanding each customer, their processes and finding the best suitable solution.

What's an interesting fact about you?: I have a very serious sweet tooth and like to prepare desserts myself. I am rather famous for my Gâteau Chocolat (well, at least amongst friends and family...).

Who would be your ideal dinner party guest and why?: Definitely Prince. But I’d rather have him perform a concert and play some guitar for me, than sit down to have dinner, I guess.

What's your favourite food?: I am always interested in tasting new foods and flavours, so it is hard to decide on a specific country where I like the food most. If I had to, I guess I need to choose three countries: Austria, Israel and Mexico.

What makes you passionate about food / farming?: It really all comes down to the fact, that we have a global problem with how we treat food in terms of growing, trading, selling and consuming. We live at the expense of our earth, but often people do not realise, that this is a huge problem for everyone and especially future generations. That is why enjoy my job at Muddy Boots so much and am so convinced of Muddy Boots now belonging to TELUS Agriculture, because everyone in this company helps to make the world of food a bit more sustainable every day. We all must take small steps and actions to achieve something bigger and I hope that I can contribute to that every day by working for Muddy Boots / TELUS Agriculture.

Any skills or talents that people don’t know about?: Sadly, no. I wish I could play a musical instrument like guitar or bass but I can’t unfortunately.

What advice do you wish you’d been given early in your career?: Actually none, because I think the best advice is to listen to yourself and pursue, what you are personally convinced of.

Finish this sentence: on Sunday mornings you usually find me……trying to get my kids out of bed for a breakfast together. 

What’s one item you can’t leave your house or apartment without?: The most important thing for me besides having clothes and shoes on of course, are my glasses. 

Describe yourself in three words... Loyal, straightforward and of integrity.

What publications do you regularly read or what book are you reading now?: I usually read more than one book simultaneously to be able to read the book I am in the mood for at that time. I have just started reading the new book by Michel Houellebecq called “Annihilate”, I am reading “Prince and the Parade and Sign O' The Times Era Studio Sessions: 1985 and 1986” by Duane Tudahl and a book on Crypto-Currencies and Bitcoin by a German author.