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For Sean Fray, a career at Red Stripe that began more than two decades ago has always been a journey of growth, challenge, and, recently, global impact.

 In 2024, Fray took a leap, accepting an overseas assignment as technical planning manager for spare parts management across Central Europe, a role that saw him operating out of Poland and traveling to 17 breweries in six countries. It was an opportunity he had hoped for throughout his career, but one that still came with uncertainty.

“I wondered how much I could really contribute coming from the Caribbean,” he admits. “But once I got into the role, I realised that standards are standards. If you’re operating at a worldclass level in Jamaica, you can operate at that level anywhere.”

That realisation would shape his experience over the next two years as Fray worked with breweries across Poland, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Switzerland to strengthen spare parts management systems, align with HEINEKEN’s global maintenance standards and identify opportunities to improve efficiency while reducing costs.

When Fray joined Red Stripe as an intern in 2003, fresh from the University of Technology, he could hardly have imagined that his career would one day take him beyond Jamaica and into a role spanning breweries across Central Europe. Over the years he moved through several production and engineering roles, gradually building expertise in maintenance planning and spare parts management while gaining a broader understanding of how different parts of the brewery work together. Each role added another layer of experience, steadily preparing him for an opportunity he could not have envisioned when he first walked through Red Stripe’s doors.

The overseas opportunity came after his then Supply Director encouraged him to apply for the regional position.

When he received confirmation that he had been selected, excitement quickly gave way to preparation.

Moving to another country meant adapting to a different culture, establishing a new professional network and learning to work across multiple markets at once. The scale was much larger, but he found that the technical principles remained the same.

There was, however, plenty to adjust to beyond the technical demands of the role. Navigating a new country, different languages and unfamiliar customs brought its own learning curve. Fortunately, Fray found support not only from his colleagues, but also from an unexpected network of Jamaicans living in Poland.

Before leaving Jamaica, he was introduced to members of the Jamaican community there through the Polish Consulate. Once he arrived, that network helped him settle into his new surroundings and made being so far from home a little easier.

“It made the transition much easier,” he says. “Wherever you go, there always seems to be a Jamaican community that’s willing to help.”

With his footing established in Poland, Fray turned his attention to the professional challenge ahead: working across 17 breweries; learning how to work effectively across countries, cultures and teams.

“The breweries operate using the same global standards,” he explains. “What changes is how you work with people.”

That became one of the biggest lessons of the assignment.

Working across different countries meant dealing with different communication styles and workplace cultures. Fray says many of his European colleagues were direct in the way they approached discussions and decision making. Learning to understand those differences, while remaining authentic to his own leadership style, became an important part of the job.

One of Fray’s biggest challenges came during a regional initiative to increase the use of 3D printed spare parts and deliver cost savings. A few months into the project, he realised the existing approach would fall short of its targets.

Instead of pressing on, he led a visit to HEINEKEN’s 3D Printing Centre of Excellence in Portugal, where the team studied proven practices before adapting them for Central Europe. The result was the establishment of two 3D printing centres, one in Austria and another in Poland, helping the region meet its savings targets and creating a model that remains in place today.

“When something isn’t working, you have to be willing to change direction. There is always a solution. The important thing is identifying it early enough and taking action.”

Fray returned to Red Stripe earlier this year in a newly created role as Maintenance Lead. His current focus is on strengthening maintenance capability across the brewery, developing supervisors and helping to build a stronger maintenance culture that supports the company’s long-term objectives.

As he looks ahead, Fray remains open to future regional opportunities within the HEINEKEN Group. For now, however, his attention is on applying what he learned overseas to the team back home.

His experience has also left him convinced that more Jamaican professionals should be willing to step forward when international opportunities arise. Having entered the assignment with his own questions about what he could contribute, Fray returned with a very different perspective on the value of the talent and expertise developed at home.

“We have the talent here. Sometimes we underestimate ourselves because we’re coming from a small island. Once you meet the standards and you’re prepared to do the work, there’s no reason why you can’t succeed.”

The assignment may have taken him thousands of miles from Jamaica, but it also reaffirmed something he had spent years building long before he boarded the plane to Poland: experience, preparation and a commitment to doing the job well can open doors almost anywhere.