I first met Luc, when he was Business Unit Manager of Hagemeyer’s Children Products division in Thailand.
As soon as I worked with him, I knew that he had a great deal of talent and a real aptitude for the Toy Business.
We employed him at Tiger Electronics as a Regional Director International a few months later and his drive and skills paid dividends.
Our business grew fast and he was rewarded with more responsibility.
His future is very bright and he is now a seasoned manager of balance sheets and business in general.
Although he is Dutch by birth, he is a very fluent English speaker to the level that he understands local dialects!
It is a real pleasure to count Luc as one of my close buddies.
Personally, I have known Mr. Reardon for eight years. From the moment we met and until this day he is an exceptional example of professional, strong and creative leader. His broad outlook at business and life combined with his deep knowledge of human nature resulted in a great success of Tolo Toys worldwide.
While standing behind of each product creation and development Stephen has always assured 100% quality of the products and made sure the innovation was always the core competence of the company. His strong character has attracted a team of wonderful people combined by his values of candor, trust, sincerity and openness.
Stephen has always set high targets and achieved them with paying a great deal of respect to his employees, and business partners. In addition, his great sense of humor makes it a pure pleasure to work with him. I highly recommend Mr. Reardon as a person of strong character and a very professional manager.
I am delighted to be able to write a reference for Luc Schwartau who has worked with me since 1st April 2002 as International Sales Manager.
Luc was employed into the Mamas & Papas sales team to grow our International sales and profits, In just two years, Luc’s pioneering commitment and determination has grown the International business 10 fold to represent a significant and strategically important growth stream for Mamas & Papas.
Instrumental in justifying and building a team of three in the International Sales team we are now poised for further growth in this area.
In addition to those qualities mentioned above I have valued Luc’s honesty, flexibility and energy and feel confident in recommending him to any future business partner.
As CEO Tomy Europe, I had the pleasure of working with Luc following his appointment to develop the sales of Tomy products into Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
What impressed me when I interviewed Luc for the position, apart from his obvious enthusiasm, was his noticeable understanding of the challenges involved when exploiting new market opportunities. His linguistic skills and affable personality together with a capacity for hard work enabled him to make an excellent contribution to the business development team. He was a pleasure to work with and it was clear that Luc had the potential for bigger role.
When the opportunity arose for him to take on the role of Managing Director of Tolo Toys Europe, I was delighted for him and was confident that he would make it a success.
Steve is a true professional, one of the greatest motivators of people. He has a vast knowledge of the Toy industry. Steve has lived and worked in Hong Kong for well over 25 years, he understands the Chinese manufacturers, understands the culture, and has a wonderful team supporting him. I came to know Steve when I was MD at Vivi bikes living in Italy, I decided in 2005 to start my own company and needed a team to head my business from a Kowloon office, I employed DS International which is just one of the companies that Steve heads up.
DS International looks after all Kids@play business out of the orient, leaving my UK team to do what Kids@play are good at, > Product Development. I have become a good friend of Steve because we work well together, and of course, the results are excellent. I highly recommend Steve, and DS International. I would add that Deacons who Steve also heads up, and Tolo toys where Steve is MD has a great team of dedicated people, all with great positive attitude, all are a reflection of Steve’s strive to continual positive results.
