Menno Van Zanden is the Director of FP&A – Software Business Operations at Diebold Nixdorf in the Netherlands. He started his career as an Accountant at Oracle, where he spent more than 14 years of his career. He became FP&A Manager Benelux at General Electric, before moving to NetApp, and Diebold Nixdorf.

How do you see digital Finance, business intelligence (BI) and data transformation in the next ten years?

I think automation, artificial intelligence is going to make a huge change to how Finance operates and what our role within the company is, because a lot of the standard processes which we’re now outsourcing are going to be automated and using AI and robotics to get them done.

Which sounds like a threat, but I think it’s an opportunity, because it will allow us to focus on adding value to the business and doing the things we should be doing, and that is helping drive the business forward and helping drive the right business decisions.

I think as we move towards automation of all the standard activities - especially transactions - Finance is going to have to move towards a real time model. I think the traditional monthly cycle is going to be too slow at certain points. Not necessarily always, but we have seen it in the beginning of the pandemic; things changed so rapidly that a monthly cycle is too slow to react and make decisions.

As we move towards automation having a real time financial overview, companies will become a lot more flexible in reacting in changing environments. I think that’s where we need to step in to help drive those discussions and not be the number crunchers, so we move from: What has happened? Why did it happen? What is going to happen? To: How do we make it happen? That is where we add value.

Looking at that flexibility and the real time numbers, a lot of the financial planning and modelling is going to be automated. As we have all these automated numbers in the systems, the planning can become automatic to an extent, and will make it much quicker to run different scenarios and modelling. It will fundamentally change the world of Finance.

When we look at BI, the amount of data that we have now, we are probably not able to do anything manually, so we need the automation to be able to analyse it and use that data to drive the decisions.

One of the things we are working on now in my current role is how we expose the data to the leadership, because we traditionally send around reports in various forms. We need to move to a self-service model, where we have BI dashboards where people can go to anytime that they want in the real time Finance model and they can look at the data. In Finance, we would need to make sure that the way the data is presented is understandable to non-Finance people to drive decisions.

How do you feel that the workplace will have changed now we’re emerging from a global pandemic?

Obviously, it’s changed significantly. In March 2020, we were suddenly forced to work from home and, despite that being a big change, it hasn’t impacted the businesses and how we work together as much as maybe we would have thought; it turned out we have the digital technology to continue to work.

We had some hiccups, but the IT department worked very hard, and it turned out that we could work that way quite easily. We changed meetings and we used Teams and Zoom. Without anyone necessarily introducing it or saying we need to do that, people started turning on their video. That meant that, because of the pandemic, I saw people for the first time that I worked with for a couple of years already. Before that, we would have just a phone call, so I think it brought people closer together who were remote previously.

Now, as we hopefully emerge from the pandemic, we need to learn from the things that we’ve learnt, and think about how we organise our offices and our workspaces in a way that we use it for what they should be used for.

For a long time, the office was a place where you go and work because it’s quiet, and you can be efficient there. We’ve now learnt that you can be very efficient at home, because there’s less distraction. I do think that offices and workplaces are a place where you go to collaborate and be creative together.

So, how do we organise things to make it more appealing for people to come to the workplace, as that is one of the challenges we are seeing now. People are so used to working from home, we are not able to get them to come into the offices, so offices are quite empty. We need to figure out how to create the atmosphere to make people want to come back to the office. The new office environment will be more the campus style environment, where people come to collaborate and get inspiration.

What advice would you give to someone that wants to start a career in Finance?

My answer is probably not the traditional one, because I think a lot of people plan their career - I’ve never done that. The way I’ve gone through my career is by doing the things that I enjoy. The advice I would give is: look for what it is you enjoy, because - for a lot of Finance people - Finance is all the same.

I think, once you are in Finance, you realise it is actually a very broad spectrum of things. With different skillsets, there are different things that you do. I don’t have an Accounting degree, so it wasn’t the logical step to go in the Accounting direction, but I think the reason I managed to be reasonably successful in my career is because I did the things that I enjoy. If you enjoy something, it shows to people you have this energy and you can get across. You tend to be better at the things that you enjoy, and people see that, and I think it interacts.

One of the other things is, I’ve had quite a stable career from a company perspective; I didn’t change companies every two years. I understand why people do that, because it can kickstart your career, especially in the beginning, both from an experience and a financial perspective.

I think the benefit I see is, if you stay longer within a company because you know the company, you can focus your development more. If you change companies, you need to get to know other people, the environment, the processes, the systems. But, if you stay within the same company, you can say, “Okay, what is the development goal that I’ve set for myself?”, and you can focus much more on it, because you don’t have the distraction of learning all the other things.

I understand it can be maybe a bit frustrating at times if you’re stuck in the same role, but I do believe that loyalty does get rewarded within companies, and, as opportunities arise, you can make those steps up within the same company. I worked for 12 years in one company, and I did five or six different roles. They were all within different departments, and kind of a natural progression and extending my responsibilities.

The last thing that is probably a more traditional one as you come into Finance, you need to understand the basics, because, at the beginning, as you do analysis, it may feel a bit boring, but it will help you understand to do an analysis as you get there. One of the most important things at the beginning of my career are the skills to understand the business, processes and hierarchies, and how they can help you analyse things, and this allows you to use the system to better enhance your job.

How did you fall into the industry and get your current role?

Both the fact that I ended up in Finance and in the industry were a bit by chance. My father used to be in Finance, so, when I was young, I was like, whatever I do, it will not be that. I started studying Physics, because what I enjoyed in Physics in high school was understanding how things interact, how things work, and how processes work.

First year Physics at university was pretty much the same as Mathematics and that just threw me off a little bit, so I switched to Business Economics, as that was a bit more practical. I ended up in an internship at my first employer, Oracle, where I was asked to stay, and I decided to do that.

I think the reason why I stayed in the industry is because I’m quite technical; I call myself a bit of a nerd, I like gadgets, I like figuring things out from a technical side. When I interact with people from a more technical side of the company, I understand quite well what they’re talking about.

What I like about the industry is the pace is extremely fast, the developments are extremely fast, because what I don’t like is, if I go into the office tomorrow, that it’s the same day as it is today. In IT, the pace of change is so high that you know that tomorrow is going to be different.

What would you say is the most rewarding part of your role?

The most rewarding thing for me is I like solving puzzles, and that’s what originally drove me to the Physics side of things, as well; you have these puzzles and understanding how things fit together. I don’t think non-Finance people understand those puzzles, and how they fit together and how it helps them; that is what I enjoy the most. What I enjoy the most is those things that make a real impact. That’s on the technical business side of things.

On the people side of things, how we’ve progressed as a Finance organisation within the company I work with right now, I actually don’t have a team; we’ve outsourced a lot of our activities where we have a virtual team. What I find that I really enjoy is helping them grow, develop and learn.

I can say now, having worked for more than 25 years, I realise I have a lot of experience, and I like to share that with them, and explain to them and show them how I do certain things, and helping them understand why I do the things that I do, and that way try to get them to the next level.

I think there are going to be huge changes in the next couple of years or in the future in the financial world. I believe it will be very interesting and challenging, and I think every Finance organisation needs to embrace those changes.

Thank you to Menno for speaking to our Finance & Accountancy recruitment team in the Netherlands, led by Hannah Mallia and David Harper.

Views and opinions contained within our Executive Interviews are those of the interviewee and not views shared by EMEA Recruitment. 

Konstantina Barousi is the Senior Global Category Manager, Natural Chemicals at Givaudan in Zurich, Switzerland. She started her Procurement & Supply Chain career at Amcor in 2014 and is a member of the Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply (CIPS).

What excites you about working for Givaudan?

The industry of flavours and fragrances overall and my portfolio, in particular, are dynamic, impactful and interesting - every day is an opportunity for a new challenge.

The part that I am enjoying the most though, working for Givaudan, is the international and diverse environment of the company. I am leading a team of three women. We are all based in different continents, we speak different native languages, and we come from different academic and work backgrounds. We collaborate closely with our dotted-line colleagues around the world. Just in our extended team of Natural Chemicals, we have more than ten different nationalities, with the majority of us being women.

Your portfolio within naturals is one that contributes to a significant amount of the company’s product revenue and seems to be quite a high innovation area. What would you say are the biggest drivers?

Innovation is a key pillar for my category's strategy, not just a buzzword. In my category, we have exposure to the business of sugar reduction, vegan and organic formulas, sweets and confectionary, beverages, as well as fragrances and cosmetics.

Our team is working cross-functionally to ensure that the scientific and health advantages, following extensive research, come with competitive pricing through partnerships under different schemes of collaboration. Our suppliers are major stakeholders in this work. The natural and pioneering production processes of some of our raw materials are drivers and triggers for innovation. They are key enablers for our sustainability achievements, and they support targets on Scope 3 initiatives, as well.

You have worked in a number of large global matrix organisations. What are the biggest challenges for a leader overseeing a remote team?

The timezone difference, particularly for global meetings, is a challenge. However, this can be overcome and can also deliver value by having quicker turnaround time in external and internal discussions around the clock.

But this requires good time management, a solid communication structure, and adaptability in ways of working. For example, organising a global cross-functional call is not as easy as inviting a colleague for a quick coffee in the office spontaneously to solve an urgent matter.

As an expat yourself, what advice would you offer to someone moving to Switzerland?

Switzerland is an impressive and very well organised country. I would advise any expat on their way here to not be afraid of logistics, as bureaucracy is minimal, and it is quick to find their way through. They should use their network of colleagues and friends, ask questions, and enjoy the ride!

How can a job seeker stand out in the current market?

I always considered flexibility a key strength – now, more than ever. Taking change as a constant, being willing to learn and staying resilient to distractive situations are all expressions of flexibility in real life.

In other words, my advice for a job seeker would be: do not wait for the perfect match, be ready to learn, find the opportunity and make it happen.

Who is the most inspiring person in business for you and why?

I admire pioneers who start a business with a clear purpose, such as Henry Ford. He introduced the assembly line, standardized processes for mass production, and, more importantly, implemented wage increases and the 40-hour week in the early 20^th century.

However, the ones that I am more inspired by are the stories of people who were born non-privileged and wanted to change the world, by giving back value to the society through their enterprises. Mary Ellen Pleasant and Madam CJ Walker were the first self-made millionaires of African-American heritage in the USA, dealing with real estate and the cosmetics business, respectively. They opened the way for many visionaries after them.

What is the future of Procurement & Supply Chain?

The future will be technology-enabled and human-led. It comes with digitalisation and technological advancements: artificial intelligence, big data, internet of things (IoT); all the tools that we can use to improve efficiency and agility for Procurement’s ways of working.

We need to embrace the speed of change and ride the wave. These tools can offer opportunities for development to our brains, as well; coding, for instance, not only supports business programs to run through our laptops, but learning how to code can boost our problem-solving skills and our creativity, too.

Naturally, human skills are still important; empathy, emotional intelligence and people management skills, as in all business functions, are key for a team's success, particularly in turbulent times, such as the past few years.

In order to overcome an obstacle, when a dead-end is seen by a tool, the strategic thinking and - even more - the passion of a professional, will open the path. Ethical decision-making and leadership skills will always be at the top of the list for a Procurement professional, and cannot be replaced by a robot. After all, we are all human beings - both us and our suppliers - and we need trust for a partnership to work.

Thank you to Konstantina for speaking to Charlotte Cruise, Senior Consultant in our Procurement & Supply Chain recruitment team in Switzerland.

Views and opinions contained within our Executive Interviews are those of the interviewee and not views shared by EMEA Recruitment. 

Véronique Frasnetti has held many different positions with increasing seniority at B. Braun, which is a major company in over 60 countries. She is currently the Vice President of Strategic Purchasing in the Hospital Care Division.

As you’ve been with B. Braun since 2004, how does the company retain high potential employees?

If you show willingness to develop yourself, B. Braun will support you. We have all sorts of internal training. For example, if you would like to be a project manager, we have very good internal training in which you will also get useful tools. Afterwards, you could be running a project beside your activities. There are also chances to learn languages - there is big support to have trainings in general.

Time is flying when you are within B. Braun, because you have so many opportunities to grow both professionally and personally. This is the way they retain talent.

B. Braun has also the advantage of being a big company, with 66,000 employees approximately in 64 countries; there are a lot of possibilities. Perhaps it is more complicated in a very small company.

How did you plan your career?

Originally, I was in cocoa trading. This is what I always wanted to do when I was younger. I enjoyed it a lot, but with family, I decided I wanted to separate from working with stock exchange. It’s very exciting, but it is so exciting that you think, how can I manage to have kids and such a job alongside?

Therefore, I decided to go into Procurement, because it’s very close. However, in a different manner, you do not have all that stress of working with the stock exchanges being totally dependant on what happens there and being bound by the opening hours (that can be during your night, depending on the timezone) - you can better plan your time and organization. Consequently, I left trading and went into Procurement, where I could still use my negotiation and commercial skills. Then I did work for some companies in Procurement, until I found B. Braun, where I thought, this is the place.

The best way of developing your career is to be in a company which also wants to develop itself, to be state-of-the-art, to go for new things. This is what I could find here, so I have stayed working there ever since!

What advice would you give to leaders who are managing large acquisitions and integrations?

I would say not to underestimate the integration phase. I have seen, in certain companies, that after a few months, everybody thinks that the acquired company is integrated just because the purchase is completed. This can cause problems.

It is very important that, when you acquire a company and want to onboard it properly into your system, you harmonise the processes at first. This step will take a certain time, but represents a chance for both entities.

There is also the need to carefully consider the people aspect, as the employees of the acquired company are usually quite afraid, because, when you hear about an acquisition, you say, wow, is my job going to be there still or not? So, reassure your people! This is very important, because - when you acquire a company - beside the products and customers, you also acquire the knowledge of the people, and you don’t want to lose this at all.

I can say that, very happily, we acquired a company three years ago and all went well. We are working really nicely together. But you need to take time to integrate them; this way, everything turns out much better than if you tried to let them swim - especially when you come into a big group like B. Braun. So, I would say the integration part is as important as the due diligence and acquisition part.

Can you define Procurement best practice?

I would say best practice is to have a state-of-the-art and transparent set of processes, which is adapted to your company size, industry sector, strategy... because these parameters also have a very big importance on what you shall do or not, meaning not every state-of-the-art activity is suitable for your company.

You shall of course look at the level of maturity of your organisation. I assume you know the maturity curve, in which you see all levels, from solely transactional actions for Procurement, up to vertical integration. You really need to understand where you are, so you can grab the right set of tools you need. This is something that I would recommend. As well, you should concentrate on planning a proper strategy.

A lot of people are talking about source to contract now, which is of course important, but before the source to contract, you should plan your strategy. Before buying something, you should be sure you’re buying exactly what the company needs, the most suitable product/service in the right quality, from the suppliers you want to grow with the aim to support your company objectives, future plans.

You need to have a Procurement strategy aligned to the company strategy and with the major stakeholders, which will be accepted and followed throughout the company, since not only Procurement is following the Procurement strategy, but the entire company, as well.

In the medical industry, it’s very important that you plan far ahead, so this is something which should be looked at, coupled with supplier development. Beside source to contract, you need to monitor, develop, maybe phase out, some suppliers.

Has your approach to Procurement best practice evolved since the COVID-19 pandemic?

Definitely. It has brought everything upside down. Now, geo-political monitoring is a must. It started with COVID, followed by the RuUkraine conflict. Our environment is permanently challenged. If you do not follow what is happening, then you’re too late - you can only react, but not mitigate.

Therefore, best practice is now a deeper risk monitoring, being proactive and not reactive. Before, of course, that was always something that was looked at, but not life, rather on regular set time. In the past, there were force majeure sometimes, but - since COVID - some are notified almost every week and now, with the energy situation, in addition there are increased fears of bankruptcy.

Understanding your supply chain is getting even more important. In the past, it was almost a given that, when something was ordered, you would get it, perhaps there was a small delay, a slight price increase or something, but it would be available. Since COVID, the way we are working totally changed, some prices sky-rocketed by 500%-plus and availability, as well as transportation, became a hassle. We needed and still need to find ad-hoc solutions.

Is it possible in this current environment to innovate with suppliers virtually when you can’t see them face-to-face?

COVID made us change our way of doing work. Before, people would meet face-to-face a lot. Suddenly, we could not anymore, so another way of working had to be started. Thanks to the available software, we could switch to virtual contacts quite easily, since they are really user friendly; you can talk to an almost unlimited number of participants, share documents, and it’s fully reliable in terms of functionality and quality. If we had faced the same situation five or six years ago, that would have been an even bigger disaster.

We even started new actions, which we could not do before. As an example, we facilitated virtual sustainability meetings with suppliers, having 50-plus people together on the line that were based in various continents. Allowing everybody to have the same information level and benefiting from many inputs. Such meetings would not have been feasible face-to-face, as it would have been too time consuming and cost a fortune in travel. In this sense, the complicated situation made us progress faster.

Of course, there is a moment when you need to sit together. If our supplier really wants to understand some specific needs, for example, they need to see our lines, our products, and we also need to see their production equipment, to exchange, because - at the end - both entities have knowledge they can share. But we were surprised about the big portion that can be done online, which we would not expect before.

I would even say, in some cases, innovation comes easier to us now that we can have more participants online than in a regular meeting face-to-face. The information flow is much faster, likewise the following actions. I really think this new aspect is making our life much easier.

Is there a myth about your profession that you want to debunk?

The biggest one I see is: Procurement is all about price negotiation. Of course, price negotiation is part of it, but it is not all. Firstly, you must have the correct product in terms of quality, at the right place, in the right quantity, at the right time, and at the best possible price. The price comes at the end, because, as an example, if you go for a cheap product that is of poor quality, it might end up in a disaster.

There are a lot more tasks you need to do beside negotiating; a very important one is innovation gathering. Procurement is also about bringing innovation into your company, acting as incoming channel. Procurement is like the eye of the company to the outside, to the beginning of the chain really - the opposite of our salespeople. We are the ones who see external innovation first; we need to monitor this. If we see interesting innovation, we shall take that into the company to the relevant department/person.

Everybody is now concentrating on sustainability. This includes, of course, the actions that you will undertake in the company, such as energy saving, to be green, but it’s also the material you will be buying, trying to go for sustainable materials. Like I said before, we are somehow the eyes of the company into the supply market and - like for innovation - this applies to sustainability.

Also, Procurement is about monitoring the suppliers and the number of them. You don’t need to have thousands of suppliers, which in fact is too often the case. What is important is to have a few (sufficient) reliable suppliers or fewer suppliers that can cover a bigger part of your needs to allow a win-win situation. There, also, it’s not about negotiating prices only; it’s about understanding the capabilities of the supplier, their strategy, the level of risk, versus our needs to see if and where it can match.

It’s also about choosing the supplier you want to grow, the one you want to phase out, and the one you will keep as such, because they don’t have more capabilities, for example, but you still need them for an essential range of products.

When you have a crisis, like we had for the past two years already, if Procurement is not working adequately, meaning having the proper agreements in place and a good relationship with the strategic suppliers, good enough that you can be prioritised when necessary, you might end up in important supply issues.

What does diversity mean to you?

Diversity is a very important topic that is being spoken about a lot currently. In our company, we recently had some diversity meetings, where people could exchange their view on what we should do.

Of course, there is gender, there is religion, but I would say it goes much beyond that; it’s also about personality, way of acting. If you compare people from certain regions to other regions, or even one person to another one, they are different. This is already diversity, and this represents an asset if you can have a mix of various personalities.

I strongly believe that the future is with inclusion, clearly, but in a broad way, going as far as how the people are, how they apprehend to work, to risk, everything, because all that is bringing more value and balance into your teams.

When hiring people, why not have a CV without gender, without nationality and without age? Focusing on the personality beside the pure work aspects. Diversity is also, for example, on age. Younger and older people don’t exactly do things the same way, but they can both be an asset and benefit from each other.

It would be good if we could look at the profiles based on what they achieved, the knowledge they bring and their personality, instead of the gender and so on… We should get rid of that, I would say, and concentrate more on what the person can bring to the company.

How does cultural awareness impact business relationships?

I think it helps a lot. If you speak the language, of course, you’re going to be closer to that person than if you don’t speak the language, but this is not the only way to get close to somebody, or to have a smooth and harmonious business relationship.

In some regions, if you don’t have dinner or lunch, there is no way of talking successfully about business, because for certain people it is very important that you sit together, talk about different subjects, have some small talk, eat something, drink a glass of wine, before talking business. If you don’t know this or just skip it, you will not start in a good atmosphere. You should consider these specific aspects and adapt, like the other party will try to adapt, as well. I think it’s very important.

You could be hurting people, just because you have no idea about their culture. And I would recommend to any person being in contact on the purchasing side or on the sales side to prepare themselves by gathering information about the cultural aspects.

An example, in Japan, if you give someone a business card, you need to hold it with two hands; if you don’t, it’s disrespectful.

We need to create that climate of trust and collaboration with our suppliers/partners to allow successful business relationships, which can be greatly facilitated by having cultural awareness.

Thank you to Véronique for speaking to our Procurement & Supply Chain recruitment team in Switzerland, led by Neil Cope.

Views and opinions contained within our Executive Interviews are those of the interviewee and not views shared by EMEA Recruitment. 

Marie-Sophie Morel is the Procure to Pay Process Lead at ABB in Zurich. She has been with the organization for over six years, having previously spent more than 16 years at Xerox, in business transformation roles.

You have achieved Lean Six Sigma Black Belt certification. How do you feel this has impacted your day-to-day work and career?

It had a significant impact, and allowed me to increase my productivity and implement sustainable changes.

Lean Six Sigma is one of many methodologies helping to understand if a given task provides value to the company. It was an eye-opener for me to say there are some tasks I am requested to do that don't bring any value and that is it my responsibility to raise it. This was a radical productivity increase.

When we come across something broken, instead of spending a little time understanding the trigger, we often put in a fix. This was my second eye-opener; by looking at the root cause, we can understand what is triggering the problem, solve it and it becomes a sustainable change.

Was it your choice to originally do the training? Was it something you identified that you wanted to do for yourself or was it the organization you were with at the time?

I had a clever boss at that time who realized that it could be something good for me.

I had just come back from maternity leave. My daughter was six-months-old. For six months, I spent one week in the US, three weeks in Switzerland. It wasn’t easy to manage, but one of the best decisions in my career.

Your roles over recent years have had a strong focus on change management. What are the key factors to allow you to be successful in these roles?

You cannot implement a change against the organization.

The whole challenge and magic rely on bringing people with you. It requires a lot of respect for colleagues impacted by the change. When people are pushing back, they have a good reason. It’s my responsibility to understand and manage what is triggering their reaction.

Designing the solution with the people impacted by change is equally important. It provides them an opportunity to share their challenges upfront and influence the end-solution.  

I could imagine, the larger the organization, the harder it is to manage those relationships?

At the end, you're always interacting with small teams and human beings. I wouldn't say the size of the organization matters, but rather its culture. Every organization has its own culture. As a change agent, it's fundamental to align to it, because the culture triggers the ways of working.

I once received the same transformation mandate from two compagnies with very different cultures – one very top down, and the other bottom up. The scope was similar. However, the end solutions were completely different. Both were assessed as a success. It's all about listening to the organization, to the culture, to the people impacted and designing a solution for them. Then, the change implemented will be sustainable.

Do you feel, as a woman, that you have encountered additional barriers in your career development? What advice would you give to other women aspiring to be where you are?

I have had the chance to work for global companies. Before ABB, I worked for a company which was quite advanced on this topic, and had a woman CEO that was putting in a lot of effort and was an early adopter. ABB is also committed to equality, diversity and inclusion, including gender diversity. I think it’s fair to say that, in general, there is still a way to go to achieve full and genuine equality in the workplace.

My advice is to work on yourself, because that's also some of the bias. Say to ourselves, “Can I do it?”, “Is it really for me to do it?”. These questions are very valuable questions around work-life balance.

When my kids were two, four and six, I got a promotion for a global position located in London. The job needed me to be in the UK from Monday to Friday, coming back at weekends. I asked myself, “Can I manage being away now?” My answer was, “No”.

But that shouldn't be a woman’s decision only; any human being with kids should ask: Does it really make sense for me to be away from Monday to Friday when I have three kids of this age? I can’t answer for everyone, but for me the answer was clear.

Stakeholder management is an important aspect of your role. What do you feel are the key aspects for building trust and relationships?

There are no magic rules.

It's important to understand what is important for your stakeholders. Expect them to come with new ideas and listen to them. Try to understand their personality and build your communication accordingly. Keep in mind that it takes time, and it is well-invested time.

Finally, it’s important to agree on a common definition of success.

How would you describe your people management style and what do you do to get the best out of your team?

Diversity drives success. During recruitment, I always try to get people as diverse as possible, from a skillset, background, personality, country, gender, etc. point of view, which requires a good understanding of my own strengths. The worst would be a team of clones.

Let me give you an example: I am fundamentally positive, but I know that it’s important to have some more negative people in the team. They will be the ones looking at risk.

Collaboration drives results. I expect everybody in the team to have an open way of working and develop an end-to-end approach. In a Procure to Pay environment, it means that Finance may work on Procurement-related topics and Procurement may actively contribute to Finance optimization.

What do you feel is the most rewarding part of your role?

Large transformations have a significant impact on employees. It is when employees collaborate and build a better future together. It becomes even more rewarding when the organization proactively embraces the change.

That's what gives me the energy to push for this solution; when people come back with positive feedback saying, yes, we want to be part of the game.

What have been the major highlights of your career to date?

There are a lot of small moments where you feel connected to people, you see somebody struggling, reluctant to embrace change and then suddenly that changes! The most important thing is the people I'm working with and how I bring them together.

When I see signs that it works, it's much more rewarding.

We’ve already touched on how important role models have been a little bit earlier. Are there any particular people that you would highlight as being your key role models?

If I need to highlight one person in terms of a normal role model, it's Anne Mulcahy, CEO of Xerox when I was working there. She came once to Switzerland and I was really impressed with her ability to listen and take care.

At that time, I was doing Marketing and Communications, and I was managing her schedule for the two days she was in Switzerland. I always had the feeling I was the most important person to her. She had this ability to make people feel important and to listen. An exceptional woman!

It sounds like she's had a huge impact on your approach, as well?

That's the power of a great leader. I was one of thousands of employees in that organization, but through communication and the way she interacted with us, she helped me become a better contributor to the organization. That's something I always keep in mind, that she was really a great woman.

Thank you to Marie-Sophie for speaking to Meriel Graham, Director in our Finance & Accoutancy recruitment team in Switzerland.

Views and opinions contained within our Executive Interviews are those of the interviewee and not views shared by EMEA Recruitment. 

Romain Taffouraud is the Managing Director of Sun Chemical in Geneva, Switzerland. He was previously a CFO at Sensient Technologies Corporation and Plant finance Director at Procter & Gamble, where he spent almost 13 years. Romain was also the President of Versoix Athletics, the second largest club in Geneva.

How do you feel your passion for sports - athletics and the running club - helps you be a better leader?

There are numerous similarities between sport and business management. Firstly, being good at sport – which, for me, means having fun and reaching my own targets - does not happen from one day to another. It means training, practising, and having a certain rigor during the exercise. This is the same at work, where day after day, I try to show the pace and provide the right example to my teams.

Secondly, when you practise for several years, you feel the need for change, for new training exercises, and for new challenges. Again, this is the same at work, where you need to find new ways of running your business in order to be even more successful year after year.

Also, creating and developing a club or an association gives you a different purpose and use of your leadership skills. After a few years, the association I created with a friend now has more than 130 members that requires us to design and propose the right offer (training sessions) to targeted clients (passionate runners) that you first recruit and then try to retain.

What are the current recruitment challenges that you face?

As far as recruitment is concerned, our organisation currently faces two types of challenges. First of all, Switzerland is a very particular market with a structurally low unemployment rate. It reached its lowest level in 20 years, at 2.2%, by the end of 2022. We are therefore now below the famous frictional unemployment and close to a kind of shortage.

This is even more true for certain types of profiles that are difficult to find in the market – mostly resources with one or two experiences, mobile, dynamic, and qualified in specific areas or skills (soft or hard). These profiles are rare to find in the market currently.

The second challenge is a relatively new one coming from new behaviours adopted by our more junior employees. There is a strong request for higher flexibility in what employers can offer and the way we design our future roles. In absence of adjustment, these employees - which are also generally more agile in the job market - do not hesitate to switch employer whenever the opportunity arises.

What does your organisation do to drive its sustainability agenda? 

The first critical step for our organisation was to know where we were in terms of sustainability. That means, to design an effective action plan, we first need to understand the global footprint of the organisation.

I am currently located in a production and R&D [research and development] site. So, the application field is huge and exciting. We have been tracking our precise utilities consumption and can easily identify the drivers of it, from our production site/headquarters to our portfolio of products.

Then, the role of engineers is to change the way we operate, find alternatives to the less green raw materials, move to faster production time, reduce utilities consumption via lean production and concentrated production, etc.

The first actions and results are low hanging fruits - switching lights, lowering the heating systems - which are easy to implement. Whereas, reformulating old products and convincing customers to move to greener alternatives takes much more time. In that process, it is important not to be a standalone actor, but benefit from the support of a whole organisation. From that perspective, the DIC Way promoted by our company is a great foundation, internally and externally.

But there is still one positive thing about the current utilities crisis and the related price increase: it gives an additional financial incentive to all sustainability projects. For instance, whereas moving to solar energy was hard to justify so far, with current market prices, payout is only in three to five years!

What advice would you offer to someone moving to Switzerland?  

Moving to Switzerland is relatively comparable to moving to any other foreign location. Meaning, although you might believe the language(s), the culture, the habits are close to yours, you should still make the effort to understand and integrate them.

As in any other change, try to understand what makes Switzerland so different and why it has been stable for decades.

What is a memorable moment from your career and why?

It may sound paradoxical, but the months I had (and we all had) to overcome during the pandemic were probably the most exciting and challenging ones. I am convinced the accumulation of so many crises in such a short period of time will not happen again soon - at least, I hope!

The challenges were mostly of two types. Firstly, on the human side, COVID-19 created a new environment, which we were obviously not prepared to face or handle. In March/April 2020, the questions to answer were as simple as: What do we do? Should we shut down the production site or keep it running to serve our customers? Where is the right balance between protecting our people and protecting our business?

With my team, I had to invent the local customized answer to the daily problems over several weeks; I must have spent about 80% of my time on people and organisation management - for an ex-CFO, quite a challenge!

On top of that, after a few months of business euphoria, unexpected business complexity was added to the health situation – raw materials pricing and availability became an issue, transportation costs skyrocketed, utilities costs exploded…

In that context, as a business leader, you have to innovate, think one step ahead and out of the box to find solutions others will not even have imagined. Sometimes, you win.

What is your favourite business motto and why? 

Several years ago, I found the following quote written on the wall of my English production manager’s office: “I never lose. I either win or learn.” Since then, I keep leveraging these words from Nelson Mandela.

In our current world, where failure is an issue and hardly forgiven, this is a very positive way to turn (bad) experiences into something positive and insightful for the future.

For the younger generation also, turning all trials into a new learning experience is critical. I do not necessarily believe, however, as the great Taoist Lao Tzu said: “Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor,” but there is a whole literature on the virtues of failure for those interested.

What is the secret to building a strong network?

First of all, I am not sure there is one secret to build a network, because each network is linked to your personality, your history, your experience, your background and so on. But, I will offer two bits of advice.

Firstly, you should not activate or try to build your network when you need it – meaning, when you need it, it’s actually too late. I learnt that, because I decided to use my network after 13 years in P&G, where you are just living in a kind of bubble.

So, my first advice is, as soon as you start your working experience, try to keep your connections. Be interactive, try to get the best out of the people you can connect with, and be open and transparent with people. It should not, however, be something you are forcing yourself to do - and don’t make anything artificial.

Secondly, networking comes from two sides – meaning, you will leverage it when you need it, but please also ensure you are openly available to people and to young students when they need something. You should not only look up, but also look down.

If you believe first that you won’t get anything from a connection, it’s wrong; you always get something from the people you mix with. For instance, a new student will teach you and give you some advice on how the new graduates behave and what they think. This will bring you onto something you can learn, and you can replicate in your next recruitment, for instance.

Having moved from Finance to General Management, who are now the main stakeholders that you deal with internally? How have they changed?

The main change while moving into General Management is that you will have to deal with a vast majority of stakeholders - actually all available stakeholders within the company. Whereas, in the past, as a Finance Manager, you are mostly dealing with a limited number of people.

This means you have to interact with different people that you were not particularly familiar with in the past - obviously with HR, with recruitment, but also I’m thinking about Health and Safety and about Purchasing - so there are quite a lot of different stakeholders you have to manage.

You need to know what their constraints are, what they are thinking, what their ways of doing business are, that kind of complexity. Because, from one day to another, you are expected to know what they have to do, to know how to behave, and what their strategy and plans are. You must support these people, to show them that you are supportive and can be seen as a leader. Also, as a manager, you have to understand what they are doing.

Those are the kind of challenges I experienced at the beginning, when moving to this General Management role.

Was there a learning curve when you first started?

Definitely. Coming from Finance, you have a certain proximity with some departments and some stakeholders. I was quite used to dealing with management or top management, for instance, doing the reporting; external partners were also relatively easy for me, as well as salespeople.

Prediction and Supply Chain were tough areas, as they are very specific, highly qualified people. Yes, you have to build proximity, closeness with these people, try to understand what they are doing, how they are thinking, just to make sure you understand what they are doing and what their constraints are, and really being very humble at the beginning.

I was not afraid to say, “Sorry guys, I don’t understand” or, “I don’t know what you are doing or what your constraints are, just tell me. I will be able to help you, I will support you, but just explain what you are doing and what the context is, so that we can build something together.”

Thank you to Romain for speaking to John Bower, Director in our Finance & Accoutancy recruitment team in Switzerland.

Views and opinions contained within our Executive Interviews are those of the interviewee and not views shared by EMEA Recruitment. 

Thomas Mulder is the Executive Director HR, Internal Comms and Workplace at VodafoneZiggo in the Netherlands. He has been with Vodafone for over 11 years, having previously been HR Director of the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg at Accenture.

How can leaders create diverse teams?

It starts with being aware of unconscious bias, and we call that conscious inclusion. People need to really understand the opportunity that diverse teams bring in comparison with more heterogenic, homogeneous teams. So, there is self-awareness and conscious inclusion.

I think the second point is that you need to give the topic priority. Working on diversity is a long-term thing, so you can always start tomorrow instead of today. You need to make sure that you raise it on the priority list, and you can do that by attaching clear objectives of what you want to achieve.

The third point is to create a culture around inclusivity and diversity. You need to focus in your internal communication on diversity, on role models, on the behaviour that you would like to see. If you do these three things in parallel - make sure that you develop the capabilities needed amongst your leaders to shape and lead diverse teams, set a clear ambition level and target, and create a positive internal buzz around this to make people aware and to really highlight what you want your culture to be - then I think you can create diverse teams within your organisation.

What would you say excites you about working for VodafoneZiggo?

From an HR perspective, on the one hand, we invest billions in spectrum, in our network, in technology, where we get a return only in years' time, so we have to have a very long-term focus.

But, on the other hand, the competition in telco salesforce for all different segments - fixed technology, mobile technology, we’ve got big IT infrastructure and team, we’ve got technicians on the road with national coverage and customer care.

If you think about all of this and think about the diversity, that is super fascinating to lead and to manage - especially because nothing in this organisation works in isolation. We have to do everything end-to-end, and that is always super interesting, of course.

The third thing for me is just the sheer importance that we have in society. If you think about our network, if we have an outage, the nation comes to a standstill. But also, if you think about innovation that’s happening in society - also the way we have to deal with challenges like climate change, for instance - we are privileged to be able to play a vital role in that and that is what makes it very attractive to work for this company.

What changes have you seen to the employment market in the Netherlands over the years and what in your opinion have been the main drivers for these changes?

A couple of things. We, of course, are dealing with an ageing population in the Netherlands. The way I sometimes put it, now and in the years to come, every month, a covert of people retire that is the size of VodafoneZiggo. That means that the labour market is getting increasingly tight.

Within that, we don’t see the massive resignation wave that we have seen in other Anglo-Saxon markets, so that means that the number of people who are actively in the market looking for another role is very small. That means that, if you want to be able to attract talent, you have to be super quick and laser-focused.

Therefore, in the Netherlands, we are attracting more talent from abroad and I’m also glad to see more international talent joining VodafoneZiggo. As an organisation, you need to make sure that you are able to tap into that international pool of talent, because, if you only limit yourself to the Dutch labour market, that could easily be too small.

Finally, if you think about the digital transformation that our society is in at the moment, there is a massive demand for new skills and capabilities, and just pulling on the new joiners on the labour market, the digital natives, is not enough. I think that the companies that offer development opportunities to people are the winners.

If you could go back and give your younger self some career advice, what would it be?

From the age of 17, I thought, let’s start my career in HR, because that’s an opportunity to see how an organisation works from the inside, and you get to see every aspect of it quite quickly. Then, let’s see where it ends, and that’s still my strategy now, 20 years later.

I think the only career advice that I would give myself if I were able to do it again is to enjoy the moment more. I’ve always been driving things forward, always been focused on the next thing with my team, the next thing with my business, and my people agenda, instead of just sometimes letting it go and enjoy the moment that you are in.

I think generally this is also career advice that I would give to a lot of people. The fear of missing out is also a big driver for career decisions these days and that’s actually a negative career consideration. Valuing more what you have, thinking more carefully about the perspectives that you may have may also reduces the risk that you take the wrong decision, just because you are anxious that you are missing out on something in the short-term.

How did you plan out your career development?

I actually did not really plan it out. It started with this ambition to start my career in HR and then I focused more on my own development. I think that’s more important than planning your career, because when it comes to career moves, you are not in charge with that; it’s about being at the right place, at the right time, being able to make a move and not necessarily about being only the best candidate.

A lot comes down to luck when it comes to developing your career. So, it’s better to then focus on the things that you can influence, and that is your own development; making sure that you’re open to feedback, that you know you can grow personally and professionally. For instance, I think I’ve done two things: I’ve always developed myself as a generalist in business with an executive MBA, with executive programmes at London Business School, and also Singularity University, to develop myself more as a generalist, rather than a particular HR specialist.

The second thing is that I think I have taken a risk a number of times in my career. I tend to focus on the grey areas. A lot of things are black and white in this world; they are clear, they are chartered, people know what is expected and what you need to do, but there are also areas in the business where it’s grey, where it’s not clear, because it’s new, unchartered, people really don’t know what the expectations are.

This is when you can shape your own agenda and position yourself as a leader in a different way, in an authentic way, and that offers you more career development, steeper learning curves, than in a world that is black and white. There are also risks attached to those grey areas, and I think, a couple of times in my career, I have consciously taken the risk and that is really accelerated my personal development.

I was the HR Director for Accenture for the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg on a good career trek. I had programmed to become a senior executive, when I was offered to join Vodafone. However, Vodafone did not have a job for me, they just said, why don’t you come, it’s going to be fun? I decided to quit my job at Accenture; I had a team with lots of momentum, uncertainty about the next step, and basically moved my family to London in a new environment, not having a clue about what I was going to be doing there. I think that is an example of such a risk.

After an introduction into the company, I then got a phone call to do the due diligence on a global telco in 35 countries - I did have experience with integration, but not with due diligence. I would say that is an example of taking a risk in a grey area, where you then get these opportunities to accelerate your personal development.

What is the most surprising thing that has happened in your career?

I have never really felt that something came as a real surprise. What I would have never expected at the start of my career is that I would have moved abroad and to multiple countries. I think I never anticipated that; it really happened in the moment and turned out to be a very good thing, I have to say.

How will digital transformation change the role of HR, in your opinion?

If you think about digital transformation, a lot of things in society, and in organisations, corporates, need to change. It’s the organisation that needs to become more agile, more centred around technology and data. The second is that you need different skills and capabilities in a digital world. The third thing is a different style of leadership - much more focused on coaching, holding people to account, rather than command and control, for instance, but also much more focused on an external radar, instead of internal best practice, so those leadership shifts.

Then, there is a culture of collaboration amongst people who master different capabilities, different profiles. All of these things – organisational development, capability development, leadership development and culture development – are the fundamental tasks and responsibilities of HR. HR needs to set itself up for success to shape a digital transformation. Not just to be a partner in the process to become a digital organisation, but to shape what that looks like and then help to transform the organisation to become digital. I’ve seen that happen in a number of companies and I think that will ultimately change the role HR has in a company.

There is another reason this will accelerate – the crisis we had with COVID, but also now wellbeing and wage inflation. The cost of human capital is increasing. All these things together are part of the biggest challenges that companies are facing nowadays. HR is right at the centre of these challenges, and better able than anyone in the company to come up with solutions and deliver those. So, that is also what I think will drive transformation in HR.

Thank you to Thomas for speaking to our HR recruitment team in the Netherlands, led by Katie Insley.

Views and opinions contained within our Executive Interviews are those of the interviewee and not views shared by EMEA Recruitment.