Eladio Robles is the Global Supply Operations Head – Crop Protection at Syngenta in Basel, Switzerland. He was previously Syngenta’s Latin America Supply Operations Head, having lived in Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina and Panama.

What have you learnt as a leader over the last 12 months in the COVID period?

To listen purposefully, even more than normal. Over the past two years, there have been so many things happening that it has been even more important to sit down and listen. It’s not only about the issues, opportunities, and things that they are bringing, but also their own context.

In my own team, during this two-year period, we had what we call two COVID babies, but we also had family challenges; we had people who lost relatives and people who are facing issues in their own families.

So, to listen purposefully has been key in making sure I was able to understand where people were, and how best to work with them and help them to go through the challenges that they were going through themselves - not only at work, but also in their personal lives.

How do you think you were as a listener before COVID?

I was okay – “What are you doing?”, “What did you do over the weekend?”, “What are your hobbies?”, but, during COVID, we learnt more about individuals. We were at meetings and interviews where there were children sitting on their laps, or they had to stop, or they had to shut down periods of work to take care of an elderly relative.

I had the opportunity to learn more about my team members because of the extreme conditions. This made me more aware of what they were going through as individuals, which I think at the end has helped us all.

You spent close to 20 years within agricultural sciences. Being someone that knows the industry very well, what would you say to candidates who are considering a move into this industry?

This was the fifth industry I worked in and it has definitely been the most rewarding; because what we do in Syngenta is to help farmers produce the food that we eat - what can be greater than that? We are working together with farmers to ensure that we do our best to help them, not only on their production but also in an efficient and sustinable way looking into the future.

I would find it very hard to find something else that would give me such a purpose when I wake up every morning. We get a kick every time we have a meal and we can relate to the food that we’re eating; we can immediately connect what we have done during the day with that meal on our plates, so that’s great.

In Syngenta, we work with small farmers and we work with industrial farmers. It is great to hear the stories when they can get the yields that they were looking for, when they can improve themselves, improve their families and the communities that they live in. It’s a fantastic industry to be in. In terms of the fundamental drivers of the business, the one thing that we all must do is eat; and the population keeps growing, so it’s a great place to be.

What are the biggest challenges affecting the agricultural landscape?

There are various challenges. Fertilizer is always a challenge, because in certain parts of the world, farmers need fertilizers, and it can difficult to access them.

Access to technology, because on one side of the scale, we have industrial farming operations that are big corporations, but we also have small farmers, so access to technology for those farmers can be challenging.

The biggest one of all is the weather. Farmers wake up - you have all the forecast that you can have and all the history and statistics that you can have, but the reality over the past five to ten years is that the weather keeps changing.

If you take Europe, we’ve had, over the past few years: warmer winters, warmer and drier springs, and drier summers. The farmers have to deal with that, so these are big challenges.

I am not joking when I tell you that I think farmers are heroes. Again, it gives a lot of purpose and meaning to the work that we do to be working in an industry that is trying to help them get the right tools to cope with those challenges, but in my opinion, the weather is definitely the biggest one of them all.

Is there possibility for AI to help significantly with predicting weather patterns?

It is possible - we have the largest coverage of hectares with technology tools, so we provide farmers access to satellite imaging and forecasting models on soil conditions and weather based on historical patterns and live measurements on site. We do that very actively, not only with big farmers, but also with small farmers.

The use of AI, in particular, in terms of what type of seed they need for the conditions that they’re going to be having in the land over the next few months or years, and also what type of protocols they can follow to improve on the yield of that particular seed on the conditions that we foresee the soil will have, is something that is already happening. It’s not science fiction, it’s a fact already.

You’ve lived and worked in a lot of different countries - Panama, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Switzerland now. How did you find this transition and do you have any advice for people who are making big geographical moves?

In my opinion, the first thing is to have clarity on what you intend to gain with the move. What is it that you’re looking for in terms of experience and what you can also contribute to the location or the team that you are going into.

Also, at the same level of importance for me is, if you have a family or a partner. It is important that it becomes a plan in the family unit and not your plan. It is really important that your partner and your family are also into the change, because it is a big change - you start from zero every time you move. Having that clarity on what you want to get as an individual, but also as a partner in a couple or as a family member, is something that should not be underestimated, because it is a significant change - but the benefits are also great.

At the same time, you have the opportunity to learn new languages, and the chance to really understand the culture of the different countries when you live there day-to-day; you learn when you talk to individuals and go to the local coffee shops; and go to the stores; doctors and to the supermarket. That’s an experience and learning that you don’t get by reading a book.

Also, in my own case with my family, it was great not only in terms of languages learnt, but also in terms of the exposure to different cultures, and the learning on how to manage and adapt to change.

And of course, the clarity of what you want to get has to align with what the company is looking for.

In terms of Syngenta and diversity, what can non-HR leaders do to promote diversity in their teams?

I think one of the advantages that we have in Syngenta, is that as an organisation which operates in over 90 countries is that our employee base reflects that. What I would recommend is to sit down with other line managers who have diverse teams, because it’s not only about the diversity of your membership, but how you make sure that you bring the value of that diversity into the day-to-day work in order to make it inclusive.

It is super interesting when you start tracking the performance of your team based on how you make the most of the cultural traits and experiences that diversity brings, and when you start working with that you start learning.

Talking with people who have diverse teams is the right thing, because there could be guides or frameworks that you can follow from Academia, but the experience of others who have been successful in leveraging that into value, not only for themselves and their teams, but also for the company, is very important. It’s in those conversations when you understand how to get value for the company, but also make people feel appreciated and valued.

How can leaders ensure that it’s a genuine change, rather than box-ticking?

For me, it’s about sitting down and understanding what it is that you have in your team, it could be different levels of experience, the place of origin, cultural background, education levels and various other factors. People have different filters, and all these filters can also add value. I don’t think it is something you can do by chance.

You have to sit down, and work with your team in a very transparent way to make sure that everybody understands what are the traits and other elements that each member of the team brings, and understand the potential that all those things combined can have and start using them in how we work as a team.

What are the things that we have that we can use to achieve our targets and our purpose? What are the things that we still need to get? I think it has to be a conscious exercise. There are many exercises you can do to help find those diverse qualities, but if you do it as a team, I think it is better.

In Syngenta when we do interviews, we have three or more interview teams, and we invite interviewers from other functions with other styles to participate in the interview process to help get a broader perspective of the candidate. We try to make sure that the interview teams are diverse also, so that when we do the review of the candidate, it is not my view as a hiring manager’s, but a collection of inputs from different people with different filters. For us, this process has proven to be very successful.

Amongst all this noise at the moment in Supply Chain, how can leaders create time to think and reflect, and how has this helped you in your leadership career?

I like the question, because you’re right, there’s a lot of noise around. For me, what has worked is a routine. I have a routine of how much time I want to invest every day working, how much time I want to invest exercising, how much time I want to invest with my family and loved ones. It sounds very cliché, but again, you have to sit down and plan, and most importantly, stick to that.

Personally, I’m a firm believer that in order to be affective with others, I have to be okay with myself. So, if I’m in balance, then I can be effective with others.

I have also seen in others what works; having a routine, making time for yourself, and making the time that you are going to spend with your teams. But again, it doesn’t happen by chance in my view, chance would only take you to a certain level.

Do you make commitments in terms of time off? Are you ever unplugged if you go on holiday?

We do, and I can tell you it’s hard, because there are so many ways in how you can be connected today, and COVID has multiplied the number of channels that you can have and the ability to be connected all the time.

We have made a list of commitments on the team of what we’re going to do when its holidays, when it’s weekends, and how we manage the time, and we go through a process of constantly checking what we’re doing, what is really important and what is not. Those are difficult decisions that had to be made, but it’s across the company that we do that.  

We understand each other because of that, and I sincerely think this is one of the reasons that we have been growing steadily over the past few years, because even with everything that we have faced, we know as a team, what we all see as important and we work on that, and then we take the time off when we need to do so.

How does your company work to retain high potential employees?

One thing that is very important in Syngenta, is that we all have what we call an individual development plan. It is in our hands what we are going to do with our careers. It’s something that we do by ourselves, and then we share, discuss and agree with our line managers on the things that we expect to get in the company in terms of career progression, learnings and all of that, and we are very open and transparent on that.

We have regular exercises where we revise and update that development plan, and we have dedicated times in my team when we go through that our team members aspire and we make sure that we’re delivering on what we have agreed them. We cannot do everything at once, but we give that transparency to the individuals; this is what we have agreed, this is how we’re going to achieve it, and this is how we’re going to track it.

So far, we have what I think is a very good retention rate. We had someone new join us and one of the reasons she said that she had joined is that she found it very interesting that the interviewers had been with the company ten or more years. This shows that we give a lot of opportunities to our people across different areas within the company.

What do you look for in a recruitment partner?

The first thing is that the partner invests time to understand our business and how we work. That, to me, is just the entry stakes, then the ability to bring us insights of what is happening outside. We know that we are not the only industry out there, so having the ability to give us insight of what is happening in the market, so that we can be clear on what our employee value propositions compare, but also that we do as best a job as we can in how we’re describing what we’re offering to the market.

Because it might be very clear to us, but we would appreciate a partner from outside making sure that we take into account what is happening outside, so that we can describe our opportunities in a way that the market understands what it is that we’re offering.

Thank you to Eladio for speaking to our Procurement and 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 or Syngenta.

David Boulanger is the Executive Vice President & CSCO at Arla Foods, having previously been SVP Operations at Danone in Amsterdam. He has spent his career specialising in the food & beverages sector, at companies such as Kraft Foods and Nutricia Medical Nutrition.

What are the projects in sustainability that you are embarking on and what do they entail?

Firstly, we are committed to follow the 1.5°C trajectory that was set by the Paris Agreement a few years ago; which is a significant reduction of operations by 2030.

We also have an ambition in Arla Foods to become carbon neutral by 2050. This is much more than our operations; this is the total end-to-end supply chain, including our farmers.

The farms are probably the most important carbon emitters, so we need to completely reinvent the farm of the future. This will include how we feed the cows, manage the whole of the farm, use the land and fertilising.

Going into new technologies, like producing bio gas from our farms, using electricity, tapping into potential future technology and carbon sequestration, which is to put the gas back into the ground.

That’s an insight into the toolbox we have in order to reach this long-term commitment.

How do you feel that the dairy or FMCG industry has changed in the past ten years?

Like many other FMCGs, we have experienced a very significant transformation over the past ten years. I started my career 25 years ago and I have seen an acceleration of the change in the food industry and FMCGs.

Consumers are changing; they are becoming increasingly more demanding and we have moved away from the one-size-fits-all. But a lot of products are more fit for purpose or fit for consumer needs - you see an extension of the ranges of products that FMCG can bring to various consumers across the world.

The second thing is that sustainability is becoming physically important, so it is now a fact that consumers start to choose their product based not only on consumer behaviour, but also the impact on the planet.

The third thing is about digitalisation.

There are many applications of digitalisation; we start to see e-commerce as a growing channel, we start to see many consumers ordering more and more through e-commerce and through home deliveries.

We have digital now in everything we do. Our dairies are running differently now than they were three or four years ago, with new technologies, new systems, robotisation, etc. We use artificial intelligence for future planning and numerate a lot of things that digital has already brought, and will bring in the future to conform and continue to conform the dairy/FMCG industry.

I think COVID has accelerated a lot of the transformation that we’ve seen, especially on digital. The Ukraine war is also bringing a new set of challenges.

What we see is global supply chains have become weaker, so change is being more local, original, being more resilient in our business model. These also are the next challenges of the future for many FMCGs.

We have started to see a war for talent - that is also one of the major challenges that we will face in the future.

With your background, what advice would you give to Plant Managers or Operations Directors looking to make that next step in their career?

I think as a Chief Supply Chain Officer, the big difference between a Plant Director or an Operations Director moving to a more executive role, is to be able to take a step back from our functional agenda and to look at opportunities from a total business perspective.

I think the biggest advice I would give is to learn how businesses are run outside the Supply Chain functions, to contribute, to co-create the solutions that would make the business more successful in the future.

The Chief Supply Chain Officer in a business is someone who will contribute to add value in the future; rather than lead the functions only based on reducing costs. There is a limit to what you can do to optimise your costs, but there is so much you can do to create more value in Supply Chain.

Most of the time, when we are an Operations Director or Plant Director, we tend to look at our perimeter only, but we need to look at it from an end-to-end perspective.

With your career that spanned across Europe, what do you think are the benefits of having an international career with flexibility?

We have learned how to manage business judicially during COVID-19, but leaders need to be honest. This has brought a lot of positivity; you don’t travel, you don’t use this time travelling and waiting for planes and so on.

Being realistic; we have not yet found the right balance between being completely digital and humanising the work as well. We need to find the right balance between being able to do everything remotely, which is great from an efficiency standpoint. However, creativity and solutions need the physical touchpoint, especially when you welcome new people inside the company.

Coming back to your question, when you are an international company, you need also to be able to sense the different cultures.

You need to have been able to travel to different places - every country has its bits of specialisms in terms of culture and so on, and the way you connect with people makes it important to do that.

If you don’t have an international career, you miss something.

What do you think is the most important soft skill for leaders, especially emerging from the pandemic?

During the pandemic, we realised it was vital to sustain our supply chain with people coming to work and being motivated and engaged. At the same time, we were managing the crisis and being very efficient in our operations.

Caring for people was equally important, ensuring first the basic needs of safety and health, because COVID was at play. At the beginning, we didn’t know if it was dangerous to go to work.

It is not only about physical health; it’s about mental health and how you cope with uncertainty. Leaders need to ensure that employees are able to deliver their tasks as we can have dramatic consequences on the mental health of some people, and you need to be alert to that. 

You need to take the time to check in and check if your team is onboard, if you want to deliver. That’s the soft skill that, with the pandemic and now the war in Ukraine, has become increasingly important as a leader, caring for people.

How will the digital transformation change the role in Operations?

The digital transformation is enabling things that we were thinking impossible in the past, which are now possible through technologies. With several aspects, it brings a lot of transparency across our value chain. Before, it was difficult - in the future, everything will be transparent; it opens a lot of possibilities in the way we plan and address the different plans in supply chains.

The second thing is we already have more data than a human being can really analyse. Digital technology will help us to screen, analyse and enable us to extract the right information to perform better in business.

This new digital technology will make small runs probably at the same cost than big runs, because now we find new technologies that are much more flexible and much more efficient. There is a huge opportunity to rebuild and rethink manufacturing of the future to be able to match consumer needs, without increasing or decreasing our competitiveness.

What other challenges do you think await Arla Foods and how do you hope to overcome them?

There are three major challenges: our big challenge is the sustainability agenda. We have a huge one on the digitalisation of our operations, and probably the third one is on the people side, how to keep on attracting talent.

What would be your tips for achieving a work-life balance?

This is a very difficult and very necessary topic. There is a need to take time when you need it and to enable to switch off when you are under pressure so not to become overwhelmed.

To do that, you need to empower your teams; you cannot do everything yourself. The more senior you become, you need to trust your team to take the right decisions and to empower them. Do not try to control everything, it’s not possible.

What can you tell us about Arla Foods’ approach to Diversity & Inclusion and creating that culture that people want to work within?

Diversity & Inclusion is something we take very seriously at Arla. We are launching different initiatives for both our leaders and employees on D&I - we will have some clear ambition, clear goals.

Diversity is not the objective. For me, inclusion - what we call belonging - is really the ultimate goal.

It’s useless to recruit diversity, it is counterproductive; I am fully convinced that diversity is more efficient than teams that are not diverse. If you don’t manage to create the right sense of belonging between different individuals, you have a counterproductive situation.

We focus very much on inclusion and belonging - how does it affect the hiring process?

Every time we recruit, there is the job description, but for me what is equally important is the person behind the CV. We have a very thorough method to evaluate candidates through personality profile, this enables us to remove the bias that gender and origin bring. We look at the personality versus how it could fit in the Arla culture, rather than other characteristics.

There are many dimensions that you need to consider when building a team. I tend to pay very specific attention to that, sometimes successfully, sometimes we could do better.

Thank you to David 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.

Matthieu Derome is the Worldwide Head of Quality, Sustainability, Safety, Health, Environment and RD&E at Tupperware Brands.

Matthieu has 25 years of operational and strategic Supply Chain management experience, from production floor to Corporate functions in four different industries: plastic with Tupperware Brands, pharma with J&J and Alcon, chemical with ECOLAB, and cosmetic with P&G.

Matthieu managed increasing Manufacturing, Production and Maintenance teams before moving to more functional and strategic roles in Continuous Improvement/Lean Six Sigma, Quality, Sustainability and EHS.

What motivates Matthieu is to:

• lead his team in culture, process and organization transformation 
• define and execute strategic worldwide programs, while ensuring local adoption and execution
• accelerate results and deliver products, organizations and process improvements

Matthieu holds an MSc in Engineering, an INSEAD MBA and is also black belt trained.

The views expressed are personal and do not represent Tupperware's views.

In your opinion, to what extent will sustainability become a business’ imperative?

Between the pandemic, the ever-more expanding and expensive natural disasters, George Floyd’s death, there has been more change in society’s expectations of business in the past three years than in the previous 20. Corporate leaders can no longer sit on the side line of the sustainability journey. Even if COP26 was not seen as a success, climate change and sustainability are now becoming critical agenda points.

In addition, many companies are proving that an Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) approach is making good business sense and seeing that sustainability brings value with the following dynamics amongst its stakeholders: shareholders are asking for increased sustainability transparency; consumers want to do good; employees are looking for a purpose; and 80% of the ESG funds have outperformed their benchmark in 2020.

What a change compared to couple of years back, where the sole purpose of business as written by Milton Friedman was to maximize shareholder value. Nowadays, as you say, the new business imperative is to serve the multiple stakeholders, which then would benefit investors. This is what sustainability (or ESG) is all about.

What does your organisation do to drive its sustainability agenda?

First, sustainability has been, from its inception, at the core of Tupperware. Our durable products that are reducing food waste are, by definition, very sustainable products, and we have always leveraged that positioning. We issued our first sustainability report in 2012.

However, clearly, the increasing discussions about single use plastic pollution accelerated our interest in sustainability. As such, several initiatives were started to improve our offering: we launched a Recycline line to make new Tupperware from the old ones. We launched, in partnership with SABIC, the first food contact durable product made with recycled plastic, thanks to their molecular recycling process.

With our new management coming on board in 2020, ESG has been defined as a key strategic focus. We have reorganised our ESG governance, with stronger board involvement and guidance together with the Executive Committee leading the initiative and being the sponsor. We also now have defined five strategic pillars that are driving identified projects which are supported by an ESG steering committee. The pillars identified are: products, supply chain, social impact, associate engagement and governance. Each pillar has clear deliverables that will drive us toward a clear ESG leadership position.

In addition, we took a step back by performing a Materiality Assessment to review with internal and external stakeholders what is important for our stakeholders in terms of ESG and what we should we be focusing on. This has significantly helped internally aligning the organisation on what sustainability means for Tupperware.

Lastly, together with the Executive Committee, we have updated our targets for 2025 and 2030 to take into account the last strategic decisions validated by the board.

Frankly, this is an exciting journey!

How important is it that sustainability and innovation work hand-in-hand and how do you incorporate the two areas together?

First of all, I do not consider that the two are on the same level. Sustainability, like quality or safety, is a value. It needs to be adhered to and cannot be owned by one department doing everything and getting all the recognition. Progress along this value is critical, but needs to be owned by the various parts of the business. The role of a sustainability organisation, in that regard, is to provide the score, the support and the systems.

Innovation is a way to get to those results. And clearly, without new thoughts, new approaches, new technologies, i.e. innovation, we would not be able to reach any targets and stay below the +1.5°C objective of the Paris agreement.

In that regard, technical innovation to increase green energy and reduce our consumption will be key, but can only be driven by the people on the manufacturing floor, looking for solutions and being innovative in their approach.

What would be your advice to a company that wants to start its ESG journey?

Great question! I would have to restart now; I would start with setting up the governance process and perform a materiality assessment: ESG and sustainability is having such a wide scope that it is important to define where to play and what is material first.

An oil and gas company will not play the same way as a retailer or an NGO. The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDG) are a great way to structure your thoughts and to approach your stakeholders.

Once you have identified where you want to play, you need to define what you want to achieve, accepting that you might not know 100% how to attain the set goals. This would force the organisation into action and focus them on solutions, rather than over-thinking, knowing that you would need to accept to adjust those goals along your journey.

What are the skills that you think make a Supply Chain leader stand out in the current environment?

Even though it might be counterintuitive, the first skill that is coming to my mind for a Supply Chain leader to stand out is humility. This is mainly for two reasons.

First of all, in most industries, despite its importance, Supply Chain is not the place where the company as a whole will win. It may be the place where the company loses if things are going completely wrong, but, in the end, a company will win because it understands its customer better and is providing more value than its competition through its products and services offering.

As such, a Supply Chain leader will play a key role, by understanding the correct way to support the business through a better execution and not necessarily getting all the kudos it deserves.

Secondly, the Supply Chain is, by definition, a team sport. Your supply chain is as strong as its weakest link and you will win only if all your team is winning. As such, your role as a Supply Chain leader is to help every part of it to succeed by providing the right support. In that regard, you should be obsessed by others’ success!  

As a conclusion, your role is to ensure that the Supply Chain organisation stays focused on delivering customer satisfaction and to provide the insight, the support and the space for your people to strive, while partnering with your stakeholders to ensure the alignment with the rest of the company.

In addition to humility, especially in this VUCA world, you need to be able to structure the organisation, collect and analyse the information, in order to, with your team, try and test new approaches to solve the problems arising. This is basically what is required to succeed in the new industry 4.0 world, which is the next frontier.

What have you learnt as a leader over the past 24 months?

What has happened over the last two years has reinforced and accelerated many changes that were already at play before the pandemic. As such, it has reinforced the importance of leadership in this ever-changing environment, as you can only get ahead with leadership and by steering your team outside of dangerous waters.

Leadership, to me, means first providing the vision, as people need a clear direction that is credible and appealing. Secondly, it means securing the resource to ensure the vision can be achieved. Finally, it also means providing the support and environment for them to thrive.

People talk about Diversity & Inclusion (diverse in terms of gender, of course, but age, culture, background…), which is important, but this can be only leveraged if you are providing an environment where diversity can be heard and listened to. You need to provide the psychological safety that would enable the team to express themselves with their point of view valued and integrated for a better solution. That does not mean that all points will prevail, as you would run the risk of losing focus and be paralysed. But all points should be heard and taken into account, with a fair process to get to a solution that all are comfortable with, that the team can own for the long-term.

What books, blogs or podcasts are you currently reading/listening to?

I consider talent development (yours and the one from your team) as a very important aspect of the role of a leader. I strongly believe that talent, skills and expertise are a never-ending journey that needs to be continuously nurtured to develop a great team. As such, those types of external input will provide structure to your insights, as well as helping you view things through a different angle and connect the dots.

One of the key reasons for staying in a company, especially amongst millennials, is the ability to continue to learn. This obviously can be achieved through classroom training and new challenging assignments provided by your company, but, to me, you also need to take ownership of it. I remember, for example, some years ago, I learned many valuable actionable insights on how to manage people by listening to a great podcast, Manager Tools from Michael Auzenne and Mark Horstman. This one is still one of my favourites.

Today, my most valuable source of insights is the well-known Harvard Business Review. Every two months, you have the best business articles. It is essential to keep yourself up to date with what is going on, as well as insights in the fields that I am not an expert in.

Some other sources that I am regularly reading are INSEAD Knowledge, McKinsey quarterly and BCG Featured Insight.

Finally, in terms of books, the last one that I have been through is the refreshing The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k  from Mark Manson, which helps you bring perspective in our pursuit of happiness.

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

What I find the most rewarding is when an initiative you have defined, built and fought for is delivering and you can see people taking ownership of its success. This is a clear indicator that you have done the right thing, from the initiative definition, planification, deployment and its implementation.

In addition, you have been able to successfully manage the change and the teams have started to embed it in their own practices. This is, to me, a clear indicator that the project has been well implemented.

Thank you to Matthieu for speaking to Neil Cope, Associate Director in our Procurement & Supply Chain recruitment division in Switzerland.

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

Marc Bejas is the Vice President Finance of Secfi, an American-Dutch fintech scale-up that helps start-up employees understand and enable them to make the most of their equity. It is the leading provider of equity planning and financing for start-up employees and is trusted by over 20,000 start-up employees for equity planning, has more than $25 billion worth of equity registered on the platform, and has provided over $500 million to start-up employees to own their options.

How did you decide on your career path?

I have been in various Finance roles for 22 years. I always count myself very lucky for having worked in a broad variety of roles, ranging from Accounting & Reporting, Financial Analysis, Business Finance to M&A, releasing the breadth of it in various roles, mostly in energy and FMCG corporates - FrieslandCampina and Shell, to be specific. Two-and-a-half years ago, I moved to the fascinating fintech space, where, as end Responsible Finance, I could combine all my skills gained, making direct bottom line impact.

On one hand, I am very lucky that I have done various content-focused roles, but also that I’ve always been able to successfully transition between various companies and industries. What they all have in common though is they attract a lot of smart people with a purpose in life wanting to deliver real value. It has always inspired me to work with people sharing the same drive and growing the company together. In moving to another company, it’s important to take your time for due diligence. That also includes really understanding the team and clicking with the management team, the board and investors before joining, to ensure a good understanding of the passion of the people and culture.

What changes have you seen to the employment market in the Netherlands over the years and what do you think the drivers are for those changes?

The market overall has become much more international - I’ve always worked in international companies. If you look in the Netherlands, half of our own staff is based here, but only a minority is actually Dutch. Overall, individuals feel very able to move countries, but also to thrive within an international environment.

If you look at the short-term labour market changes, it’s very much the post-COVID world with some fundamental impacts. Not everything will be long-lasting, but definitely remote working is a possibility and is something we got used to, especially in our US branches. But we also need face-to-face interactions. Every individual needs that - I definitely do.

It will be a bit of a balance, but definitely tech has accelerated. Things that we initially thought were not possible have proven to be possible, and the labour market has very quickly adapted. In the overheated labour market, companies quickly had to adapt to the changing demands of its workforce. But the market will cool down again and will ask other adaptions. COVID has proven companies and people can adapt quickly if needed.

What are your tips on achieving work/life balance?

I think it is a challenge and it is even more a challenge for a company like ours, which is simply crossing the San Francisco to Amsterdam timespan with a nine-hour time difference, with everyone working from home during COVID. That means trying to finish your work in an eight-hour working day won’t work, because then you don’t ever have the overlap in timezone.

On one hand, it’s about flexibility and find the things that give you energy. As you can imagine, I have a lot of meetings in the evenings, released out at the end of the day when I talk to my team, my peers and the business in the US. I try to do the things that re-energise me, like going to the gym or going for a run – on, for me, a more quiet moment around lunchtime, so I can focus on other things in the evenings.

Another one is also being very clear. Everyone in our business understands that we have to be flexible, but it’s also good to be transparent about the times you cannot make it, so I can really switch off and spend time with my family. So make that hard cut really clear: ‘I’ll be there and available in a few hours, but now this is what I’m doing.’

In a scale-up environment, people work very hard. You can get emails and requests at odd hours, and things need to happen fast, but I also challenge if I don’t think it’s needed and look out a healthy work/life balance for the people I work with. It is important to lead by example, but you also have to respect individual preferences; some people simply rather get things out of the way and work on a Friday evening or Saturday to enjoy the rest of the weekend with a clear head. It is all about flexibility and being clear on your own boundaries.

What do you see as the biggest challenges for a) your business and b) your own role over the next 12 months?

The volatility in the world leads to uncertainty and changes and new balances. This means you have to assess the impact of the uncertainties, the impact on growth and think in scenarios, including for hiring, funding and products you bring to market. For the Finance role, that means you have to be able to prepare and quantify the scenarios, make it transparent to the business, come with solutions and deliver. It is very important to have an open conversation, adapt quickly to changes, and learning from both successes and failures.

We have the Finance organization ready for this. After initially setting up the Finance infrastructure needed to scale, the Finance team are value-adding business partners and provide a lot of insights to the business that help jointly build new revenue and cost efficiency initiatives that make bottom line impact.

How is Secfi reducing bias in the hiring process?

We have been hiring a lot, as you can imagine, in a fast growing scale-up. This also means, next to doing your day job, you also hire and onboard new staff, which effectively has to be part of everybody’s day job.

We really try to get a 360 view and I believe in selecting at the gate, so I would rather spend more time on hiring someone rather than rushing and finding out they are not the right fit. Once you have someone on board - it takes a lot of time and money to onboard someone - if it’s not a success, you have to say goodbye and spend time and money again to find someone new. So, for me, front onloading is very much a key term.

For interviews, we work from a competency framework based on values, and then interview people from different disciplines, getting a variety of views

We also do business case, which gives candidates an opportunity of what they will find in the company and give us an opportunity to find out how they are tackling the issues we’re facing. It really works well - we try to have a different angle at candidates and see who can be the best fit.

Then, for every candidate, we have an insights profile. We look at the insights wheel, how diverse the company is, and where can we look for more diversity. What kind of skills would we be needing for certain roles and, obviously, we also do reference checks and get more insight on individuals.

What advice would you give to aspiring leaders?

It starts with trying to understand others, and a lot is about observing and looking to others. Be pragmatic, sensitive, and really listen and invite diverse views. It will help simply in forming your own view, things you have not thought about. This will really help you to create bonding the drivers for other people. If you want to lead a team and an organisation, you have to understand the environment you’re working in, you have to understand the individuals, the drivers. Listen, reflect and deliberately seek that all important view.

Also, speak up, take risks, share your successes and your learnings. It is sometimes difficult to be vulnerable, but I think it is very important for setting the example, but also learning from others, because if you open up, others open up.

Overall, I would say don’t be afraid to speak up, be to the point on what you want to make clear, and don’t let yourself be rushed in making that case, making sure that value does come across. Work from your strength, your analytical capabilities, the financial insights you’ve gained, because of your access to the financial data, data analytics, etc.

Really, the bottom-line is to work from your strengths and be observant. Look at a lot of people, what they’ve done, what they are doing to be successful, what they are doing that has not made them successful. Don’t try to imitate them, do it your own way, but do try to learn from it.

Thank you to Marc for speaking to Hannah Mallia, Head of Executive Finance in the Netherlands.

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

Sophie Bergisch is the Global Finance Director at MassiveMusic in Amsterdam. She has been involved in financial management for almost six years, having previously specialised in accounting and account management.

What do you see as the biggest challenge for your business and your own role over the next 12 months?

After my first month at MassiveMusic, everything changed. I was hired as the right hand of the CFO, but, due to some unexpected events, I was put on the spot to take over those specific tasks. Not long after, I received a call from top management informing me there was a party (Songtradr Inc.) interested in acquiring us. So, from January until June 2020, I worked full time on the acquisition process and due diligence, together with a team of third-party experts.

The difficult part was that I couldn’t tell anything to any of my colleagues, due to confidentiality. I was very busy, but nobody really understood why. If you add that I started this job in a COVID lockdown period, well, that made it extra challenging. The silver lining in all this is that it allowed me to gain the role of Global Finance Director, so I’m very happy with that.

From my point of view, the biggest challenge for our business is to keep doing all the daily operational work like before, but also navigate through a big organisational change with our new mother company. As for my role specifically, the biggest challenge is to build a solid foundation for our global Finance team to service the team within MassiveMusic, as well as Songtradr and the other entities, as we are aiming to be global market leaders in the industry. The Finance department is playing quite a crucial role in bringing our talented people together and finding structured ways to share that knowledge.

What does MassiveMusic do to raise awareness around mental health and wellbeing?

The first thing that I can think of is Music x Mind, an initiative from our London office that focuses on the scientific effect that music has on the mind – there’s a lot of research that has proven how music can reduce stress and anxiety.

Internally, we have deep listening sessions with Wavepaths, a company that’s really into music as psychedelic therapy. Our colleagues can join via Zoom; you roll out a yoga mat and, for an hour-and-a-half, you get a music-infused guided meditation.

Also, this year we are eager to train our team leaders to signal whenever people are feeling overwhelmed, looking out for signals to prevent burnouts.

How can companies reduce the bias in the hiring process - how do you keep things open?

For me, the most important element is to make sure that the way you set up your hiring process is flexible enough so you can adapt it to a person’s need for their strengths to come out. If you have an interview with somebody, you should prepare in advance (e.g. who this person is going to talk to, what the topics are). It’s not only the skillset, but also the company fit that matters a lot.

The hiring process is a two-way street, so it’s also important that you show what you have to offer. People should feel safe to talk about whatever they feel like, including what they’re nervous about, not only what their strengths or weaknesses are.

Our HR Director inspired me with this little story. She said that, when they asked what her favourite song was during her job interview, she put on the song, and everyone listened to the song first – such a great icebreaker and a nice way to set the tone.

I am a very straightforward, business-minded person, so I thoroughly prepare, or I would not feel in control. I still remember when, after my own interview process at MassiveMusic, they told me they thought I would be no fun. I guess I was way too serious during the interviews! But that was good feedback to me and indeed, when I look back, I did not show much of my personality. I mostly focused on being very professional – this is also a note to self and a reminder to dive into people's personalities a little deeper when I interview them.

Where does Diversity & Inclusion sit, with HR, Finance, the leadership team? Who is meant to take ownership of that?

For me, if a company decides to focus on diversity, they need to make sure there is an owner of that topic, just like a design agency has a product owner. This way, that person will keep on pushing it internally, making it a priority.

At MassiveMusic, the one thing that connects everyone is our love and passion for music. Don’t get me wrong: you don’t have to be in a band to be hired, but a deep passion for music is expected. For our company culture, it doesn’t matter what your background is, as long as you’re as passionate about music as the rest of your colleagues. I think Massive did a great job to make sure that people are intrinsically aligned with the services that we provide for the biggest brands.

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

The administrative and analysis part, in combination with the managing part. I love to think of clever ways to improve our business in terms of processes and profitability.

An interesting analysis would be our teams versus specific revenue – for example, is our team happy? Are people working together efficiently? And, if they are not, are there opportunity costs? What are the costs of people not working well together? How can we fix that?

Those are things not a lot of people think about, because they are difficult to measure. Doing that makes me feel like I’m adding value to the company in terms of making sure people can work more efficiently together, but also in terms of profitability and really helping the company grow.

What advice would you give to someone who is starting their career in Finance?

To thoroughly assess what your current skillset looks like right now. What are you good at? What do you want to learn? What do you like? What don’t you like?

Asking others for feedback is also important. I remember I was at a point in my career where I felt a bit stuck and I wanted to find a different job, but I didn’t know where to look and I wasn’t sure what it was supposed to be like. I knew it was Finance, but there are a lot of different directions I could possibly take. I started asking different recruiters if they were up for a coffee so I could ask them questions about the status of the work field for financials, and what opportunities there were at that moment. On top of expanding my network, it also gave me insightful information, quite a good view on what different salaries look like and where there’s a shortage of certain roles in certain fields.

Another tip would be to be active on LinkedIn, mostly to keep an eye on what the field and market look like, and to read finance-related articles.

Are there particular blogs, books or websites that you go to for your information? Do you read particular newspapers? Where do you get your information from?

I look up a lot on YouTube, that’s a great source of information: no matter how difficult the subject is, there’s someone who made a video about it.

To keep me up to date, I also read the newsletter of the NBA, the Dutch Accountants Association. I have to say, I’m not really a newspaper reader; I love podcasts though. There’s a Dutch one about investing at a young age called Jong Beleggen. Next to that, I have a subscription to Follow the Money, a Dutch platform whose investigative journalism into corporate businesses is very interesting. I can highly recommend reading their articles!

What are your tips on achieving work-life balance? What would you advise?

As a manager, I think it’s important to realise people might follow your lead when it comes to work ethics, especially when managing a younger team. Be a role model to what you think is healthy. I sometimes work in the evenings, but I would never message anyone. Weekends are a work-free zone for me. On Fridays I’m off but, as an end responsible person, I also understand I might have to do a little something sometimes, except for meetings. I don’t plan any of them during my time off.

I’m very strict with my personal time and very clear about my boundaries: I think it’s important to be vocal about it with your colleagues. This might sound unconventional, but to me a job is just a job and I feel very strongly about that when I think of my private life. Nothing is ever more important than what I have to do or what I want to do with my personal life. I think this is also the healthiest attitude to have towards your employer if you want to create a sustainable relationship.

From your own experience, what have you learnt and what would you share for people wanting to be in your position now?

It’s very important to determine what your core values are as a person, but also as a person to work for, and really stick to that – don’t deviate from who you truly are. Stay grounded with what works for you. Also, identify the people you can learn from as well as a role model within your company. Get specific on what you want to learn. Ask yourself: is this a place where I can learn that? Is there another place where I could learn faster? You can always reach your goals with other people, but you have to make an effort to reach out to those people. 

When I worked with a start-up, I already knew I wanted to do a master’s degree in Accountancy and Control. They wouldn’t finance it for me, and I couldn’t afford it at the time, so that was for me part of the reason I decided to switch to an Accountancy firm, because I knew that education is part of the benefits. So here I am, currently working on my master thesis.

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

I thought about this for a long time. I don’t think I have role models in business, but one person I find so badass is Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She’s a very young politician in the States – and I love people who defy odds. She worked really hard at three jobs, after that she went door to door in The Bronx, where she’s from, to personally collect votes from people. And they voted for her!

To me that shows a lot of personality and perseverance; she shows the traditional system that compassion and kindness actually bring you further than only work experience or a lot of economical experience or being a business owner. Personality is such an important and underrated element of the bigger picture, and I think that’s very admirable.

Thank you to Sophie for speaking to Georgia Wright, Associate Director for Finance & Accountancy recruitment in the Netherlands. 

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

Kimberly DeMello is the Vice President, HR International at HMSHost in Amsterdam. She has a wealth of experience in the Human Resources and Staffing discipline, having worked for multi-national organisations, such as Adidas and Procter & Gamble.

How do you feel the workplace will have changed as we emerge from the global pandemic, especially in a business like HMSHost that has experienced a significant impact?

From what I am reading, and hoping, is we continue to give the employee the flexibility of home and office working. I do not think the full working from home will be the norm and I believe the hybrid schedule will continue. The workplace will become more of a community-based place.

For example, my staff are working a schedule. We have one day a week that is our overlap day.We do all our collaborative project meeting updates, have lunch together, and when possible, finish the day with a drink and some snacks. It is an interaction day for everyone and it helps them stay connected. Keeping people connected is going to be the key I think for the future if we move away from brick and mortar offices. More than ever, our work crosses over to other functions. Making sure we keep the collaborative connection up is important.

At HMSHost, we have two very different workforces to consider. We have the staff roles to help support the operations. We never closed our office during COVID; we put the regulations in place and had a reduced staff policy in the office. We wanted people to have a place to come that gave them a quiet place to work. We wanted to show solidarity with our ops associates, who had to come to work every day, and we had a number of employees who live alone and away from their families. Mental health was taking a toll on those who were feeling isolated. The office became their social event of the week and helped to create some normalcy in their lives.

Then we have the operations that are working in the unit. A new way of working in the food service industry is going to be tough to change, but not unthinkable. There is an expectation of a person helping, however, I think technology will be a game changer for operations. For example, the addition of self-ordering kiosks and QR ordering codes.

What have you learnt as a leader over the past two years?

The first thing that comes to mind is resilience, not just for myself, but for every one of our associates, no matter what level, no matter the country, no matter staff or ops - they have worked so hard over the last two years to keep the company surviving.

I have learned to keep the teams focused. What is in our sphere of control right now? What can we still make happen under the circumstances we are under?

Also, a greater degree of patience, I am the type who wants something and I want it now.The pandemic has slowed me down. I know people have so much on their plates. It has taught me to lead from a slower speed and to calm down my expectations.

Listening has been key. This is one of the biggest global scale issues most of us have been through. People are at home; they feel scared and anxious about their jobs and life in general. We built up an internal communication page for people to connect to and country pages for more in-depth connection and discussion, if needed. We did global town halls, revamped our engagement survey, and gave every question an open-ended text box, so they could talk about whatever was on their mind. All these communication tools were fast tracked to keep associates informed, but also to allow them to share their feelings, thoughts, ideas and connections.

We listened to their input and put in more programs, communications and support to help.

Finally, teamwork – we came together as a leadership team to devise money-saving initiatives and, in the end, we did an amazing job; we are seeing the fruits of our labor as we see the business coming back to life. I’m really proud of our senior management team for keeping the faith and pushing for things that would keep us going. All teams did amazing, but I wanted to highlight my team, too.

How do you think digital transformation will change the role of HR?

There are some amazing HR products out there and it is a beautiful thing, as it frees us up from having to work in an operational capacity, allowing us to become more strategic with our managers, offering more coaching and leadership development, for example.

We are in the process of a major HR digital transformation at HMSHost. There are several key goals for us. One of our top priorities is making the candidate journey and onboarding quicker and more efficient. We hire people to work ASAP, so we do not have the luxury of time in a competitive environment. HR digitalisation also allows us to interact with other parts of the company to ensure a smooth onboarding process that allows us to give a good first impression to new hires, which is priceless. It will also allow personal information to be more readily available for the employee and be safe under GDPR rules.

Analytics is the biggest game changer, allowing a business to make more fact-driven decisions around people. This could be linked to analytics and reports in performance management tools to help quickly identify top talent and have better information on what learning and development programmes should be put in place. It could help lead to a more cost-efficient organisation, where money is invested in the areas that are most impactful.

What risks have you taken throughout your career and how did they help you get to the level you are at?

I look at my career as a sort of spider web, as opposed to the ladder. I have not been afraid to go down in grades or compensation to get the experience I needed in my function to become more well-rounded. Move to the side, move down, whatever the direction is to get well-rounded development in your area of work. I have also taken risks moving myself around the world. I’ve lived in the USA, Asia, the Middle East and Europe, which has opened doors to better understand a company and diverse cultures.

Lastly, I explored different industries. One of the best parts of HR, I think, is the ability to work in different industries. HR is a skillset that can be transferred from company to company. If you have the foundations of HR knowledge, it can be brought into a new company and paired with that company’s culture.

What is the biggest myth about your profession that you want to debunk?

Sometimes, the human aspect is not understood. HR is seen cold and we do not care about people. People want programs that work for them, so it can be hard for them to understand we do not have the capability or resources to create individual employee journeys for everyone (although one day this will hopefully be the case). We have to create policies, procedures and tools that serve the greater good. We do the best we can to cover as many needs as possible.

HR can also be seen as the “mean gate keeper” or “policy police”. There are times when HR are the ones explaining to employees what the situation is and trying to find meet-in-the-middle solutions, because the managers are not equipped to handle the situation.

I do think the COVID pandemic has shown businesses how critical HR is to the success of their organisation, so there is now a greater level of appreciation for the function.

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

Within HR, first and foremost, Dave Ulrich. I also like what Marcus Buckingham is doing within analytics and his strengthsfinder work.

In wider business, Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix. His philosophy is to let people make decisions.They hire people to do a job, a good job, and let them do that, give them the autonomy. Their HR strategy is based on treating people like adults.I like the concept of letting people take ownership and taking accountability at the end of the day.

If you hadn’t pursued a career in HR, what other path might you have taken?

I had two thoughts on this. Firstly an elementary school teacher – I love the way children around seven, eight, nine process the world around them. I love their thought process. I love how they’re exploring things and questioning everything. Their hunger to learn more is so genuine. I’m getting a little sad, because my nephew is starting to get into the ten to 11 range, and he thinks he’s too cool to hang out with me!

Failing that, a nutritionist – I’m fascinated with the science of food!

Thank you to Kimberly for speaking to Katie Insley, Associate Director for Human Resources recruitment in the Netherlands. 

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