Paul Niesing is the Interim President Consumer Insights at NielsenIQ in Geneva, Switzerland. Having started his Finance career in Audit back in 1996, Paul recently made the move into general management. He was previously the CFO Global Retail Intelligence at NielsenIQ.

Your organisation is going through an exciting time. How highly do you rate the trait of adaptability in such circumstances?

Indeed, our organisation has gone through a significant amount of change. Most recently, in March 2021, we got spun off by Nielsen Media Group and were acquired by Advent, a private equity company.

When that happens, a lot of requests - especially in the Finance arena - come to you in advance of the process, but also afterwards. So, be adaptable to all the different circumstances, because - first and foremost - you need to maintain your business-as-usual and drive the teams, drive the results, but, at the same time, be able to manage the different views that are required and go, at times, into pretty big detail, which you would normally not go into in a business-as-usual situation. So, to be able to adapt towards this is very important when you go through a process like this.

Following on from that, what particularly surprised you that you had to adjust quickly to?

Specifically, with that acquisition, the change of the organisation and structure; we were run as a product organisation and we switched very quickly to a regional structure. With that, there were different ways of reporting, which also requires your adaptability. Things that you were used to doing changed almost overnight.

How important and how valuable is the adaptability skillset in the modern world?

For myself and for the coming generation, adaptability is key, because everything is changing continuously - jobs, roles, a lot of project work that requires you to adapt to it, but also requires you to get additional skillsets…

Everything changes at such a high pace, and you might think, “I didn’t learn this”, or “I don’t understand”, but actually, sometimes you just have to go with it and learn as you go, and learn from that. I think, for people who cannot do that, it’s very difficult to get by in Corporate Finance roles.

A recruitment question for you - how can leaders create diverse teams?

When I look at diverse teams, it is not only male/female; I look much more into the perspective that people can give on certain items. When I recruit for roles, or try to build a team, I look at the backgrounds, but more importantly, try to get their perspective on certain issues. It does not mean one perspective is right or the other is wrong, but the way certain people assess a situation or come up with solutions is very important when I try to create a diverse team.

With different perspectives, different ways of thinking, I tend to find you have more opportunity to get to a better place in the end; a more creative way to get somewhere, rather than everyone running behind each other in the same line and doing all the same things.

I think the process of getting there is much more fun with a diverse team and a diverse perspective of business.

It sounds like that only works if you listen to it - it doesn’t matter how diverse your team is, unless you actually take that on board and consider everything?

That’s true. I see myself as a leader that tries to listen a lot. In the end, as a leader, you are responsible for making the decisions, but in the process to get somewhere, listening to the team members that you have put together is very important. I don’t know everything, but getting those perspectives is generally the best way to a solution or direction.

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

What we have seen is there has been a degree of consolidation happening. We had some large mergers and, most recently, we acquired GFK. So, you get some big companies all together, which, in the process - just to survive and to expand and to grow and to deliver what the market requires - requires significant investment.

Next door to that, you have of course many boutique companies that always will remain in their niche market. But, I think, in the last one-and-a-half years, it’s very clear private equity came in and acquired IRI, Kantar, ourselves, we are all owned by private equity, so that’s a very interesting dynamic happening in this marketplace. I think it’s the right way to go forward, otherwise you cannot survive or make the investment needed for the business to flourish.

I recently moved into a general management role for Consumer Insights, so we are a global organisation that does consumer insights across the world. Clearly, we have a number of competitors, of which one is Kantar, but Ipsos is our main competitor. Succeeding in the marketplace requires investment and we try to do a lot through partnerships.

If it is a partnership from a platform perspective or if it’s a partnership in, for instance, the automotive industry, where there is certain detailed knowledge and access, we try to partner with this type of company in order to grow and not make all the investments ourselves, because either it takes too long or it’s too expensive.

In the specific business unit that I’m working in, it’s not so much acquiring other companies ourselves, but it’s more about working together with some other, bigger partners. We have a partnership with JD Power, we have a partnership with Qualtrics, who is a big platform provider.

What changes have you seen in the employment market in Switzerland over the years? How long have you been in Switzerland now?

Almost ten years, I’m located in Geneva. Especially in Geneva, I’ve seen a lot of international companies either shrinking or leaving.

It has an impact on the labour market from two ways - it looks like, on one side, there are fewer jobs available, but, at the same time, some of their senior leaders that they brought into Switzerland - because most of us are brought in from outside of Switzerland - tend to remain or want to remain, because their families are there, they have been living there. With that, you have bigger amounts of supply in senior leadership positions and those do not really match demand.

I think the Swiss market, especially from a senior perspective, has been a more challenging market in the last ten years.

What, in your opinion, have been the drivers for these changes?

I think there are some micro-economic items - tax is a big thing, the streamlining of the tax rates - all that is happening. In the end, in many companies, the financial business case doesn’t make sense anymore. So, we have a lot of people in Switzerland, however, there are other options and maybe cheaper opportunities, as companies always look to lower their costs. I think that’s a big driver behind that, as well.

What have you learnt as a leader over the past 12 months?

When you go through a process that we have gone through, with the acquisition, it then results almost in a transformation of everything that you look at or that you were used to. I think it’s being adaptive and open for it, but also with a broader group, with your teams and the employees, to be able to share and to be clear about it. This could be through meetings, but then we also have - within Consumer Insights - a group called Consumer Insights Ambassadors (the top 100 people across the organisation that function as ambassadors). They get quicker insights of what’s happening, and their task is to communicate that to the broader group.

So, I think that is important, because you can imagine, if you’re located somewhere in Vietnam, it seems very far from what’s happening in the US or in the corporate world, so it’s important that you get regular updates on what is happening, what’s changing, what you see, even if you can’t control it.

That communication piece has been very important in this whole process, because it tries to make you part of the whole process and not just be executing a little piece in the total machine.

That’s interesting, because I imagine your organisation has always had an internal comms piece, but it sounds like you’re really seeing the value of that at this particular point in time?

I do think so. It’s a time of transformation; a lot of things are changing and the way we look at the business is changing, so to communicate and to share why we do certain things is very important, so that people get an understanding and feel part of it. We all drive to get to a better place.

How has your Finance background helped you transition into general management?

Most of my career, I’ve been in Finance roles. Most recently, I was a CFO for the retail intelligence business. As a Finance person, you are always very close with the business in a way, otherwise you cannot succeed or add value.

Now, as I move to general management, a lot of that work and that experience is very valuable, because I think any general manager needs to be able to read financials. For me, that comes very naturally. But then also, as a Finance person, we have a very rational mind, but I have learned to be open for commercial opportunities.

Sometimes, things just don’t make sense from a Finance perspective, however, looking more into it and seeing the market dynamics, and looking a little bit further than just a very short-term view - which we tend to do from a Finance perspective - going a step back is actually very interesting and refreshing. Seeing the value that you as a business can bring and sometimes making a bet; with the Finance perspective, it’s a controllable bet, so I really enjoy that step over into general business.

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

I started in Accountancy, which I do not regret, because I think it was a very dynamic start - I saw a lot of different companies while doing my studies. I do not regret that, but maybe at that time, I should have focused a little bit more on leadership programmes.

At NielsenIQ, we have a two-year leadership programme, and I’ve seen it in companies like Unilever or General Electric. Those are very interesting; you learn a lot about that company, but you also move around. If you’re lucky, you can be abroad quickly, outside of your country.

From that perspective, if I could do it all over again, I would focus on that more; just getting out there quicker and following a leadership programme.

You mean, as an alternative to your Accounting education, going directly into one of those financial management programmes, straight from graduation?

I think it’s important to make switches early in your career - don’t go straight from university and stay ten or 15 years with one company. I think it’s healthier if you switch every four years - there is so much to see, so many different companies, so it widens your perspective on what the world has to offer. I would recommend everyone do that, not to stay with one employer in the early years of your career.

What is the best compliment you have ever received?

I’m Dutch, so with compliments, we normally go, “Oh, okay.”  It’s a difficult question. I think the best compliment is when, from a Finance perspective, there are no surprises, no misses… things go smooth and you take the problems away from your general manager. You solve things before they start to boil up. I had many times when there was appreciation, from that perspective.

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

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

Julien Famaro is the Finance Director, Corporate at Amcor in Switzerland. He was previously the Manager, M&A/Strategic Development and Manager, Corporate Planning & Analysis at the organisation, starting his career as Senior Associate, Industry & Services at PwC.

What motivated you to pursue a career in Finance and what other career options did you consider?

I was relatively good with numbers, but wouldn’t have called myself a numbers guy either. Also, I did Accounting at university. My interest in Finance started relatively late – I remember one exercise that was part of a module called Financial Analysis, where we were given a set of financial statements and had to write everything we could guess about the company. I enjoyed translating the numbers into real life and I guess I found it fun enough to apply for a master’s in Corporate Finance.

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

I am quite risk averse, so I don’t take many risks, but believe in courage. I have the tendency to raise my hand to take on challenges outside of my comfort zone. I like learning by doing and I get my energy trying to achieve things I have never done and know nothing about. It helped me progress faster, because it allowed me to learn and get exposed.  

What have you learnt as a leader over the past 12 months?

The past 12 months just made me appreciate how rapidly things can change. I try to focus on what really matters and not worry or stress about what I can’t control. I am certainly more positive than I used to be as well, and I believe this helps support the morale of people around me.

I focus on having fun doing what I do and try to give space to my team for them to innovate, show ownership and feel proud of what they achieve. People are always good at what they enjoy doing.

You returned to Amcor in 2021 after a couple of years in another business. What would you say are the most attractive reasons for someone to work for Amcor?

I would say that there are probably three things that I find very true at Amcor:

The first one is that we have constant changes and challenges. The second one: I believe we have some of the strongest people in the industry, and the third: we have a true outperformance culture.

I joined an Australian company early 2016 - listed in Australia, reporting in IFRS - that was just moving its HQ from Melbourne to Zürich. Today, I work for an S&P500.

We also tend to like generalists – at least in the Finance space. We like flexible, commercially-oriented people, keen to take on new challenges and get out of their comfort zones. We are performance-driven, constantly aiming for the extra mile and supporting each other to achieve the best possible outcomes. Outperformance is deeply ingrained in our culture, which is something I enjoy.

What does Amcor do to drive its sustainability agenda?

In 2018, we pledged to develop all our packaging to be recyclable and reusable by 2025, which is in two-and-a-half years. We truly acknowledged that we needed to help and aspire to make the environment better off thanks to our leadership and products.

We invest a lot of money in R&D to ensure we are at the full potential. We have also forged new partnerships with non-governmental organizations and promising start-ups, and redesigned many of our products to be recycle-ready.

We also recently finalised a rebranding of our brand portfolio, making it clearer for our customers to understand how we can address their needs. One of those brands, Ecoguard, is a responsible packaging solution addressing both how the product is made, using biomaterials or recycled content, as well as what happens after the consumer uses it.

Sustainability is Amcor’s biggest opportunity, and we are all working hard to make a difference faster and further.

What would you say is the most rewarding part of your role, either as a leader or in your specific role?

We drive and influence people around us and a lot of our initiatives have a clear financial impact. It becomes easy to measure our contribution.

Also, constant changes mean opportunities for process improvements and simplifications. We’ve spent the last few months trying to re-focus on what matters and making our processes simpler, and this is paying off. This is exciting and gives energy to keep on transforming our space.

Based on your own experiences, what advice would you give to a young Finance professional aspiring to leadership roles?

I personally try to remain curious, work hard, focus on what really matters and be nice to people.  

What is the most common mistake you see from candidates at interview and what would be a key piece of advice for interview preparation?

Too often people come to interviews like they go to a driving test.

I expect interviews to look more like a conversation and be interactive. I want to be interviewed too and expect the candidates to have almost as many questions as I do.

Some candidates often forget to be fun. Smiling and being likable is just as important as explaining what you can do.

Thank you to Julien for speaking to Meriel Graham, Director in our Finance & Accountancy recruitment team in Switzerland.

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

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.