Valentina Ericson is the Vice President Indirect Procurement & Head of Packaging at Signify in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. She was previously the Global Director Indirect Procurement at Nouryon and Global Director Procurement Strategy at Volvo Construction Equipment in both Belgium and Sweden.

How do you feel the workplace will have changed as we emerge from the global pandemic?

I believe there are a few themes as we look at the workplace post-COVID. An obvious one is the philosophy around office attendance, which is something both companies and employees seem to have mixed feelings about in terms of way forward. You can see both extremes, from companies and people wanting to go back to five days per week without exception, to others saying, let’s just work from home and stop this office thing altogether. In my view, the sweet spot is probably somewhere in between, where we acknowledge that working from home can have its benefits, but equally recognize that coming together is key to feel a sense of belonging, form relationships and allow for more spontaneous interactions.

Based on my own experience of recruiting in the recent months, it’s been clear that many candidates are seeking more flexibility and freedom to manage work-life balance, and want the possibility to partially work from home. This will, without a doubt, be a factor to consider when competing for talent in the market.

It’s also clear that the pandemic has taught us that we can do more things remotely and challenged us to be more creative in how we do things. It’s no longer necessary to travel all over the world every week or month. However, the experience of joining a new company during the pandemic by going through an entire recruitment process virtually and initially only working from home was definitely a different experience for me. Building relationships or even just being able to meet people by only using online tools is clearly more challenging and time consuming than doing it in person.

What do you see as the biggest challenges for:

1. Your business? and
2. Your own role over the next 12 months?

I think for many industries, including ours, managing your supply chain has been extremely challenging and it continues to be. Facing the impact from COVID-19, the Suez Canal obstruction, component shortages etc. takes a lot of resilience, speed and creativity to be successful. The pandemic also highlighted the risk and vulnerability of many supply chains, where many companies have had too many of their eggs in one basket creating quite some challenges when that supply fails. I anticipate that we need to rebalance the focus on cost with other aspects like risk and availability, but also challenge ourselves to become even more agile and faster in how we respond to different market situations.

Our industry is also evolving at a high pace and, as such, is demanding us to be highly innovative, fast, competitive and customer centric. Digitalization is a big topic across the company, as well as Sustainability, where we have a target to make our packaging plastic free by the end of this year, as one example. Diversity & Inclusion is another focus area, where we have an ambition backed up by hard targets to bring more females into senior leadership roles and hire more young talents into our company.

For me personally, the focus in the coming months will be to build the future Operating Model for Indirect Procurement & Packaging, to ensure we have fast and efficient processes to support the business, and talented people with passion to make the difference and ultimately take this organization to the next level. I’ve spent my first six months getting to know the company, listening to different people to understand what is working well and where can we improve. The work doesn’t stop in the meantime of course, so it’s a bit like building a plane and flying it at the same time, but I enjoy a good challenge, and I’m passionate about change and continuous improvement.

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

I think a common theme for me has been to actively pursue opportunities when they have come up throughout my career. In doing so, I’ve many times been forced to get out of my comfort zone, challenge my fears, and leave the easy and comfortable path behind. More than once have I left a position in a company where I felt comfortable and well recognized in favour of doing something completely new and different, simply because I believed it would be better for my personal development.

As a consequence of taking on new roles, I’ve also several times moved between countries away from family and friends, which is not always easy. However, limiting yourself to one specific geographical location will ultimately also limit your career opportunities. It can be a challenge to be a foreigner in another country, but I’ve also found that living in another country is a very humbling experience that gives you fresh perspectives of the world, and on your own country and culture. I would not have wanted to be without this experience and I think it’s also something that has helped me as a leader of a global organization to understand cultural nuances.

The other advice I would have is to have courage to be different and not do what everyone else is doing or always say what people expect you to say. In the early years of your career, I think many people are keen on being perceived as the A-student employee, but adding alternative perspectives or challenging ideas or concepts by suggesting a different solution can sometimes be a game changer and allow you to position yourself differently. Also, try to be strong enough in your own values and beliefs to say, “No, I don’t agree” or, “This is not right” when you feel strongly about something. This can be uncomfortable depending on the situation or even risky, but with the right people you will be seen as honest and gain trust.

Overall, making tough choices and doing things outside your area of comfort is not easy, and it’s not for everyone. I always say that you need to own your choices and actively make them based on what you believe will make you happy in life.

For someone starting their career in Procurement, what advice would you share?

I would say invest in building relationships. I always say that that Procurement is a relationship sport and you are a bit like a spider in the web working with most functions within the company. I often tell people that, to the outside world, you are the buyer, but internally, you are very much selling ideas and concepts, and typically need to manage a lot of change, so you need to have the skills to do both.

Furthermore, I would advise to get to know your eco system (market, internal stakeholders, suppliers) to build a solid understanding of what their challenges, opportunities, needs, etc. are, because that will tell you what’s important for you to consider when you build your strategy, and for you to find the right way to interact and collaborate with those groups and build relationships to be successful.

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

From a leadership point of view, the first would be to work with my people and see them grow, develop and advance their careers. I’m very passionate about people development and I find it to be the most rewarding part of my role. Seeing someone conquer a difficult task or overcoming a challenge or celebrating their new promotion is just a great feeling that gives me a lot of energy. As a leader, your success will ultimately be defined by the success of your people, so investing in your team should always be a top priority and focus. On top of that, having a global team that all bring their unique perspectives and learning from them is something I very much enjoy and appreciate in my role.

Looking at my role as a Procurement professional, I personally like the ability to have a direct impact on the business. Every day, we solve different issues, find a smarter way of sourcing or doing things, and we are a key contributor to the company’s bottom line. I’m a competitive person by nature, so I like to see that what we are doing is generating results that makes a positive difference.

The third and last one is the freedom, everchanging dynamic and creativity of this profession. I like problem-solving and improving things, it’s part of who I am. In Procurement, there is rarely a day that is like the one before and as such it offers a nice arena for creativity. When stakeholders come to me to complain, I tend to appreciate it because it gives me an opportunity to solve and improve something for the future. On top of that, the appreciation you get back from taking the time to listen and understand the problem and then going and fixing it for them buys you a lot of credibility and trust with your stakeholders.

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

At least on three occasions in my career, it happened as I was just hired into a new role, that the manager who hired me left shortly after. This can be a big deal, because you don’t just choose a job and company, you also choose the manager as someone you want to work with. Additionally, it has happened twice that the office I’ve been based at has closed or been relocated and, a few years ago, I joined what I thought was a public company, only to learn a few weeks later that the business area I was joining would be sold to a Private Equity Company.

That journey became very different from what I originally expected, but ultimately turned out to be an amazing, fun and rewarding experience. Uncertainty about the future can be very hard on your mind, but for me this was an example that what’s beyond the uncertainly can be something great and, if you don’t pull through, you might miss out on interesting things and opportunities.

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

There are many incredibly inspiring companies and people in the world today doing a lot of good things, so it’s a tough choice, but I will pick the Dutch entrepreneur Boyan Slat, who founded the Ocean Cleanup company to help rid the world’s oceans and rivers from plastic waste.

The story began when he was on vacation in Greece and, sadly, saw more plastic than fish in the sea and felt an urge to do something about it. I think most of us feel frustrated with the negative impact us humans have had on the environment, but he actually decided to take it further and started his own company to make a change.

I find it inspiring to see that smart people with plenty of career opportunities in the corporate world choose to deploy their talent and intelligence for a greater purpose, and I like the way he is adapting a business mindset to identify a problem and doing a root cause analysis: Why is this happening? How do we solve it? And then find a clever way to deploy a solution. It’s great to see when people use learnings from the private business sector to tackle Sustainability issues and other important topics in the world.

Do you have any hidden talents?

Not sure if it counts as a talent, but my friends and family tell me that I am extremely good at assembling IKEA furniture. I guess it comes with my Swedish genes and a lot of experience of moving around. I’m also good at making puzzles and, during the pandemic, where we had a few months of curfew in the Netherlands, I’ve made a couple of them with 1,000-3,000 pieces each. I can usually do 1,000-plus pieces in one evening. Fortunately, it’s now summer and no curfew, so I can hopefully develop a new talent.

Thank you to Valentina for speaking to Michelle Ewing, Director at EMEA Recruitment. 

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

How can companies reduce bias in the hiring process?

We work on the mindset of the leaders, the line managers and introduce varied ways to equip them to experience good quality interviews completely bias-safe. It is a dedicated and persistent proactivity that we deploy to secure the positive mindset change that eradicates potential types of bias. Helping hiring leaders become aware of this topic benefits their efficiency in the process of capturing the best talent.  

I put my trust mostly in an interaction between a) the definition and roll-out of the right HR processes, and b) the respect to the principles that inspire the organisation culture. It is balance between the cultural and spiritual side of the organisation and process discipline. Everyone needs to be part of this communication and learning experience.

In the day-to-day activities, it is indeed a challenge to identify when bias has happened; it’s really a guess in most cases. We need to rely on the clarity and good understanding of the process to follow, which somehow states the avoidance of any type of potential biases.

From my side, I constantly try to align the HR community around these principles, because they are the ones who act as sort of gatekeepers of the compliance of adequate processes.

How do you feel the workplace will have changed as we emerge from the global pandemic?

In general, we all have adapted to more flexible forms of work. Being an industrial company, most of our jobs demand presence in our sites and customers. However, I believe that this pandemic has increased the awareness towards the need to balance work, personal lives and health. But also, in Manufacturing jobs, it is the development of technology that is bringing innovative ways of work.

Another interesting aspect is related to communication and collaboration technology. We have experienced a rise in technology solutions to support this evolution to adapt work schemes to individual circumstances. This has helped to grow the understanding that solid performance can be achieved through different ways of work; this is a relevant transformation overall.

In general terms, I dare say that, as an effect of these pandemic months, we have developed our individual empathy capability. I mean the way we observe, tolerate and support other colleagues and situations.

It’s a real talking point across different countries now about larger organisations and do they keep their huge offices, do they change and have those smaller hub or site offices where there is that flexibility to come and go, because then you can offer employees that mix of both?

Indeed, that is happening. Office design is in line with the idea of building collaborative spaces for people and adapting an engaging work environment to the way each person is working.

We’re now refurbishing some of our offices following that concept. Clearly, the size of the office needed is smaller, but must be more engaging and facilitate collaboration.

Do you mean where some of your colleagues may be working at home on their own through the pandemic, or they’ve got children and they’re trying to work while they’re looking after the children?

Exactly. Personal circumstances that may need a different way of working or collaborating with others. Somehow, during these months, we opened our domestic environment through the public domain of the screens and in the background sometimes there is a dog barking, or there are children running, or your partner is suddenly coming in and out. And this is now part of our normality.

We have been impacted in our workforce, sometimes going through terrible circumstances, and that kind of moral support, compassion, etc. is a regular attitude that is popping up in the organisation. Not solidarity feelings - all that has been re-bunked; I think that shouldn’t be lost.

What excites you about working for LafargeHolcim?

I think the company is definitely an exciting company. I have been here for 15 years in diverse jobs and I have always found that the company is continually changing, transforming at the right pace, and that transformation attitude has opened options for the business and for our people. People in Holcim are proud of the company. Sometimes it’s the cement plans, sometimes it’s the country where they were, sometimes it’s the region, the group or all together, and now it has jumped into a very intensive and proactive strategy on sustainability; it makes this company quite interesting in the day-to-day. I personally find it very inspirational and engaging to be part of Holcim.

It sounds like it’s a place where you’ve been able to flourish, where you’ve been able to be yourself and be able to bring new ideas, but then if you don’t have ideas at that particular time, you’ve probably got a number of people around you that would have ideas?

We work under the principle of people accountability, empowerment and decentralised management.

Our inspiring challenge is to have a chance to explain, openly, our story, because there is a very exciting story behind our strategy related to our contribution to society and environment.

How do you see the Swiss economy evolving in the next 5 years?

Well, I am not an economist, nor a guru. What I can suggest is a modest opinion. I have a feeling that the Swiss economy will be a strong economic engine in the heart of Europe for many years. I think this country is doing the right things, and attracting the right talent and capital. There is a challenge that I comment with my Swiss colleagues frequently: the relevant opportunity in the relations that Switzerland can build with the European Union, which will make this economy and social model even more interactive and strong.

Switzerland is an example in many aspects, and has learnt to evolve and adapt: this is a guarantee for future.

What are the biggest challenges for a leader overseeing a remote team?

My team has been working in a flexible approach for more than a year. Where I find a new element is in the follow-up of the team, because we were accustomed to come together for morning meetings, weekly meetings… We need to address what the engagement aspects that you need to fit properly in a remote way are, so that everyone in the team feels the closeness of being integrated in the team, even if they are hundreds of kilometres away.

One person in my team is based in Singapore, my colleagues in HR are in Latin America, US, Canada, one is in Madrid, another one is in Switzerland, etc. So, it’s a kind of remote team, but by frequent talks on the key topics and the exchange through different channels, including social media, we keep that day-to-day, we keep that closeness, that confidence. There is something that it’s a bit damaged, especially for HR professionals; sometimes we have the feeling that we’re maintaining ourselves with the efforts done in the past to get to know people. Now we start to know new colleagues, newcomers, through screens, through technology, but we are missing the opportunity to have enough time together to get to know each other face-to-face. So that is a challenge that is not 100% replaced by remote contacts.

It’s not so bad with team members that you’ve known for a long time, but when it’s a new person coming in, that chat over coffee will never be replaced by the remote virtual world.

That’s the challenge and there are ways to balance - we do more intensive talent reviews, for instance. We are planning to do it quarterly, instead of once a year, so there are ways to overcome that difficulty.

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

The trick of the question is, when you perceive a risk is when you’re in front of it and you have to do something about it, then you experience a certain mix of panic and courage. When you go through it and you do something right, then you look behind and you do not see the risk, you see the story and how it has turned into a positive experience.

But what are the risks? I would mention attitude. I’m saying this to colleagues, to anyone that I can, that you really need to jump in the water. When someone comes and says, “Hey, would you agree to do something, would you get into this or that?”, then you need to be ready with the answer that day, you need to be ready to say, “Yes, I take it up”. And then you learn the way, and you plan and find a way to do it; that’s attitude. I have recommended that attitude to our young people joining the company any time that I had the opportunity. You may not do it perfectly well, but you gain that experience from every moment you face one of these risks, let’s call it a challenge. It is a huge learning both in terms of job skills, but also in terms of your own maturity and personality, so you grow as you move.

I like the fact that you mentioned throughout your career, if you say yes to opportunities and jump in with two feet and, yes, there may be times where it might not go so well, but ultimately, those are your learning experiences, and you will carry them with you for the next challenge, risk or opportunity.

When I was living in Madrid, one university gave me the opportunity to contribute as a professor and I could make it compatible with my working hours. So, I said “Okay, fine” and I thought he would come to tell me to teach something about HR or labour of law, and the person came and said “No, it’s about legal ethics”. I was shocked, because that was not my comfort zone. Then I said “Okay, fine”, and I ended up doing 5 years teaching legal ethics and professional ethics. One day I asked that professor, “Why did you ask me that?”. She said, “You know, I did it on purpose, because I was sure you had to fight for it”. The risk can be challenged from things that you are not comfortable with, it’s out of your comfort zone.

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

Well, there are a few, because in HR most of the things we say sound like myths - sorry to be so realistic. For instance, around Talent Management, there are plenty of myths in the concept of feedback - there are lots of them. We want to believe not only that we need feedback, but also that we’re entitled to provide feedback to anyone and that we do a good thing by providing feedback. That’s a dangerous thing to believe. We need to be modest and adopt a helping, coaching attitude when providing feedback to anyone, understanding upfront that what you do is projecting your experience and opinions to produce a positive outcome for that person. I believe that all around methodologies to understand people’s behaviours need to be revisited continuously.

The other myth I want to mention is more related to organisational culture, the importance of corporate values. I am a bit of a sceptic with exercises of definition of values and the implementation efforts that intend to align everyone’s behaviours around them. An excess of prescriptive frameworks runs the risk of killing diversity, innovation and, in an extreme situation, even engagement.

What is the most surprising thing that has happened to you during your career? What have you found that really made you think, wow I wasn’t expecting that to happen or where has this come from?

Every time I was given a nice project or a job, I was considering that as a great thing that was happening to me and a personal reason to be proud.

Also, I have found working with people extremely motivating; people who you could influence, who you could help to work for them, or they work for you. To see them growing, to see them becoming your peers, that for me is absolutely engaging and motivating. If someone tells me when I finish my career one day what is really the takeaway of my career, I’d say, “The amount of people I’ve seen developing with me thanks to my help or who were collaborating and we grew together”, so that is really what’s worth for one’s career in my opinion.

With the Executive Interview and the approach that we have, why were you quite interested to do this? What were you hoping to get from this as well?

Your questions provoke thinking and, in your day-to-day activity, you mostly do a lot of things, but you think in the middle of a rush. Having the chance to talk now to you and share my views is building on my own thinking. So, I found this was a great opportunity. To have some minutes to reflect and to share, to provoke a bit with the answers, but as you speak you will listen from yourself as well and, maybe next time, I will answer it slightly differently because I’ve learnt in our conversation.

Thank you to Feliciano for speaking with our Manager - HR Division, Keeley Cunningham.

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

Can you identify how SCIEX stands out from the market and your competitors?

When I applied for SCIEX, what stood out for me was its technology. The company has been a major leader in mass spectrometry for the last 50 years. What makes SCIEX different is its innovation used in products and systems. If you look at other players in the market, SCIEX stands out for high precision and ground-breaking technologies. 

Personally, it is important for me to work for a company that helps society and contributes to the world, especially now in COVID times, and that is exactly what SCIEX does.

What is it like working for SCIEX and, as Senior Manager of the Finance Shared Service Centre, how would you describe the culture?  

What I absolutely love about working for SCIEX is its entrepreneurial culture. It is also an environment that cultivates teamwork and a do-it-yourself attitude. Since I joined SCIEX, I put a lot of focus on engagement and purpose creation in my organisation. What my management team and I have done initially is to assess all Finance services that we provide towards our internal stakeholders. As a result, we jointly created a vision statement around how we, as Finance, will become a value adding business partner to various departments within the organisation. For us to build those business partnering relationships, we need to become the backbone of the organisation, providing impactful services to enable our front office departments to support our customers better.

Additionally, my team is based in the Netherlands, Germany and India. It is a very diverse team with a mixture of various cultures. Of course, that brings its own challenges with COVID and being remote. Therefore, for me, more than ever, the engagement and the motivation of the team is very important. Hence, my management team and I are constantly looking for various ways to engage teams across the continents, find a common language, have fun together and connect on a personal level during events we are hosting.

A pertinent topic currently, what does your organisation currently do to contribute towards Diversity & Inclusion (D&I)?

SCIEX prioritizes D&I and we are leading our day-to-day operations with inclusiveness agenda in our minds. There is a lot of focus created, not only in terms of gender, but also beyond gender, such as race, ethnicity, etc.

One topic which is dear to me is the awareness and actions taken by Danaher to increase female representation in managerial bands. This is done through development, mentorships and coaching. In my organisation, we also create awareness and focus on facilitating career aspirations of the female members.

What do you think makes a successful and inclusive work culture? What challenges do you see?

If I look at my own background, diversity has always been part of my life. I grew up in the Baltic States, with a Lithuanian mother, Russian father, was raised in Sweden and I am now living in the Netherlands. I have been very lucky in my life to have had the exposure to various cultures, and what I have learned is to respect differences, not to judge and be open. This is just as important in private life as in business.

By being open, respectful and curious towards new cultures, I believe that one can learn new things and get new experiences and become creative. As a result, you will naturally build relationships based on trust. This is key to a successful and inclusive culture.

What do you love the most about your current role as Senior Manager, Finance?

I love the purpose of the company and being able to contribute to society. In terms of my own role, I have a great and talented team around me, who is always willing to take an extra step, seek good results and have fun at the same time.

I also have support and freedom from my senior leaders to evolve and innovate, and that’s what I really enjoy, too.

What great decisions do you believe you have made throughout your career?

To do my Executive MBA study at Erasmus University was a real eye opener for me. The two years I spent working and studying has put me on a personal journey to better understand who I am as a person and as a leader. I have learned to be comfortable outside my comfort zone. I have discovered my strengths and what drives me as a person. Also, I discovered my purpose in life and learned to see perspective in all decisions that I make. It was a great journey for me.

What are your personal motivators?  

This is a very good question; I think I had different motives before I became a mother. I wanted to be very successful in my career and have a certain role in a certain timeframe, and I was looking to find a purpose in life within the job. When I became a mother, my motivation changed significantly; my biggest motivator today is my daughter.

My purpose is to help her to become a fulfilled person, and to empower her to think freely and not limit herself based on whatever limitations our society puts on us. I would like her to grow up feeling that she is empowered to become anything she aspires to be, and I would like to give her all chances to discover her inner voice and her self-confidence.

What would be your advice to someone aspiring to be where you are now?

A very important thing that I didn’t have in the early stage of my career was a mentor. Having a mentor is crucial when various paths open up. When there is an experienced person to give advice on the future and help navigate the career jungle, it can be an important element in making the right decisions at an early age.

As an interviewer, what was the worst/best interview experience you have had?

The most interesting experience was when I needed to set up two teams for a Finance transformation project at short notice and I had 35 interviews in two days. I remember I had to come up with one outstanding personality trait for each person in order not to forget the candidates. It was a fun and intense experience.

Who was your most admired person in your childhood and why?

My grandfather. He’s passed away now, unfortunately. He was a man with strong opinions and a determined mind. This must have come due to his military background. He taught me a great deal of self-discipline. He believed in values such as honestly, perseverance and rewards for hard work. His way of being has given me a sense of my own worth; that my voice and aspiration matters, and if I do my best I will succeed in the end. I was very happy to have him in my life and all the support he gave to me.

What books are you currently reading? What book could you recommend to Accountants that are wanting to progress?

I got myself Notorious RBG by Ruth Bader-Ginsburg. She was the Justice from the Supreme Court. I find it amazing how one person, through knowledge and perseverance, can change an entire society by leading from behind.

Describe yourself in three words.

Ambitious, passionate (and doing things that are important for me) and caring.

Thank you to Viktorija for speaking with our Associate Director, Georgia Wright.

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

What was the best/worst interview experience you have had?

Best interview experience must have been my first interview for AkzoNobel, and one of the first interviews in my life. I was travelling in the US, met the senior director for audit - an old school American gent, three-piece suit and all - and we had lunch together at Chicago O’Hare airport. He was very tough in his questions and had the best poker face. In the end, I had no idea where I stood. He walked me to the gate, and then asked the TSA Agent, “Where can my colleague check in?”

The worst interview process I had was at a company (I will not name and shame), but one that, after the fact, I have heard other similar stories about, so in the end I think even this cloud had a silver lining. What was so strange is that the entire interview process went well, up to and including the interview with the GM, and I had been requested to provide references. I provided these and had been told that I needed to sign by the end of the next week, to make sure that I would be available for the role in good time. I had drafted and printed my resignation letter at work, and was literally sitting on my desk, just waiting for the contract, when things went quiet. I heard nothing until the deadline had passed, and was simply told that the GM had changed his mind and thought I was too corporate for the role. Turned out they were too afraid to challenge him, so burned me.

How does your company work to retain high potential employees?

Given that I have just joined Nexperia, I cannot yet answer this question for them. But, based on my prior company’s challenges, this is the million-dollar question, and it’s getting more and more important. 

We had the usual mix of short and long-term incentive plans, with vetting periods. That by itself doesn’t cut it at the moment, in my opinion, especially as the vetting period is three years (which is different here at Nexperia by the way). 

I think this really puts the accountability for retention with the managers/directors themselves, rather than to rely on the existing corporate structures. I am, for example, always working proactively with my team members on carving out a career plan for them in the company, to get them mentors and to make sure that they are not being forgotten when positions are being discussed. 

One of the lessons I have learned throughout my career is that development plans should not (just) be for low performers, but are especially relevant for high performers in the team. I prefer for someone in my team to make a step internally than to lose them to another company. Ultimately, I believe it’s a mix of the company and the individual leaders that makes people stay; they need to feel taken care of, both in terms of now and the future development.

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

There are two major changes in the NL labour market: the attractiveness of the Netherlands as a work location, as well as the skill requirements needed by the Finance professionals, which is a global phenomenon.

I first moved to the Netherlands in 2007 and being an expat at that time was still not standard. English was spoken, of course, but still the labour market, even at larger corporates, was rather locally dominated. This has changed incredibly since then, creating a seriously diverse workforce, with talent from all over the globe. Even the recent tendency by companies to reduce the classical expat has not changed this (the 30% ruling of course helps tremendously).

In the Finance field itself, the change has of course been the growth of technical skills, away from being linked to Accounting qualifications and SAP (still of course very relevant) to also include system knowledge such as Power BI or coding. When I started working, MS Office was considered a skill. When I interview people at the moment, and they do not know Power BI, I am already starting to question the choice of candidate. It’s amazing to see how new talent coming through the ranks has taken this digital leap and I am super excited to see where this can lead us as Finance, with access to all the data that’s out there. This change is driven by the availability of data and will continue to shape our profession.

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

My first step into operational Finance (away from the ivory tower corporate roles) was as Regional Business Controller for the Nouryon Polymer Chemicals Business in Asia. I was newly married, had never worked in a Controlling role, and had been sent halfway around the world to take over and improve a Finance department, responsible for both Sales and Supply Chain Controlling. Plus my wife had to quit her job as senior manager at EY to follow me. Quite a bit of pressure… I had impressed the GM of the business as part of a divestment I had run, which had helped obviously with the interview process, but my Controlling knowledge was textbook only, not one minute of operational experience.

What I did realise though, once I got there, is that I was able to take advantage of the fact that I knew nothing, by approaching the whole process with an academic curiosity, which, combined with my project management skills, enabled me to get the team together, leverage their knowledge, thus helping me to finally build a super solid team. This made me realise the most fundamental skillset that I think any Controller should have, namely being inquisitive. If you have the right brain and ask the right ways, one can always find a solution.

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

I think the one thing I would tell myself, and what I tend to tell all people that haven’t already found the job for them, is to go into consulting for a period; it’s the way to polish the diamond that exists in all the raw talent that one has upon starting one’s career. Having spent a few years experiencing the most structured approach to thinking possible (including which colour of blue to use), it becomes much easier to adapt to new situations.

Having done a trainee program inside a company was a great experience. I saw a lot, both of the world, as well a  the chemical/pharmaceutical industry, but ultimately the structured approach was not quite the same. I don’t regret my choices, but if I could go back, that’ll be it. For the rest, honestly, I would tell him to try to do (most) things like I’ve done. I’ve travelled the world, seen and worked with some amazing people, and have especially benefited from globalisation.

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

I wish I could say the CFO, but let’s be honest, that’s not really our role. We can be visionary, but this tends to be closely aligned to the real source of inspiration in any successful business, the CEO. I have been able to work with people like Hans Wijers, who truly had a vision for AkzoNobel and was driven by the desire to see this company become the biggest global player.

This was lived by us every day, and people were willing to go above and beyond to make his vision become reality. Businesses need cold numbers to survive, but to excel one needs more, and this must come from the guy at the top. One word of caution, to be truly inspiring, that leader must be authentic, and this is where I have seen things fall apart in other instances. Do what I say, not what I do has never been able to inspire anyone.

While we continue to face the realities of COVID-19, how have you seen your approach to Finance?

What we have seen during COVID has not been a major change from what I have seen during prior crises; its back to basics, weekly volume reporting, combined with more frequent and more detailed forecasting, in addition to continuous cost focus and reduction.

Going forward, I expect much of the same. We need to be as close as we can to the business, garnering information, looking at trends, trying to identify issues if and when they come. I take the positives from this, as we have been able to push through initiatives that would have taken much longer in the past, with better buy-in from the business.

Given that we rely much more on system data, without ability to factcheck via informal discussions, we have seen the need to clean up the system data, and that I take as the biggest challenge for the mid-term.

Thank you to Benedikt for speaking with our Director - Finance, Hannah Mallia.

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

How can companies reduce bias in the hiring process?

Within Kraft Heinz, it really started by acknowledging that there are inherent biases when hiring for finance jobs. A lot of people claim that there aren’t, but you just need to realistically look at it and for us we said, ‘yes, they are definitely there’. Once we all established that we had those biases and articulated what they were, we build in what we call smart checks and controls to actively counter biases.

We don’t necessarily believe in having a quota on certain biases, for instance, the number of women in a firm or the number of people from a certain ethnicity, but we do believe in creating these active checks and controls.

For instance, we more actively use profiling when we hire, recognizing, for instance, that the current Kraft Heinz population might be very blue/reddish with a lot of analytical hard drivers, while for the direction we’re going as a business, we need more creativity, organisers and harmonisers - so the more yellow and green type of people. As such, we’re actively including that in our evaluation of people, countering your own bias, because obviously a red person will be more attracted to a red person in the hiring process.

Second, in every hiring process, we’re including cross-functional interviewers, meaning someone who has nothing to do with the role/team for which we’re hiring, to make sure that we are not biased because we really want to fill a role. In this way, we have someone objectively evaluating the true fit. As such, when we are looking for a Finance person, someone from, for instance, Supply Chain would also talk to the person.

As our last counter towards biases in the hiring process, we are actively trying to make the inflow of candidates in the hiring process a fair representation of society. If, in theory, the inflow of candidates is 90% male, it is not that weird that the output of the process (i.e. people being hired) is also 90% male. What we are now more actively doing is making sure we get our inflow from different sources. Think of, for instance, building partnerships with student associations that are more connected to different ethnicities. The key is to understand that most companies focus on bias in the hiring process (i.e. the evaluation and selection of candidates), though focusing on your inflow in the hiring process is as important.

How does your company work to retain high potential employees?

The thing that Kraft Heinz does differently compared to other companies is offering good career perspective. Not that others don’t offer career perspective, but Kraft Heinz has a unique aspect in offering employees non-restricted career dreams, regardless to where an employee currently stands.

What I personally like about this is that you can literally go in every career direction, zigzag to wherever you want to be. Our HR lead was originally a marketeer, our MD originally managed the field sales, and one of our European Heads of Category used to be a Finance person. Basically, meaning that wherever you want to go, Kraft Heinz will support you. If you start off as a Finance person and suddenly decide you want to do Marketing, you can go to Marketing, although you have never done Marketing in your life. At Kraft Heinz, we believe more in having certain capabilities, rather than having certain experience, when being assessed for a role.

That particularly makes Kraft Heinz unique and, when combining this with our active talent management, it creates strong career perspective. We try to talk ambitions and career planning very actively with our people. If you show your talents that they can become whatever they aspire and we’re going to help you to work towards that, that really gives talents perspective. You need to give talents perspective, so they know they’re going somewhere. 

Second, we are really focusing on the belonging to a certain BU to make sure everybody’s engaged and understands what they are doing in contribution to the journey we’re going as a BU in whatever direction that is, so they have a certain sense of belonging.

I do really think that’s super unique, Darren; I really don’t hear that very often about being able to go in any direction you want, more focused on the ability as opposed to ‘have you done it before?’ and I guess you are already seeing the benefits of that, giving people the opportunity to move to other areas, and you will see the retention in staff I assume?

Definitely, there are two elements. You really see people that enjoy working within Kraft Heinz and are highly talented remaining with us and growing fast, though at the same time we are also a highly demanding organisation. It is also the case that certain people after an x amount of years say, ‘okay, I enjoyed my time doing this, but I want something different now, so I’m leaving’. I personally think you also need to accept that consequence of the way you build your company, in the sense that if you want to create a certain DNA within your organisation, it will mean that not everyone will fit forever. Retention is an important topic for us, where we try to work hard on retaining the people that fit your company, but you won’t be able to retain everyone if you strive for a certain DNA within your company.

What advice would you offer to someone moving to the Netherlands?

First of all, my advice would be, do it. I think the Netherlands is a good place for expats. First and foremost because everybody speaks English, which helps communication wise. Besides, I find Dutch people very open; it is a country that is very open to different cultures, and people are willing to connect and engage if you show that willingness to them. So do it, that’s the first advice I would give.

Second advice is taking advantage of the typical directness of Dutch people. Dutch people are known for being very direct in their communication, which sometimes can be experienced as harsh. Though, at the same time, that also opens up the door for the counterpart to be very direct to them and that is a very unique style in working together, which can be very effective. There is a lot to learn from that way of working, so although on the one hand it can be very offensive to experience for the first time, it can also be a very valuable experience in leadership.

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

Let’s start at the beginning of my career. I graduated, interviewed multiple companies in the Netherlands, but then I decided I wanted to go abroad and, more specifically, wanted to work in the US region. At the same time, my girlfriend wanted to move to the Caribbean. In the end, I moved to the Caribbean without having a job. I had a lot of conversations in the Netherlands, so I could have easily gone for a very good job, but decided I was going for a change. Eventually, within two months, I got a job, and started at EY being part of the US zone, which set me up to do a couple of years’ consultancy, giving me a very broad experience in running business and business management.

Every step in my career I’ve not really planned for it, but I just have a lot of confidence that if I will make a move, I eventually will get where I want to be. That is, for me, one of the risks that I have taken. Is there any other angle you are looking for, because there is risk in everything, there can also be risk in decision-making, what we’re doing, etc.?

Obviously, it’s an incredibly open question and I think that’s a great example of really pushing outside your comfort zone, and having confidence in yourself that it will work out and that you will get what you want out of it.

For somebody at your level, you’ve got to where you are relatively quickly - I hope you agree with me. I’m a little bit intrigued because to have the title and the responsibilities you have, it would probably usually take a lot of people longer and I just wondered if there was anything there that you might have done differently that made you where you are now?

I don’t often speak about it, I don’t like saying, ‘yes, it went fast’, because I think everybody develops in their own career at their own pace. But the difference here is that every time when I was considering something in my career or was talking about a move, I was very explicit about what I wanted in my career, and as soon as I got an opportunity, I would go all in. It’s the confidence that I know I will get there that helped me to grow very fast.

As humans, we have a tendency to be a bit risk averse and doubt at the moment we get an opportunity; I barely doubt when I get opportunities, I just have confidence. As long as it suits my passion and what I like to do, I go for it and take on the challenge, while being humble and acknowledging I need to work hard to make my next role a success. That attitude helped me in my career progression so far.

What advice would you give to aspiring leaders?

Determine what you want and go for it. That’s something applicable to everyone, not necessarily only for leaders. Be in the driving seat of what you want. More specifically for leaders, my advice is, understand and acknowledge that leadership in itself is a craft. I didn’t realise that too much when I started in my career. You can become very good in any technical function or area of expertise, but leadership is an expertise in itself and you need to play an active role in mastering that domain of leadership. This means you need to learn it, you need to invest in it, you need to talk to people, you need to get your experiences and, most of all, try to actively be aware of what is required to be a leader.

I think that’s the most important advice, because you will see, in the first couple of years in your career, it is more about your proactive mindset, the way you spot opportunities and go for it. But the higher you come within an organization, the less functionally involved you’re going to be. It’s going to be more about strategic discussions and about leading people, and I think on that part we often forget that leadership is not something that is just there, you need to actively develop it.

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

I split this one in two. For me, first when you talk about business, the type of profiles that inspire me are, for instance, Elon Musk. If you talk about visioning, if you talk about belief, that is what this guy is all about. Jeff Bezos for me is the same type of guy. What makes them special is that they dare to focus on the real long-run over the short-term, especially when being pressed by external factors as a consequence of being on Wall Street and stuff like that. It is very impressive that they are able to hold on to that vision, go for it, go against all current and eventually build a super big business out of it.

That for me is very impressive. It’s like they’re almost a couple of years ahead of us, thinking about not what’s happening now, but living almost five years in the future, so they understand where we need to be as an organization in the future and move towards it. For me, those guys, when you talk about risk profiling, daring to do something, be confident in what you’re able to do, those are very good examples.

On leadership, which is the second element of inspirational people, I find Simon Sinek very inspiring. The way he looks at leadership and just the constant flow of one-liners that that guy shoots, always being very accurate and very true, is very impressive in every element. He said, ‘leadership is not a licence to do less, it’s a responsibility to do more’. It’s all centred around what do I do as a leader, and how do I drive, really creating the purpose in an organization.

Another interesting one for me is the CEO of Alibaba, Jack Ma Yun, I find the guy very impressive. Not often known for it, but he always said that he built his business on the motto of only trying to find smarter people around me and making sure that these people make his job as easy as possible. He is not often known and quoted for that, but that spirit of, if you want to be a good leader, don’t try to be the best, just try to have the best people around you, I find that very inspiring.

We actually encourage our candidates to read Start with Why by Simon Sinek, as it’s an awesome way of looking at things for sure.

While we continue to face the realities of COVID-19, how have you seen your approach to Finance?

It’s a good question and there are two elements. First, from the business-orientated side, which is not only Finance, it stressed the need for agility, which was a journey we were already on in fast moving consumer goods. The changes are picking up, the trends are becoming more influential, so there was already a need to become more agile, and for me, COVID just accelerated it. For instance, in Finance, when talking about practical decisions on where to invest, due to COVID, food service was going to be locked down for the next x months, while retail was going to boom. So we decided to completely take all our investments from food service and push everything on retail. Those are very disruptive changes to make, because obviously you have contracts, you have marketing plans, you have people investing in there, but it shows that if you’re agile, you will profit in the long-run from those decisions. From a business side, this was my key learning and one we still are trying to apply every day, the way you approach innovations, the way you test and learn on your strategy, I think COVID was showing us once more how fast the world can turn 180 degrees and what you need to do as a business.

The second way COVID affected us as a company was through its impact on people. I have not seen something before that was so influential on people’s energy level and mental stability in my life. In the sense that people all of a sudden realised how important it is to have connections and how those connections are a very important part in our day-to-day business, although we never actually talk about it or recognise it in that way. For me, when talking about leadership, it showed the importance once more of being close to your people, making extra effort for them, which goes in very simple terms as just meeting up one-on-one in person, making sure within the team they have the cross-functional check-ins, making sure you have coffee chats with people outside of your own direct lines. Very simple things, but the effort you make in ensuring that people remain connected and the importance you give to relationships among co-workers can have a big impact on someone’s mental health and happiness. This was once more highlighted to me due to COVID.

Thank you to Darren for speaking with our Director - Finance, Hannah Mallia.

If you'd like to learn about how EMEA Recruitment can help your with your Finance Recruitment needs, speak to one of our dedicated team members today

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

What have you learnt as a leader over the course of your career?

For me, there has very much been a pre and a post FMCG giants experience. Both P&G and Unilever have been great business schools. These companies really invest in you, but I believe you grow the most by being able to put what you get taught into practice in different environments. Test, fail, learn, to shape yourself in terms of who you want to be as a leader.

The two main learnings for me versus the conceptions I had in my early career is first that leadership is not about prestige and so much more than the size of the team, or the size of the business. It’s about the business challenges to overcome, the stakeholders, the network you need to influence, and rallying people behind you on a common vision, goal and objective, and this can be done at any level of the organisation.

The second one is when I think about the impact of a Finance leader or a CFO. I see that it now goes beyond what maybe it used to in the past. Of course, success is about delivering concrete results, but for me it is also about making sure that when those results are delivered, the organisation and every single individual has a sense of pride and belonging. The role of a Finance Manager is key in ensuring that there is a solid performance management structure in place starting from the top, and that throughout the goal setting exercise, every individual is clear in their contribution to the business. “What are the two or three big things that I am going to do to enable the organisation to succeed?” 

Enabling that as a leader is key, and very rewarding! The role that I have seen myself play in making that happen has evolved.

So, it’s about making everyone feel as though they have a part to play, whether they’re junior, an Accountant, or a Finance Director?

Exactly, it’s beyond just performance management in the strictest sense of the term, like, “are we on track or not?”, but really taking a more holistic view on, “do we have the organisation behind us to try and deliver on our goals? Are they clear on their objectives, are they motivated, do they have the tools?" Setting the objectives and enabling the organisation to go and reach them. It may be more relevant the more senior type of roles you take on, but the thinking is applicable at every level.

So my point is, you think you have that vision of what leadership and performance management is about, because you’ve learnt it in these amazing business schools - and I’m super grateful for these experiences - but I think I learnt more taking that toolbox and fine tuning it in different companies. That has shaped me more and enabled me to make bigger leaps as a Finance leader in recent years.

What changes have you seen to the employment market in Switzerland over the years and what do you think have been the drivers for these changes?

I spent the first four years of my career in Switzerland and then I went abroad for 11 years, but I stayed in touch with connections and friends, so I have never been too far away. As part of the life choice we made last year (relocating the whole family back to Switzerland), I’ve noticed both personally, and by discussing with recruiting firms or head hunters, that while the market was already competitive, it has become even more so.

Switzerland is a small country, but quite a significant market. It’s extremely attractive in Europe and worldwide due to the quality of life, salary levels and senior positions with a lot of international HQs, but you also have a lot of larger companies that have gone through transformation and cost savings programmes, so people are all of a sudden back on the job market but not necessarily keen on relocating. I think there is definitely a disconnect between availability of jobs versus demand, which has made the market extremely competitive and put pressure on overall compensation/salary levels over recent years.

My other observation is that the job market in Switzerland remains a less transparent market, in the sense that a lot of recruitment is done via network. Maybe I am answering one of your other questions, but in terms of tips on starting your career in Finance, etc., I see networking as being key. Even if you don’t like it for career driving purposes, at least do it for yourself; do it to build your skills, to be exposed to other thoughts. There are many great resources out there to learn and to grow, but I think keeping a good network in Switzerland in particular is really key.

Absolutely, 100% agree. It makes sense to move onto the career advice question. So, networking is clearly one piece of advice that you would give someone starting out, but what else would you suggest?

I think the first thing is to see the Finance career as a marathon, not a sprint. It is particularly relevant for people who are brought up in big multi-nationals that foster a very competitive environment. A lot of energy is spent on planning for your next move or promotion, but take a step back and really take time to plan a succession of roles that make sense, and that will give you the foundations to build the career you want in the long-term.

For example, I didn’t see production controlling as something really attractive at the beginning of my career, but it could have cost me my last appointment to not really have that hands-on experience. Lantmännen took a bit of a bet when they hired me as Division CFO, because they had a challenge with getting their overall Supply Chain performance management structure in place. Me not having a significant experience in production controlling/production environment was a key discussion topic throughout the recruitment process. I am grateful the company still put their trust in me, loved every bit of the journey and felt I made an impact, learning loads along the way. So, really think about a variety of experiences to build yourself as a well-rounded leader if, ultimately, it’s a CFO type of role you are aiming for.

The second one is less Finance-relevant, but maybe what we don’t see enough within the function is people taking time to invest in broader, universal skills; storytelling, influencing, presentation. These are key leadership skills, and still too many members of the Finance function are not able to boil down very clearly what the issue is and what they’re going to do about it. A good test is always: what would you say to the group CEO or Chairman of the Board if you bumped into them in the elevator and they asked you, “hey, what about this?”

You need to know your business figures and drivers, know what the one or two main issues are (or breakthrough opportunities, or risks) and really be clear about how to address them. It is worth investing time quite early on in the whole storytelling and presentation skills.

The third one is, regardless of your job in Finance, be in touch with your stakeholders and understand what their needs are. Don’t just take your game plan or what has been handed over to you and go ahead. First, spend your first 60 days in your new role getting in touch with your stakeholders, building that relationship, understanding what the two or three main things you can do to add value and to make those contributions to the business are. Prove yourself and earn that trust so that you’re not just seen as the Finance guy that occasionally they will run numbers by, but you are really the business partner that they can’t live without.

What excites you about working for Stäubli?

Funnily enough, despite being Swiss, I have never worked for a Swiss company in my 15+ years career, so I’m particularly happy about that. Stäubli is known as a hidden Swiss champion, and it’s been around since the 19^th century. It was founded in Horgen, a beautiful place by the Zürich lake. They have a workforce of about 5,500 people worldwide, operating in around 30 countries.

What excites me the most is that, after 15 years in FMCG and food manufacturing, it gives me an opportunity to operate in and learn from a brand new industry. This is exactly the type of challenge I was chasing with this relocation.

I’m the CFO for the Global Robotics Division, and the other thing that really excites me about the job is that I’m coming in right at the start of a new strategy and business plan cycle, so it’s great to be part of that journey.

It’s also high growth, which is refreshing after working in more stable categories; we’re looking at a completely different pace and I am also in a more global role compared to my last job, with China being the biggest market.

On a separate topic, how do companies reduce bias in the hiring process?

I think it all starts from an intentional strategy or tone from the top. Unilever is a great example. They’ve gone through a huge programme and are looking at fantastic results. They have managed to achieve a great balance, at least from a gender diversity perspective. I think it has to start from a well-defined strategy, but for me, diversity goes beyond gender.

It’s also about embracing different professional backgrounds, cultures and nationalities, which requires companies to be willing to expand the resources pool that they tap into to find talent. I still feel many companies think that they require candidates to have industry experience, that they need the resource to already be located close by, etc., but I feel that this really restricts the talent pool. 

In Finance specifically, I don’t believe you need so much industry experience. What makes a good CFO ultimately is not necessarily related to the type of industries that you have been working in, it is really about the learning agility, drive for value creation, and some of the other core functional leadership skills that you are able to demonstrate.

What’s great with LinkedIn is you have people that can apply from all over the world. I understand that it is hard to go through all applications, but in my previous company’s leadership team, we managed to hire from many different backgrounds and nationalities, and it really added to the overall performance – and credibility - of that management team.

Then, on gender diversity, I think it takes interventions and courage to make a step-change; for example, to open more roles for 80%, instead of 100%. A parent who has learned to structure and prioritise because they have to juggle a lot of things in their life and wish to work 80-90%; that person may be as or even more effective than someone who is working 100%. Trying to balance that view and again opening the resource pool to tap into is key, but again, it takes courage.

What do you see as being the future of Finance?

I think all the pressure we’re seeing now with regards to cost savings, becoming more efficient, automation, standardisation, etc., will continue to be important. One attribute that I try to drive and that I will always expect from my team is a continuous improvement mindset. You need to make room for that and you need to be very intentional about it, because everybody is busy and it can easily be missed.

The problem is, we are all guilty of getting into this busy bee syndrome where you don’t have time to step back and think, “okay, am I adding value?”, “what is really going to matter for the future?”, versus, “we’ve always done it like this and I don’t have time to think about any improvement”. It isn’t about adding more resources, but about doing things differently, and this is, of course, easier said than done.

It will really require, again, strategy and tone from the top, either from the CFO or from the organisation to say, “yes, we can invest in simplification programmes, new tools, etc.” Instead of just slicing the cheese, as we say, where you just try to look for a small cost saving here and there, look at what are big breakthrough interventions you can make to reinvest your time into more value adding activities.

There are a lot of podcasts or trends that you see on LinkedIn or other resources about great tools, great software, etc., but the reality is a lot of the companies are still struggling with legacy systems, and so there is a disconnect between what is maybe portrayed as the future of the Finance function versus where a lot of the companies’ Finance departments are. It’s a hard one to tackle, because it’s going to take one time interventions to change in a lot of cases, instead of trying to puzzle old software, old systems and try to improve them bit by bit.

It really takes intentional programmes to succeed with standardization initiatives, automate non-value creating tasks, so that finance controllers or diligent leaders can reinvest their time into more value-added activities. Once you get there, we’re looking at Finance organisations that are maybe going to be a lot more agile or mobile and not necessarily assigned to one division or assigned to one specific task.

Finally, what is the best piece of advice that you have ever received?

That’s a funny one. A former colleague and a good friend of mine said something to me very early on in my career that stuck with me. I was extremely frustrated in a meeting and clearly showing it. At the end of the meeting, we both stayed in the room and he said, “you really need to work on that poker face”.

I’m a very competitive person; I like to win and I normally tend to show my emotions. I don’t know if you’re familiar with The Strength Finder concept (Gallup)? I am a competitor, but also score high on empathy and relating skills, which is an interesting mix. I might be competitive and have a big drive, but I’m also very close to how other people feel and emotions for me are extremely important.

I think, as a leader, you should stay true to who you are as an individual. Learn to become aware of when your attitude is going to be a problem and you need to maybe tone some of the aspects down, but I really firmly believe in diversity of styles and genuineness to get the most out of people.

So that comment from my colleague was great, because it really made me realise, okay, I need to really be intentional about finding that balance between what I can express versus keep for myself. I still tend to show my emotions, but I always have that comment in mind to keep me in balance.

Thank you to Guillaume for speaking with our Senior Consultant, Emma Feneley.

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