Christoph Hajjar is the Human Resources Director at HEINEKEN Switzerland. He is a skilled HR leader with experience in the pharmaceutical, fashion, IT, and FMCG industries.  

Christoph provides a deep dive into his leadership style, sharing a blend of key ingredients to cultivate success and high-performing teams. He emphasizes the importance of balancing data-driven insights with the human element in decision making, and explains how leaders can maximize the impact of innovative and diverse teams.  

I know you’ve held senior roles across different sectors. How do you adapt your leadership style when transitioning between industries, and what core principles remain constant for you? 

I think the transition between industries always requires some flexibility. The key is to understand the unique challenges and opportunities of each sector, which means you need to meet the people where they are versus the expectation that they will always come to you and adapt to what you're used to.  

I also believe that each journey should start with being curious. The easiest way, from my perspective, to do so is through active listening, which is probably also the hardest thing to do.  

Additionally, it’s about observing, listening, and asking questions. In the end, you need to understand the values, behaviors, processes, and expectations you will encounter as you enter new territory. 

Establishing strong relationships with key stakeholders and building trust with the team comes next. I am a big fan of leadership by intent, but I also realized before applying it, you need to ensure the team is empowered and in a psychologically safe area to make decisions. This is where I believe you need to be flexible in your management style, which may start as situational leadership and adapting to the new culture, before transitioning to your preferred style at the end. 

I think once you've created those relationships and listened to the fundamentals of what the organization and people want to achieve, you can ultimately achieve great things.  

What's the most unexpected lesson you've learned in your career? 

One of the most unexpected lessons was the importance of adaptability/agility. No matter how well prepared you are, unexpected challenges will always arise. For example, when I moved from Switzerland to Austria in my last position, the company and industry were the same and I felt that Switzerland and Austria shared so many cultural similarities - how difficult can that move be? 

However, I learned that there are nuances and differences in how people interact and their approach to work (starting from a hierarchical management style versus a more consent-driven style), or their communication style.  

Communication wise, I'm thinking of straightforward communication, which is valuing the clarity and the precision we sometimes have in Switzerland, versus the more indirect and diplomatic approach in Austria; Austrians need some time to build relationships and trust before getting to the point of the conversation itself. Surprisingly, this was something I underestimated.  

I managed to overcome it with the support of some dear colleagues who took me aside and provided honest feedback, such as, “You may be used to that, but please consider that the clocks tick a bit differently here.” They also gave me advice on cues and the natural rhythm of a conversation when you want to get to a decision. In the end, all this leads back to the point I mentioned before, which was the importance of listening.  

What strategies do you use for developing innovative and diverse teams? 

Based on my learning and experience, if you want to increase the impact, you need to work on the whole environment versus an individual situation or initiative. This approach helps you touch on all issues within the environment, instead of one. Sometimes, you can even influence issues that haven’t yet fully manifested.  

Concretely, this means culture. By creating an inclusive environment where different perspectives and views are valued and encouraged to be brought forward, team members are motivated to share individual ideas and experiences.  

From my perspective, this has led to increased creative solution finding, and stronger teams and team dynamics. Simply put, generating a workplace where people feel empowered to bring their best self to work is the secret trick. 

What role does data-driven decision making play in your advisory approach and how do you ensure that decisions are grounded in both data and intuition? 

It’s sometimes difficult to show your impact in HR, because the impact is usually not immediate. And, if you don't have data evidence in your hand, it becomes even more difficult to show credibility. 

However, I think it is essential to balance the data approach with a human approach. This means you need to consider the context and potential impact of the decision on both people and processes to ensure that you have a holistic overview when speaking with peers or superiors.  

I'm a huge fan of tools like Power BI and the up-and-coming AI tools, because they help us make informed decisions and show that our decision making is based on some objective pieces of evidence, rather than our intuition alone.  

It’s a mix of both; you can’t have one without the other. You need to have that personal touch, as well as the right dataset, including the knowledge of where to get the data and which pieces to pick out to support an informed decision-making process. 

I agree. Data provides a lot of information, but you need to filter it to see the bigger picture and look at the personal side of what these figures are telling you on a day-to-day basis.  

That's also where it becomes more and more important for us to stay up to date. At times, people tend to say, “Oh, I'm old school.” It's not about being old school or not; it's a tool. If you don't use it, you're missing out on something. 

I understand that HEINEKEN focuses on beers and ales, but if your leadership style were a cocktail, what would it be called and what would be the key ingredients? 

If my leadership style were a cocktail, I would call it the Intention Sour. So, the key ingredients would be: a shot of vision for setting up clear intentions, a splash of empathy to understand and support each other, a little dash of resilience for navigating challenges, and a twist of creativity for fostering innovation. 

I love that. Sounds like everybody should be drinking your cocktail, Christoph. 

It helps having worked for seven years as a barkeeper! 

Thank you to Christoph for speaking to Keely Straw, who manages our Human Resources recruitment team in Switzerland. 

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