Wouter de Veen is the Director Global Audit Europe at Heineken in Amsterdam. He has been with the business in various roles for 13 years, having worked in Nigeria and Singapore. Wouter’s Finance career started at KPMG, and he is also an Insights Discovery Client Practitioner.

With sustainability being such a big agenda topic, I wanted to know what challenges you, your team and your organisation face with such initiatives?

The first thing is, you must build entirely new reporting structures that are not really in place yet; you're building a structure to capture certain KPIs, where the KPIs are not really known yet, because the regulations are still quite fluid. So, that's an uncertain period.

I think the challenge for most companies is that the people building the reporting structure have a lot of experience in it, like Finance. But, the people that need to deliver the KPIs and the inputs are people that probably have never done reporting in their entire life, and reporting goes through all the veins and every department. I think that is the main challenge - and the timelines are extremely short.

From Global Audit, we've been part of the sustainability review. We've been supporting it, building the bridge between the external auditor that has certain expectations and the internal stakeholders that don't really know how to deliver it. We've been the vehicle for the last three or four years and now we're part of helping them build the reporting structure, as well. We have three or four people almost fully dedicated on this from Global Audit and we are at 50 people, so that shows how key it is for us.

I think the other interesting element is, you have to build it into everyday business. So, when you do an investment, the investment also must capture the future impact on an environment. How do you value this? I'm in a project where we are looking at business cases and what to put in a business case to make sure that it's environmentally sustainable and that everything is captured. But that means you have to give certain KPIs a value and I think carbon is doable, and you can give carbon a price. However, there are many other things that you don't know how to price. That will be the interesting debate.

We have a very clear ambition for 2030 to have all the breweries carbon neutral – and I think we're well on track - and then the rest of the supply chain is to follow later, which also involves our suppliers. If you don't put an ambition out that is really stretched, you simply won't get there anyway, so it's better to be ambitious. Maybe you're not going to make it, but at least you aim very high and then you always go further than what you aim for. That's what you see from the executive team.

Is the next big challenge to roll sustainability through the supply chain, to bring your suppliers up to the standards you're setting?

I think so. Our supply chains are in the breweries themselves. They're quite keen, because energy is a high cost for them, so the less energy they use, the better it is for efficiency. It's more than the supply to the breweries with barley and malts, because it's like a culture, and then everything that leaves the brewery to the consumers goes through transportation and that's also massive on carbon impact.

The thing that Heineken is doing extremely well in some countries is to have a returnable system. So, you get a returnable glass - almost 90-95%, sometimes even close to 100% comes back. In Singapore, almost every bottle that we sent came back and we used them numerous times. That really lowers the carbon footprint of your production.

We have certain KPIs, because water first is extremely important, and we're trying to get the water usage lower and lower. The other item for breweries is how much of your waste goes to landfill in the end. We’re trying to get that as close to zero as possible. Stacey Tank – Chief Transformation and Corporate affairs Officer is putting it on the agenda in a proper way; she is really stretching the company.

I think it might be why they chose EverGreen - it is key. It is one of the five pillars to the strategy, sustainability. Our CEO went to a few of the forums - I think the one in Glasgow – and, when he comes back, he always puts a Workplace - like an internal Facebook - message out and he explains what interested him or what really frustrated him. When he came back from Glasgow, he said, as a company, we need to just do it, because if we wait for politicians, it will never happen and that shows how passionate we are about being ahead of everybody.

What is your favourite quote and why?

I have two, they basically describe how I see life.

The one I use the most is, “I ask for forgiveness, not permission.” That's typically how I live. That is important for me, because I feel empowered. If I take a decision, I can be held accountable. I don't need to test it or share it with everybody. If I think it's the right way to do it, then I'll just go and do it.

It also shows that you need to have a good moral compass to do the right things, because otherwise you can't. I know roughly what I can and cannot ask forgiveness for, because you can't do this everywhere. This really helped me, especially when I was in Nigeria and Singapore; sometimes you have to make a decision, and everybody's looking at you. Sometimes, speed is important, and this quote really helps.

The other quote I occasionally use - I try to at least have a laugh every day – so, “A day not laughed, is a day not lived.” It's the small things, to have a small joke or to put a smile on someone's face. I always try to put a smile on someone's face during the day.

Your career is so varied. It's spread across Europe, the US, Africa, Asia… What are the risks you’ve taken throughout your career and how did they help you get to the level you're at now?

First, when an opportunity comes along, you need to ask yourself what's the worst that can happen? You have to be willing and able to take the risk, and you can only do this when you have proper support at home, because you don't take the risk alone.

When we went to the US, we were not a married couple yet, but we were at least living together for a while, because it takes effort from both sides. Nigeria was probably the largest leap of faith that we took. And, again, it's family that is the most important.

In terms of taking risks for your career, you go from a role to another role, and you know you have a job - at least to start with. Of course, you have to perform, but you have a job. The worst that can happen is that you fail the job, and then you try and find another one, and you'll be sent back. That's the worst that can happen.

But you can only do your best effort in the role when your home is stable. So, you need to have a family that supports you and is also comfortable. That was the largest risk we took going to Nigeria, because you simply don't know. You don't know how the children or your wife will react to the environment, the heat - What if your children get sick? Is there proper support? These are the risks that went through our heads.

It's not going to Africa, per se, but what if we are there and worse things or terrible things happen? What do we do? That was the item that we spoke about the most.

For me, maybe I'm just a risk taker, but they're calculated. I think that Nigeria taught me that the most; you need to have a plan B. Plan A is, you're going to go abroad and it's going to be a success, but what if? And that's your plan B. You might not share that plan B with people, but that's your fallback scenario and that's the worst that can happen. If that's acceptable, then you just take the risk. You just go for it and make the most of it.

If I look back, especially at Nigeria, it’s called the Harvard of Heineken, and I see that. It really changed me. I spoke about this last night with my wife, and it also changed her, because she was quite structured and she thought she was flexible, but - only when we were in Nigeria for a year-and-a-half - we really became flexible.

That’s because, whatever you prepare, whatever you think about and whatever plan you have, it's not going to work, because there's always something that comes up. You need to have alternatives and scenarios, and that's what Nigeria taught me to do. I don't plan too much ahead, because it's going to change anyway, so why spend an awful lot of time detailing out a complete plan if tomorrow it's going to be in the shredder anyway?  

However, this also has a downside, because some of my team members require that structure, which I don't really like, so then I have to be mindful that I still give them small steps.

Would you say taking the risk to go to Africa was the greatest shaping of your life?

Yes, and it also made me more, humble because you suddenly realise that your bed or the place you were born plays a vital role in your opportunities. You see people in Nigeria that don't have much, but they still enjoy themselves, they still have fun - they are so enthusiastic. That helps me still every day to just realise how good we have it here.

I still have contact with people in Nigeria from my former team - some of them have left Heineken, but I still occasionally catch up over email or we have a small phone talk. Every couple of months, my wife receives a WhatsApp message from her driver and the helper we had in the house that starts with “Happy April” or “Happy Monday”, and that’s really warm.

What it taught me is to plan less and live in the moment. Also, for the family, we actually bonded more, because you see each other way more often than you would do in another setting. It definitely brought us closer.

So, before you take this leap of faith, you need to be sure that your relationship is strong enough, because - if it's a little shaky - the chances of it breaking are very high because you're always under pressure. Without a doubt, I would do it again. Not at the moment with the two girls being in secondary school, because I promised them secondary school would be in the Netherlands, but after that, yes.

What is the biggest challenge for the business and your role over the next 12 months?

If you look at Heineken, I think the largest challenge we have is to attract, retain and build talent, because Heineken is an old family company that's been around since the 1800s. I've been here about 13 years now and I've seen some changes over the last ten years.

We used to have people in Heineken where there was employment for life. In the breweries, you still meet people that have 30, 35, sometimes even 40 years, in Heineken. I have someone in my team that recently celebrated 35 years with the company, which is amazing, but people we get in now have a different horizon. I think we need to adapt our people agenda to cater for that, as well. It used to be employment for life, and now it's employment for the experience.

I think we’re still doing reasonably well in getting people in, but to retain them for a longer period is something that we still have to improve on. They have a shorter horizon than the old people that come in. They're very ambitious, they want to grow extremely fast, and they sometimes don’t take the answer you give them well, such as, “You need to see everything before you are able to move to the next role.” They just say, “I think I’ve seen enough, I’m ready for the next role,” and we need to either cater for that and take a risk on the talent, or we have to make them pause a little.

I had one gentleman in Nigeria who got promoted a little too fast and, when I came in the role, the first thing they said in the introduction is, “This gentleman is not performing, so you need to start working on a replacement, because he's probably not good enough.” When I had a chat with him and looked at his curriculum, he only spent one year in his prior role, which was already quite larger than the role before, and this was even larger.

When I talked to him, I felt like he was uncomfortable with all the challenges that came to him and, instead of making a short-term decision, I said, “Let's work on this together” - and he's still with us today and doing well. Those are the things I'm extremely proud of because I protected him for a while, but - after six to nine months - the protection wasn't necessary anymore. I was just helping him to grow and he’s doing great.

So, for Heineken, it's retaining the talent, because it's a fantastic company to work for and we can really convince people to come work for us, but to stay and continue working for us is something we have to do better.

What do you think are the biggest incentives you can look to implement to control the retention of staff and what do you think could be improved?

I would call it critical experiences. Internally, they call them short-term assignments. We have to be more open to it. In Global Audit, we're actually doing quite well. So, every six weeks, we have a new engagement - we do about 80 to 90 projects a year and we always try to have guest auditors in these projects.

Guest auditors are people from the business. We take them on their journey and I think those are the things that we have to market better, because that can keep people motivated, and it gives them a learning experience - not necessarily in their role - and it will probably retain them longer. I think the critical experience is the thing that we somehow need to build in better.

Bringing it back to you, what do you see for yourself over your role?

I've been in the role just over two-and-a-half years now. But, honestly, the first year was with COVID; you couldn't see anybody, and the Global Audit Director is supposed to build relations, influence stakeholders, meet people... So, I’m not really counting the first year. I would say we've changed the approach quite a bit.

The largest challenge for me is to build in thinking time; have the time to reflect and be innovative, because it's very easy to be in the daily routine, help your team, review reports, help to make decisions, interact… and then you don't have this time to reflect and think of the next theme or the next risk that we need to address as a company that is coming in a year or a year-and-a-half’s time.

That’s the most difficult thing to do, because I like to be in the now, and to really sit down and reflect is not easy. I tend to do this when I’m on my evening runs, but - sometimes - those evening runs are also times to prepare for difficult conversations. So, thinking time is just challenging.

The one thing I would like to deliver as a department is an audit on culture, because culture undermines everything or supports everything. Sometimes, when processes or procedures are not fantastic, things may still not go wrong. Why does nothing go wrong? It's probably because of the people and the way they behave. But there are other companies, other departments or operating companies in Heineken where the procedures and policies are quite strict, and there's still stuff going wrong. I would really like to deliver something like that.

Another example would be, what kind of data points do you need that could potentially give you the insights on where you should focus? We don't know yet how to do this, but I definitely want to be part of that.

What is the most memorable moment from your career?

I have many small things.

The one thing that really put a smile on my face was when I was working in Singapore. There are many people in Singapore that speak Mandarin - I don't speak Mandarin at all - and they do love karaoke.

So, I took the challenge upon myself to learn one Mandarin song. Every morning driving to the office, I played one on repeat until I could completely memorise it. Then, at an office party, I asked someone to put the song on. It was in the regional head office - I don't know how many people there were, but it was quite packed - and they put the song on, and I just sang that Mandarin song, but you have to memorise it completely, because you can't even understand the words that are on the screen, because they're in Chinese.

When I was singing it for maybe two or three minutes, people started looking around. I still remember the Head of Legal coming to me after, saying “Can you speak Mandarin, because your accent was perfect?” I just memorised it.

I like to make an impact on people in a fun way. And, of course, you pick up something from everybody you work with. You can pick up some skills from someone who is very good at public speaking and learn about stuff you cannot currently do. We have someone in Heineken that does fantastic jokes; I can't do them, even if I write them down, like he delivers them. So, I also learn what not to do.

For me, it's to connect with people, build a bond and stretch myself, because I'm easily bored. If I have a day that’s completely jam packed, in the morning, I might complain about it a little bit, but, in the evening, I feel quite good, because I’ve done a lot.

If you could go back and change one thing in your career, what would it be?

I think I spent a bit too much time with KPMG. I stayed beyond the learning curve, but, at that point in time, I enjoyed it, I had fun - I wasn't thinking about leaving.

But, looking back, maybe I should have left three or four years earlier, but there was no opportunity and there was no incentive. That would be the only thing, because I don't have any other regrets.

I thought back to my studies - because I did Economics. I also like Law; maybe I should have picked Law at university. I would have enjoyed that, as well, but I'm in a good place. I don't have too many regrets.

How has being a registered Insights Discovery Client Practitioner helped you identify and develop your team?

Before I was a registered practitioner, I was part of the workshops. I gave workshops myself for a team in Singapore and Nigeria. Especially in Singapore, it opened my eyes on how you could apply it in practice. Now that I'm a practitioner, I'm giving workshops in Heineken internally. I've done probably about ten to 15 for various groups.

The fantastic thing is you see many people across the business that you would never meet, regardless of people's backgrounds - I had people from Customer Service, Supply Chain and Engineers. I also had Marketeers, people in Finance, but, in essence, everybody has a similar profile.

The thing I really apply in the teams is when you need to make people aware that there are different styles and each style is as valuable or as important as the other - there’s no good or bad, you just need to be open.

I would say they need to listen to understand, not listen to respond. Be less biased. This particularly helps me, because you know the inside out of all the colors quite well. You do recognise the surface, but you only learn the real depth and motivation for people to dial up a certain strength or dial down a certain strength in conversation, and that’s what you need to have. You need to have open conversations and don’t judge too soon.

In a team, the thing you need to try and achieve as a people manager is not to hire mini-mes, which is very difficult, because it goes against your nature. The conversation is most fluid with people that are most like you; you have the same interests. It’s okay to have a few people similar to you in your team, but you also need to have people that go totally against what the team normally would do, because that makes it richer.

It takes a lot of courage to hire those people and be able to work with them. If you come into an existing team, you should try and think about what’s missing, and when you’re able to build your team, you should do it cautiously.

I’m in Global Audit; most of my team members like structure, they like checklists, but I also have a few that focus on the relationship, and it’s great to have those together.

Did you take them on using this kind of insight?

You shouldn't use it for recruitment, because an interview is only an hour. How much can you learn? You can definitely ask certain questions to get a sense for it, but you can be wrong. I've had hiring mistakes in the past, where people were completely different in the interview than when they were in the job for a while.

Also, you sometimes see, if people get promoted, they change their behaviour because they're in a different role.

For me, the essence of someone is whether they are extremely structured or more outgoing - that is the mix that you can normally sense and that you can work with, but you need to spend time with the real nuances.

My advice, if you want to put it into practice, is to have a team that's diverse. Diversity is age, culture, and also gender - but it's not the most important thing. It's how they were raised, what kind of moral compasses they have, what their ambition is… It needs to be a mix.

You need to have people - I call them worker bees - in the team that are in a happy place. They like what they do. However, if everybody is ambitious and everybody wants to grow, that's not a good environment. You need to have a balance. I would call that the real diversity that you should try and achieve.

I’ve put in this final question because we work in partnership with Operation Smile, an international medical charity. What was the last thing that made you smile?

There are so many things. I particularly like to have fun with words. We have a Dutch programme, an evening show, with humour that I really like - it can be sharp.

It really made me smile last night. What I loved about it was that the gentleman acted like he had reporters in every political party headquarters while the [election] results were coming in. Of course, they were in the studio, but they had such extreme role models of the parties that really made me smile.

But there are many things. Like I said, I try to put a smile on someone's face every day and, hopefully, every day I succeed in it.

Thank you to Wouter 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.