Leading and Succeeding With Accountability with Thandi Orelyn
Thandi Orelyn is a South African lawyer and business executive who has been active mainly in the financial sector. She is a co-founder and executive director of Peotona Group Holdings. Thandi chairs the board of BP Southern Africa and serves on the boards of Toyota S.A. and Toyota Financial Services (South Africa). She has also served as a non-executive director of the South African Reserve…
Leaders Live in A Glass House with Arjan van Weele
Arjan van Weele, a Professor of Purchasing and Supply Management living in the Netherlands, discusses his perspective on leadership competencies that apply for any leader, no matter where you are within your career journey. Interview Summary JH: The Fourth Industrial Revolution brings unique and new dynamics when it comes to leading. There is a new business context that is happening worldwide,…
Gray Versus Green: Who Makes the Better Start-Up CEO?
This article was co-authored by Laura Musgrave, Kevin Bijas, and Jeffrey Cohn. “People over 45 basically die in terms of new ideas." said venture capitalist Vinod Khosla in 2011. “People under 35 are the people who make change happen,” he further asserted. Taking the exact opposite tack, in a recent CNBC interview, Alan Patricof, founder of Greycroft Partners, an elite venture capital firm,…
Direction, Alignment, and Commitment with Gerard Coops PhD.
Gerard Coops, Managing Director of HuReMa Consulting in the Netherlands, discusses the fact in a recent survey 80% of CEOs revealed they do not have the talent within their organization to execute on their current strategies. Because I found this disturbing, I wanted to dig deeper into what Gerard believes we can do to correct this leadership failure. JH: Gerard, let us attack the obvious first…
The Secrets of Employee Engagement with Stef du Plessis
Stef du Plessis is a thought leader in employee engagement and workplace culture space. There are very few professionals in the HR advisory field with depth, brevity, and perspective than Stef. He is a leader in the coaching and consulting industry and speaks articulately on what it takes to get engaged employees in the workplace with authority. Interview Summary JH: Employee Engagement has…
Leadership Is a Continuous Journey with Naina Desai
Often leaders reflect on moments in their lives that were significant in shaping their careers, or a lesson that they have learned somewhere along their journey. If given the opportunity, I believe most leaders would be happy to share those insights so that others can learn from them. I had the chance to speak with Naina Desai, Head of Revenue Growth Management and Bottler Strategy at Coca-Cola…
Leadership Interview: Go Beyond The Obvious with Anil Joshi
I sat down with Anil Joshi, an International Leadership Expert, to discuss all things leadership. Anil has a reputation of having a "global plug-and-play" mindset. He grew up in diplomatic circles so his cultural awareness, sensitivity, and experience started from birth and gave Anil an additional advantage as an adaptive business-driven inter-culturalist. Born in China in 1962, he has lived in…
Leadership Interview with Youssef El Aoufir, COO Intelcia
In my never-ending quest to discover the global perspective on emerging competencies required to lead in today's environment, I talked with Youssef El Aoufir, COO and Managing Director at Intelcia, headquartered out of Morrocco. As a leader in global talent management staffing, I was curious about how Youssef sees the future of leadership and the competencies that everyone should focus on, no…
Leadership Interview: Rethinking The Future of Work
In a recent conversation with Sandile Hlophe, Partner and executive leader with EY-Africa, we discussed some ideas around what the future of work could look like over the next few years. Even though this interview took place before the COVID-19 pandemic, I still believe the topic will be just as relevant as we emerge from the global disruption. Leadership Interview Summary JH: I am always…
Memorial Day Should Make Us All Better Leaders
Is Memorial Day weekend just another holiday, or does it mean something more to you? Put simply, the lessons we can learn about those we honor on Memorial Day should help make us all better leaders. While this weekend simply signifies a long-awaited prelude to summer for some, it is much more than that for others. As a veteran and lifelong student of leadership, I have always found Memorial Day…
The Neuroscience of Learning With Rapelang Rabana
The future of employee engagement can be influenced by how a company incorporates modern learning techniques into their own leadership development programs, training scenarios, and various other offerings that will bring a learning value to employees. In a recent conversation with Rapelang Rabana, founder of Rekindle Learning, we discussed how to pull learning techniques into the future.…
“Live in the Moment” With Hakim Marrakchi, CEO at Maghreb Industries
Hakim Marrakchi, CEO of Maghreb Industries, shared his perspective to Live in the Moment as the advice he would give his younger self. Even though Hakim is a very humble businessman and made it clear this advice given would be different for himself and differ from what he would give others. I still think these insights are powerful and worth sharing with you. Interview Summary HM: Start with a…
Talent Management and Preparing Leaders Correctly with Piet Hein Merckens
I recently sat down with Piet Hein Merckens, Former CEO of Aviko and leadership influencer to discuss a shocking talent management trend that was exposed in a 2018 global leadership survey... In this survey, the results stated that over 80% of CEOs say they do not have the talent within their organizations to execute upon their current corporate strategy. That is a tough statistic to try to wrap…
Candidate Management During a Crisis
I am no stranger to the challenges of candidate management during a crisis. I started my career in executive search right out of college over 13 years ago, so recruiting is work that I've always done and always loved. While in the second year of my profession the great recession hit and had a significant impact on my area of expertise including venture capital, and private equity-backed…
Leadership Interview: Awareness as a Way to Understand Impact
Many new executives come out of business school still unprepared with desired competencies when entering into potential leadership positions. I asked Naina Desai, Head of Revenue Growth Management and Bottler Strategy at Coca-Cola what her thoughts were on competencies that leaders should focus on to face the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous business environment we find ourselves…
The Impact of a Great Leader
I am always surprised by the impact that just one person can have on a team or an organization. In particular, the speed which that effect takes place. I have seen examples in multinational enterprises, where the appointment of a new CEO resulted in a change of atmosphere within a few weeks. This phenomenon happened not just to the people working closely with the CEO, but also with people who had…