Leader

Sustainability leader. Coalition builder. Board member.

Guiding teams, organizations and ecosystems to move from ambition to action. Most recently, in-house as Director Health & Sustainability (Europe & Indonesia) at Ahold Delhaize.

In today’s reality of constrained organizational resources and competing priorities, addressing environmental and social challenges is tough. Organizations that want to deliver progress often have a difficult time connecting business and societal interests. In addition, while an intention to do good is a great start, having the desired positive impact is not a given. There are many reasons for this, for example:

• Sustainability in isolation: failure to credibly integrate sustainability efforts within the broader strategy, brand and purpose of an organization.

• Counterproductive outcomes: poorly informed strategies can deliver results that actually (unintentionally) harm people or nature.

• Disconnected from society: sustainability initiatives that are not connected within an industry, community or society can create inefficiencies, ineffectiveness and undesirable overlap with existing efforts.

Fortunately, many organizations I’ve worked with have shown that complexities like these can be overcome. From my experience, it takes a team that is, among other things, able to:

• Create strategies that challenge the status quo in a critical yet constructive and positive way.

• Combine business sense (which includes knowing how to create value) with sustainability knowledge and systems thinking.

• Engage with stakeholders, enabled by a broad, relevant and diverse network.

• Demonstrate perseverance, resourcefulness and open-mindedness.

CONNECTING HEARTS & MINDS

A crucial enabler of the qualities above, is an ability to (and genuine interest in) building and nurturing meaningful collaborations and human relationships: both within and between organizations. Emotional intelligence and innovative communication skills are essential, in order to:

• inspire everyone involved about a goal to realize together;

• creating a spirit of collective progress among those already taking positive actions today;

• build a sense of purpose and meaning among everyone involved, regardless of their functional area, professional working level or geographical location.

The examples below show my leadership journey, putting all of the above in practice, in a chronological order. Currently, I’m actively involved in the first three of them!