Akkodis - Week Four Recap -CEO For One Month Switzerland

This is the final weekly recap of my experience as CEO for One Month, in Switzerland. For the final week, I had the pleasure of working with our global business unit - Akkodis. The week showcased various different aspects of running a business, mergers and acquisitions and essentially finding and establishing one's own career path. 

I was fortunate to spend the week with Dick Boreel, a former CEO For One Month, Alumni Marie Le Goaziou, the Human Resources Director, and finally Romain Meunier, the CFO of Akkodis. Each day brought many insights and takeaways that I will be able to take with me through my career. Through my interaction with all three people, during the week, I was able to understand the business operations, people impact, and financial implications and how the business, its people, and the finances need to cooperate in order to achieve success. 

I started off the week with Dick Boreel - and we spent a large part of the day discussing his journey as a CEO For One Month from the Netherlands into his role as Vice President of Akkodis Switzerland.  He also introduced the Akkodis brand to me and shared the history of Modis and Akka prior to the merger. We highlighted ways to pitch and effectively communicate ideas, ensuring you reach for the ultimate goal, although it might take time to get there. However, the emphasis was on the importance of having realistic and achievable steps that can be implemented from the get-go. Finding and identifying one's north star - staying true to your original vision, but finding ways to achieve this from the start. 

Dick also shared some tips for identifying what is the right choice for your own journey, especially in today's world where choice overload often leads to fatigue in all aspects of life. One way to minimise the risk of this is to identify and find out what you definitely don't want to do. Often I have been asked; “So what do you want to do”? Where do you want to go? And what is the next step on my journey? Oftentimes my honest answer is; “I don't really know quite yet”. However, typically I can almost certainly tell you exactly what I don't want to do, where I don't want to go. 

And so, in tune with his wise words, if you don't know what you want to do, define what you don't want to do and move from there. 

We looked at how to identify a market that is under consolidation and what this means for a business trying to become number 1 in their sector. Within this we discussed the importance of a strong relationship between the CFO and CEO and that common trust between either is essential in order to drive vision but also be challenged realistically. 

We ended our time together discussing the innovation challenges as part of the global CEO for One Month assessment; dissecting the various ideas I had come up with and looking at these through various lenses to better understand their implementation potential. 

We discussed the journey so far as this was my last week and what I still wanted to focus on in the remaining 4 days during which I was actively partaking in the business.

✨Key Takeaway : Just do it, create your own moments, and learn from those around you. Everyone has something crucial to offer you - it's up to you to find these pockets of knowledge and implement them for your own success. 

On Tuesday I headed to Geneva and spent the next two days with the human resource department and was able to gain access to the business from an HR perspective. What made this experience even more unique were the challenges faced by HR within a business that is undergoing or has undergone a merger and acquisition. 

This circumstance leads to challenges and opportunities that one must harness and overcome to benefit the business, your customers or clients, and your team. 

Rebuilding something with two existing parts is often harder than establishing a new part, culture or team. In these environments, proper change management is critical to ensure a smooth and successful transition. 

✨Key takeaway: Throughout the week, we spent quite a bit of time dealing with major shifts and changes and understanding the new process of the merged brands. I noticed, however, that the smaller, often simple and sometimes overlooked things can become complex tasks that must be addressed for proper operational functioning. Something as simple as The Post becomes a complex problem that, if not attended to carefully, causes disruption to the running of events. Luckily I was able to witness firsthand how to handle even the small details well!

I spent some time in the afternoon truly understanding our operational model and the various ways we can employ our consultants to clients and work together to achieve established projects or predetermined objectives to deliver our results and top performance. I got to understand the various pillars we deal with in Switzerland such as the Watchmaking industry, Banking, and life sciences. 

To end my week with Akkodis I was able to accompany Romain Meunier, CFO. The time we were able to spend together resulted in productive brainstorming and business planning sessions for the innovation project and a better understanding of the CFO role.

I was able to partake in meetings to establish a starter process for our freelancers, observed the financial analysis of one of the brands prior to the merger, and understood the process of valuing a business to assist in establishing the share price. In addition to this, the time aspect of a merger and what financial implication this has on a business over the transition phase was something interesting to witness.

As a leader, we also looked at the part leaders play in protecting the team. They are part of the whole but need to ensure that they continue to challenge and push for growth.  

Friday started with a call with Lisa Frommhold a former Global CEO for One Month. It was lovely to speak to Lisa about her journey with Adecco and the CEO for One Month Programme. Lisa was able to share inspirational learnings that I have implemented to reflect on this CEO for One Month experience. In addition to highlighting some aspects to consider for the innovation project that I had not previously thought of, we discussed the best way to showcase the value proposition of an idea in a concise yet concrete way. 

Lisa, through her own journey, reminded me that sometimes being raw and vulnerable is the strongest superpower we can use.

✨ Learning to take a step back and deciding if you are able to bring in a valuable contribution and that, as a leader, it is not always about being the leader, was a strong message I took away from this conversation. More so, it is about observing the situation and choosing the most appropriate role for the specific task at hand. This paired with showing up authentically as yourself and embracing who you are fully in all that you do were my key takeaways from this conversation. 

What matters is making sure to take a moment to pause, reflect and enjoy the present as Lisa shared: 

Our careers are marathons, not sprints; so take the time, identify the direction, and re-route if needed to ensure you have the energy left to complete the race. 

And with that, this phase of the marathon has come to an end. However, the race is not over!