What qualities do you consider essential in an executive today?

The most important quality in an executive is the ability to create a positive impact within the organisation. We are beginning to ride the wave of artificial intelligence without yet knowing whether we will reach the shore standing or completely soaked. That is why it is more important than ever to have leaders who bring judgement, experience and values, consciously connecting with the needs of the business and its people. Artificial intelligence already offers many benefits that we are taking advantage of, and its role will continue to grow. At the same time, however, it can diminish or even erase our ability to generate original ideas, with the result that everything leaders produce begins to look the same. We are already seeing this, for example, in LinkedIn posts: 90% appear to have been written by the same “person”.

Ultimately, it is about valuing the “human factor”: those irreplaceable qualities that make us unique and allow us to turn technology into results, commitment and progress for organisations.

What advice would you have liked to receive early in your career?

I was fortunate to have a great mentor and manager during my first experience in HR, and his advice helped me enormously. That said, what I would tell my younger self is: keep things in perspective, and do not take everything so seriously!

What talent do you consistently look for when building teams?

The first essential requirement is that they are good people-meaning that they bring a set of values and behaviours that contribute positively to the performance of the team and the company. Someone can be a good person without contributing professionally; I have yet to see the reverse. I then try to build teams with diverse talents that complement one another and add something different to what is already there.

Which talent priorities will be critical for your organisation over the next three years?

Farmak International is still a very young project-three years old-and we are in a start-up phase, growing extremely quickly at every level. We therefore need people who are motivated by taking on challenges, comfortable with-and enjoy-the uncertainty and variability of their work, and eager to help build the company’s foundations. I always tell candidates that we are looking for someone who, on entering a dense jungle, picks up a machete and cuts a path, rather than sighing and thinking, “At my previous company I had a lawnmower and everything was easier.” We deliberately seek this enterprising, adventurous and innovative spirit.

Which internal initiatives are you particularly proud of?

Farmak International is exceptionally diverse: it has offices in nine countries around the world; 22 nationalities among 300 employees; subsidiaries that recently started from scratch; and others acquired with an inherited culture more than 20 years old. The People & Culture department therefore launched the Bridging Cultures project with the aim of achieving a “Farmak International ONE” mindset: a company with great cultural diversity that converges around a common denominator.

The project’s main lever has been a cultural assessment using Cameron and Quinn’s OCAI model. It is helping us identify both the perceived and desired culture within each of our subcultures, prompting fascinating discussions about who we are and who we want to become. At Farmak, we want the journey of building our culture to be shared and to support our people appropriately.

How do you think leadership will evolve in the coming years?

In line with what I mentioned earlier, I believe the ability to lead consciously, from one’s own singular and differentiated thinking, will become increasingly important-and increasingly difficult to find. Leadership will also become less hierarchical and more influential: much more about auctoritas than potestas. Employees increasingly follow the person less for their title and more for their ability to build trust, consistency, meaning and credibility in everyday work.

Which skills will the executives of the future need to master?

I believe hard skills will remain necessary, but become less differentiating, and HR professionals will no longer have to swim against the tide to make the case for soft skills. Communication, influence and impact, critical thinking and abstract thinking, among many others, will be key-as they always have been-in the future.

What inspires you about the new generation of professionals?

Their ability to question the status quo, challenge ideas and stand up for their own views without the fear of disrupting hierarchies that shaped previous generations.

Which book, film or other reference has had an impact on you recently?

The Physics of Sorrow by Georgi Gospodinov. A fragmented and deeply personal account of the author’s experience in post-Second World War Bulgaria.

If you could sum up your professional philosophy in one sentence, what would it be?

Make it simple. We tend to complicate our lives with complex projects and solutions when what we truly need is much simpler.

What advice would you give a future HR executive?

Forget the HR manual you learned-the baggage we all carry-and think about what people, leaders and non-leaders alike, genuinely need in order to contribute at their best and drive the business forward.