Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Speaker A: Sure, you can talk about efficiency, and efficiency has its purpose. However, business leaders are much more excited talking about effectiveness and elevating value. And that's the real opportunity. If HR can be in that space, not just to find efficiencies and right size, but rather to create new value, create new roles, that's a much more impactful opportunity, I think, for us.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: Welcome to a new episode of the what Works podcast series.
In this episode, Cathy Anderes sits down with Alim Dangi Chro at TD Synx to discuss his unconventional career path from HR to running business units and back. They explore how business experience shapes better HR leadership, the critical role of managers in organizational change, and how chros can lead AI transformation to drive both efficiency and effectiveness.
Let's get to it.
[00:01:03] Speaker C: Alim, welcome to the what Works podcast. How are you?
[00:01:07] Speaker A: Great to be here. Thank you for having me.
[00:01:10] Speaker C: Thanks for joining us. I'm so excited and looking forward to our conversation today. So, as we get in, tell me a little bit about yourself, Alim. What's your role and what are you doing today?
[00:01:21] Speaker A: I'm currently chief HR officer at a company called TD Synx. It's the world's largest technology distributor. We are in 50 countries with over 24,000 co workers. But my background has been rather unconventional. I would say. I've been in HR for about 25 years and in and out of HR. So I've gone into finance roles. M and A. I ran a dating app for. For. For a while and then most recently I was president of Adidas Canada. But each time I drew back to hr. I don't know if it was the FOMO factor or, you know, just the excitement of what's happening in. In HR that drew me back.
[00:01:59] Speaker C: Wow. Now to unpack this a little bit, because when we did our Chro study, we saw that a business background and actually being part of the business is one of the biggest success factors for chro. So how did you get into the business and how. How was it different and similar? How did it help you? Maybe with the Chrome role?
[00:02:20] Speaker A: If I look back to even before my studies, I think it's partly mindset. You know, I grew up in a very entrepreneurial family and born in Tanzania and then we came to Canada so that, you know, classical immigrant story of hustling and being resourceful. I think that that created part of the mindset that you need to be a good business leader. But since then, I think HR has drew me for the impact that you could have in an organization. I truly believe that the greatest potential of an organization is unlocking the human capital.
But having said that, you need to understand the full value chain in an organization and what kind of levers you should be pulling on. And so for me, right from the onset, it was, it was important to understand how a business works, what are the levers that are most important? And they change whether you're in a consulting firm or a startup or, you know, a public company. And so understanding those levers are really important. So I was always had a growth mindset, a really deep curiosity, figuring out how the business works and where the opportunities are. I think that that is really important. I've also had this sort of thirst for meeting people and understanding different cultures. And that provided me such a tremendous path throughout the last 25 years of living in so many different countries. Australia, Hong Kong, the uk, Canada, the us where I am right now. And it's given me a better understanding of how different economies, whether you're in a mature economy or an emerging market, how that shapes the value that you can create and what type of human capital strategies you need. So that's been sort of my mindset. But then ultimately, you know, I get this question asked a lot is how did you leave hr? And then why do you keep coming back? I don't think that that' a punitive thing. People always say, you almost broke out into hr. I think it's a privilege, a true privilege to be in hr. But I have to say that when I left HR several times, you get a perspective that makes you a better HR leader. What do I mean by that? You know, when I moved from being head of talent at Adidas and I was living in Germany and my CEO asked me to take over as president of Adidas Canada, I soon found myself receiving end of what I was pushing for other talent and what I once thought was brilliant. Now I get and say, okay, well my store managers have 30 minutes a week to digest content that's coming from marketing, from hr, from finance, from corporate security. So we cannot be pushing out these 30 page PowerPoints. It has to be simple, it has to be to the point, pragmatic. And it helps me to think a little bit more systematic and around driving change not only at the global level, but right down to the, to the immediate manager level. And so when I got back to hr, I do now look at programs differently, more pragmatically. So it's that perspective that you get from being in the business and being more commercially minded so that you can then create HR strategies that are that Much more impactful.
[00:05:15] Speaker C: I love that. Can you give us some examples how this impacted your HR work after you came back from being maybe the president at Adidas to hr?
[00:05:27] Speaker A: Yeah. One philosophical finding I guess you could say that I had was true change in an organization. It is created at the manager level. We'd like to think that we're all change leaders at the executive and senior leadership level. It's true, you do have to sponsor change, but true change happens at the manager level and the influence they have on those teams can be a make it or break it. So I've held strong to this belief that the most important role in the organization and the most difficult role the organization is actually a people manager role. You think about what's happened in the world over the last five years. The tables have been turned, right? There's lots of important work around social justice, the future of work, how people show up at the office. We're still living in turbulent times, economic uncertainty, there are wars, et cetera. We can't expect people to come into the office and just turn off their minds. So today's manager has to be much more empathetic, much more aware and understanding of what true human capital needs are. So that's one. But then customers are becoming increasingly more sophisticated and demanding.
And in this quest for operational excellence and change, be it AI or other factories, leaders are asking managers to show up differently as well. So there's this compression or confluence at the manager level. So we have to show up differently. And so that binding to me has really created a difference around what type of investments we need to be putting in place for our people managers and making sure that we're investing in the capabilities that they need in order to do their jobs. So at TD Synnex, we pride ourselves of being servant leaders, for example, and we're doubling down on the role of learning because if we invest in a more capable and a more future focused people manager, the dividends for our, our broader culture, our co workers and our vendors and partners, who we service externally and ultimately our shareholders are, you know, that kind of investment is very clear. So I would say learning is a critical component of what we're focusing on now is one example. Another example I would say is recruitment. You know, recruiters are the gate into the company and when you have the right type of recruitment happening, they are constantly upgrading the culture, upgrading the teams at every single hire. And far too often we've spent time to fail as a, as a catalyst. But it is really, I mean, you can't, can't take months to recruit someone, but at the same time, you have to make sure that the quality of hire is there and that the calibration is happening constantly.
[00:08:07] Speaker C: It's so important. And I love how you talked about the role of the manager. I just read an article a couple of weeks ago where it said basically you don't need managers anymore with AI, and we certainly don't subscribe to that. But how do you see the role of the manager changing?
[00:08:22] Speaker A: It's a great question. I certainly don't believe that the role of manager is diminishing in any way. I do think that AI unlocks technical knowledge, right? So knowledge that you might have had to go to school for a long time or just develop over a period of time is now available through various GPTs. And so I think what, what I've observed is that the managers that embrace AI and leverage it as a productivity enhancement create capacity. Let me go back a little bit. The one thing that I hear from managers over and over again through many years is that I just don't have enough time in the day, right? So yes, you want me to go to this learning program, or yes, you want me to do performance management, but I don't have time. And now I'm seeing that by leveraging AI, you're getting some of your other work done in a more productive and perhaps more efficient way that creates capacity for you to reallocate that time towards human conversations.
And so this is a really important distinction is how do you create capacity for yourself using AI in a better way?
[00:09:26] Speaker C: And how do you do that? How do you do it for yourself? And then how do you help managers do that for them?
[00:09:31] Speaker A: So we've got our own internal AI that we call Lara. And then of course, I use ChatGPT as well. We don't put any public or company information on ChatGPT. But for personally, you know, I'm planning a trip with my mother to Egypt and normally it would have taken me probably, I don't know, five or six hours to plan out the full itinerary. And I was able to put all my preferences, what her preferences are, the timing. And honestly, within half an hour I had a 95% itinerary that she absolutely loved. Right. So it's, it's a micro example of how you can become much more efficient but also effective because there were ideas that came out of that exchange with ChatGPT that I probably wouldn't have come up on with my own. But if you translate that, use case to work, whether you're preparing for a tough meeting, presenting on a complex matter. I think that that access to information is just more readily available and I'm able to create capacity through my day, which I can now spend more time, whether it's with interns or whether it's with the board members on more value creation opportunities.
So I think that the examples there are truly endless.
[00:10:43] Speaker C: Yeah, that's fantastic. And talking about AI, because I know this is kind of every company we talk with, of course we need to talk about AI. Where do you see this in the AI transformation, the role of the chrome, your role in this AI transformation?
[00:10:58] Speaker A: Yeah, it's such an exciting moment, I think for hr because HR can truly take the leadership position in the AI dialogue. You think about what Tracy's doing at Moderna and Chro over there and she's heading up technology.
Jackie Canney, what she's doing at ServiceNow. As CHRO and Chief AI Enablement Officer, I'm kind of following the same mindset, which is the CIO and I are very closely connected at the hip, if you will. Because this is not just about putting in the next generative AI agent. This is really about rethinking how work gets done. And so going back to my earlier example example around the value chain in a company from order to cash or whatever process you're looking at, the question now is how much of that activity could and should be done by an agent and how many agents are you going to have in your workforce and what must should be done by a human.
Sometimes work can be done by an agent, but you may make a strategic decision for that not to be because you want to maintain the personal relationship that today, based on current agents, you think a human might be doing better. A good example is recruitment. You know, you certainly have use cases there where an agent can complete the entire recruitment task from front to end. But we believe that we're going to optimize our recruitment capability through AI. But we do want to have a human conversation in that process. We don't want to completely go to high tech. So I think this is about making the right strategic choices that are commensurate to the strategic plan of the organization. And I believe that these choices, these trade offs, are going to become increasingly more important because they define competitive advantage for a company. So you can't just do it as a cio, you can't just do it as a chro. I think you've got to have a strong relationship with the both. And then ultimately it's a CEO discussion as well. And then I spent a lot of time with my CEO talking through how we were reimagining work in the age of AI.
[00:12:56] Speaker C: It seems like every single job is going to be impacted by AI, Right, every single job in hr, but then also of course outside of HR as well. And more and more I think as HR people we have opportunities to drive that work reimagining and support that because the business of course needs to be involved. And I come back now to your business experience. Being in the business, running parts of the business, did that help you? Is that one of the things where your business background really helps you on that?
[00:13:28] Speaker A: Absolutely.
There was a leader that once explained to me the difference with corporate people, corporate functions, being in the business versus on the business.
And it's interesting because when it's on the business it feels heavy, it feels compliance driven, it feels bureaucratic sometimes. And when you're in the business you share the pain and the pleasure of creating impact. And so I believe whether it was a startup experience or the dating app, or working at and Adidas in the P and L role, I have this thirst of being in the business and understanding where do we re engineer, where do we need to be high tech, where do we need to be high touch so that we can execute the company agenda. It's not the HR agenda exclusively. It is about how do we create value for the business that's sustainable and impactful. And you know, traditionally HR would look at operating models, we look at organizational structures, I think we'll still do that, but we're going to likely migrate much more towards redesigning work. Because if you have that person in marketing today that is using ChatGPT or another AI tool to automate the RFP process, all of a sudden they're going to find themselves 20 to 30% of more capacity. Now are they going to raise their hand and say are they going to move to part time work or should they be taking on something different or these are all the conversations that need to have. But HR is a unique position because we're able to engage in those discussions in a psychologically safe manner and understand how do you redeploy capacity so that it better supports the organizational strategy. What I found is that you can talk about efficiency and efficiency has its purpose. However, business leaders are much more excited talking about effectiveness and elevating value because you can't chase your way to the bottom line. You've got to grow the value and innovate and that's the real opportunity. If HR can can be in that space, not just to find efficiencies and right size, but rather to create new value, create new roles. That that's a much more impactful opportunity, I think for us.
[00:15:31] Speaker C: I love what you just said about efficiency and effectiveness because we actually have this 4e model of AI in HR impact where we talk about efficiency, employee experience, effectiveness and overall employee productivity. And AI in HR certainly can impact all four of them. I want to double back about your international experience because you said you lived in all these different countries or places. How has that helped you to become a better theater or a better HR person?
[00:16:03] Speaker A: I think at the highest level it's sharpened my appreciation for difference and inclusion. I know that's sometimes at the opposite end, but inclusion is important. But difference also helps you understand where there's different levels of creativity and where being different gives you competitive advantage. And so, you know, when I lived in Asia, for example, Hong Kong, the way that they approach work, it's hyper competitive. And during that era I was able to learn a lot more about how business gets done in that part of the world and bring those practices back to the western part and it creates more competitive advantage. So one is being inclusive, understanding the value of where difference can help.
Number three, I think it's being relatable as a leader. So if you're leading a global organization and you're only approaching it from one mindset, whether it's a mature market or not, because I've spent time in Asia, I can understand what the co workers in India are going through, what type of opportunities and pace of growth they're going to. You know, archegr in India is in the high double digits and so what they need in terms of support and resources is quite different than a mature market. You can be an armchair chro and I'm not saying that you can be ineffective, but I think you're going to be even more effective when you get out there. And yes, not everyone has the opportunity to live in so many countries. I understand that. But even in my role now, I am out at least every month to a different part of the world, whether it's in a different part of the US or down in Singapore. In a couple of weeks I'm going to be in the UK at the end of the month. It just gives you an appreciation of the local economics, the labor supply, what the socioeconomic opportunities are and you have conversations with your team that you just cannot have. You know, virtually all the time.
[00:17:58] Speaker C: You have this really great background of both having work in hr, but then in different parts of the business. Right. And also have this background of international experience, too. All of these are actually factors that we saw in our studies as well. Chro effectiveness. So to wrap it up, I'd love to ask you, what's your advice for first, the CEOs, people who want to become chros someday. So HR leaders who aspire maybe to the chro role and to people who are chros today, what is your one sentence of advice to these three different groups?
[00:18:35] Speaker A: I would say continue learning. I think it's. I know that sounds a bit pedantic, but the reality is, is that there's so much changing, whether it's in technology, whether it's in the markets, and some of these things that are happening in the world. There's no template for it. So you have to keep learning and surround yourself with people that you can learn from. I meet up with chros regularly to understand what they've gone through, and that's really important. But I actually think that it is now the era where CHROs become CEOs, and I think we've got such a tremendous opportunity to guide organizations in this new era of AI. And it's all about change and leadership. And when you think about Lena Nair, who went from Unilever to Chanel, and what Chanel has gone through over the last three years, she's at the top of her game. And it's so exciting to see that there are a number of people I can point to. So I think business acumen and really knowing how your value chain works and financial acumen will differentiate people for sure.
[00:19:36] Speaker C: It's so interesting that you said your CEO at Adidas sent you from being a chro to running as a president, that Canadian business. How. How does that mindset shift? What can HR people do if their CEO or their business leaders don't think of HR that way?
[00:19:56] Speaker A: So I have to say that is an anomaly that doesn't happen often. But the underlying relationship there with Casper was that there was a lot of trust, and he knew that I had a desire to learn, and so he didn't make it easy for me. So not only did I go from Germany back to Canada during the middle of a pandemic and a supply chain disruption, but he said, I'm going to have to go through the AMP program at Harvard as well, which is extremely intense, but I did that, and I was so grateful. I was so grateful for the opportunity. But to answer your question, it is a function of trust. Number one, establishing trust number two, it is declaring your interest and three your ability to invest in the learning that it's going to take. If you, if you go into that cross functional move with a mindset of I've already accomplished as a leader, then you're not going to be vulnerable enough to learn and you're not going to be vulnerable enough for people to come and help you. I found that to be very, very helpful and it was such an amazing opportunity that I'm grateful for, for learning, but also sharpening my ability as a leader. Wow.
[00:21:01] Speaker C: I love that. I love that. So I know we could talk probably for another few hours, Alim, but I want to let you go. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us. We covered so much ground. I really appreciate learning from you and with you on our what Works podcast. So thank you.
[00:21:17] Speaker A: Thank you for having me. It's been a wonderful conversation.
[00:21:22] Speaker D: And that's it for our conversation with Alim Dunji, Chief HR Officer at TD Synx, the world's largest technology distributor.
What struck me about our conversation was Alim's Engine insight that true change in an organization happens at the manager level. This reinforces what we are seeing in our research. The most successful chros understand that while executives sponsor change, it's those frontline managers who make every reality. We call them super managers.
What's also fascinating to me is how perfectly Lim embodies the profile of an effective chro that we identified in our risk research. His business experience moving in and out of HR roles, running P and L as a president at Adidas Canada, even launching a dating app, combined with his extensive international background living and working across multiple continents, mirrors exactly what our chro study found.
These experiences don't just make you a better HR leader, they make you a true business person who can drive organizational transformation. And in our AI driven future, chros with this kind of broad business acumen are going to be the ones leading their organizations to become super worker companies.
Thanks for listening to the what Works podcast. Until next time, keep exploring what works in your world.
