This week, I had the pleasure of speaking with Anne Smith, the Talent & Development Lead across EMEA for the Kerry Group.

As a qualified leadership and executive coach, Anne has an impressive career of her own within the industry spanning the past 15 years with a breadth of experience in senior generalist HR management and leadership roles. She currently leads the talent & succession agenda for Kerry’s EMEA region, encompassing over 13,000 people through their Foods, Taste & Nutrition and Primary Dairy and Agri. Divisions.

This week’s episode is all about how businesses, both large and small, can benefit from leadership that focuses on their people. Anne explains that good leaders are those that truly believe that if you grow and develop your people, they will, in turn, help you develop a profitable business. She tells us that storytelling, personal connection and genuine curiosity are key attributes to help get the best out of your teams.

Through the episode, we discuss what talent and succession planning means and why it's so important for businesses. Anne gives great insight and expert advice on what great succession planning looks like, how to prioritise it and how building a succession strategy can help you identify potential future leaders.

Here are some key topics we discussed through the episode:

3.26 Key traits and attributes that have helped Anne along her journey

07:03 Anne’s ‘WHY’ and what good leadership looks like

12:52 Talen and Succession Planning: Why is it important?

22:33 How to keep a hold of team members and mitigate flight risk

28:23 Tips on what to look for when bringing talent in

30:20 Positive takeaways from the past 18 months

As ever, if you'd like to get in touch for any reason you can reach me at [email protected]

Enjoy Listening!