First Week as CEO for One Month
My first week as CEO for One Month has already gone. I am still processing all the information received that corresponds to 55 pages of notes taken. Too many notes maybe? It was a full week of on-boarding and integration that included getting to know different areas and roles which will continue to happen this week - why? Because there's so much to learn that even one month it's not enough to get to know the details about everything.
With all the perspectives from different people, I start to build a Blueprint with all the departments and how they relate with each other. It's interesting how each day the blueprint gets richer. The first two days were about building an overview, the big picture from the CEO's perspective. The following days were more focused on each department.
I spent the morning looking and analyzing the report with the montly results and got the chance to understand which are the most important KPIs - Key Performance Indicators - that better capture the performance for the HR industry and Adecco specifically. The afternoon was spent with the Director of Services & Development (the third woman in the picture above) that takes care of areas such as customer satisfaction (including both companies that look for colaborators and the candidates themselves) and other projects in the development of the business & IT solutions.
On Thursday I spent the morning with a KAM - Key Account Manager - manager of some important clients of Adecco. This was very valuable for me for two reasons:
- The KAM had 16 years of experience in Adecco which turned out to be a lesson of history about Adecco Portugal and how it evolved throughout the years.
- Got the opportunity to visit a Bank, one of Adecco's clients.
When we returned to the office, I met the CEO and the CFO of Spain responsible for Iberia and the Latin America markets. Got some minutes to put my spanish into practice and also met Miguel Castilho, the CEO for One Month of Spain which was good to exchange some thoughts about the program!
The rest of the day was spent with the Marketing Director (pictures below), an incredible woman with lots of energy, creativity and ideas to share. We talked a lot about the lastest marketing trends, programs and software used, and the marketing strategy of Adecco Portugal.
The last day of an intense week was quite different:
In the morning I had two meetings: one about GDPR and the impact on HR industry and another regarding the communication & marketing strategy of Adecco Portugal. I also spent the afternoon with our CFO - Chief Finance Officer in Adecco Portugal which resulted in some hours discussing and getting to know the numbers for each business area, analyzing balance sheets, profit & loses regarding this year data and strategies of the group and country operations. Having a background in Economics and Finance, it was quite interesting to review many concepts learnt during my Bachelor in Accounting courses applied to this industry.
Week 2 let's go!