Thought Behind Things · Jun 25, 2025 · 1:33:08
What a Croatian chief people officer learned about Pakistani talent
Ivana Bajamic, chief people officer at National Foods, on running HR for a fifty-five-year-old Pakistani exporter from Dubai — what the local talent actually has, what it is missing, and why the future is decided one talent-review conversation at a time.
with Ivana Bajamic
17 min read
A Croatian people officer in a fifty-five-year-old Pakistani company
The episode opens with Muzamil framing the conversation as one he had been waiting to have. He had moved to Dubai, noticed National Foods on the shelves of every store he walked into, and become genuinely curious about what a Pakistani consumer-goods company looks like once it stops being a Pakistani diaspora story and starts being an export business. The person running the people side of that transition is not Pakistani. She is Ivana Bajamic, originally from Croatia, currently the chief people officer at National Foods, and based in Dubai. She has been in the role two and a half years.
Ivana does not lead with her title. “I don’t lead through the title,” she tells Muzamil early on. “I believe I lead much better without one.” Her remit is two functions — people, which is what National Foods calls HR, and corporate reputation. The first is about belonging, retention, and the moments that matter inside the organisation. The second is about communicating with the right intent, internally and externally. She frames both as the human and reputational core of the company.
The personal anecdote that lands the role for her six-year-old daughter lands it for the audience too. The daughter had been invited to bring her parents in to talk about their jobs at school, found her mother’s description incomprehensible compared with the other parents’ beauty salons and personal training studios, and announced at the dinner table that her mother had “such a weird job.” Muzamil lets the line sit. It is a clean way into a function that most Pakistani SMEs still do not have a proper name for.
Fifty-five years, forty countries, and a strategy that is not about diaspora
National Foods was set up in 1970 by two unrelated families — Majid and Hasan — and is now led by the second generation of both. It is publicly listed. Ivana does not labour the financials, but she does share that the business grew about seventeen percent in net sales in the first nine months of the year, across both the local and international books, and exports to more than forty countries. The familiar geographies are there — GCC, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom — because that is where the diaspora is. But the strategically interesting part of her job, the part that explains why someone like her is in the role at all, is the rest of it.
“In our international arena, we are not talking only about diaspora,” she says. “The demand and the love in the markets for the ethnic food is incredible.” That is the wedge. National Foods is no longer just supplying Pakistanis abroad. It is selling to “open-minded foodies” and well-travelled consumers through mainstream channels — Morrisons in the United Kingdom, Costco in Canada, a Taste of Dubai pilot in Media City. To do that, the company runs a separate product range for international markets. Muzamil points at the sample masala packs she has brought to the studio. There are dedicated steak, burger and chilli masalas, plum chilli sauce, sweet chilli chutney, a crushed pickle that Muzamil says is a house favourite. None of these are the same SKUs as the Pakistani range. The chilli garlic, he notes, is the thing he takes with him whenever he travels — because the flavour is genuinely difficult to find outside Pakistan.
The point Muzamil draws out of this is a generalisable one for Pakistani exporters. Most Pakistani companies that go abroad sell to other Pakistanis. The Iranian and Indian restaurants in his American suburbs adapted; Pakistani ones tended not to. National Foods is one of the few trying to take Pakistan to the world rather than to a corner of the world that already knows Pakistan. That is what made him want to record this conversation in the first place.
Why she joined — and how she joined
Ivana spent close to twenty years in HR before this role, but she did not start there. She began in marketing at a Croatian fashion brand, asked her boss in the second year to spend two or three months on the shop floor during peak season, and discovered through the conversations with sales reps and customers that what she actually wanted to do was bridge the gap between the admin function and the business. From there the career went international — Boston, Barcelona, a German organisation in Adidas Group, a Brazilian poultry producer.
When the National Foods opportunity came, she was at a stage where the name of the organisation mattered less than the vision and the invitation. “I was making this decision,” she says, “the name of the organisation didn’t matter as much as when I was a young intern. It wasn’t about numbers of employees, it wasn’t about the revenue, it was about the vision and the passion of driving the business.” What sold her was meeting Abrar Hassan, the CEO, who she says had been pushing HR onto the decision-making table at National Foods since the 1970s. She was joining an organisation that, in her words, had already invited the function in. Keeping the seat at the table was on her.
There is a small revealing detail that Muzamil does not let slip past. National Foods had been working with an HR consultancy on the global expansion structure. The consultancy’s first recommendation to the board was not to design the structure. It was to hire the global head of HR first and let her help shape it. That is how Ivana got the call. The order matters. Most Pakistani companies try to globalise sales first and discover the people problem at the end. National Foods reversed the sequence.
Trust in HR was the first transformation — and the hardest
Asked what she walked into, Ivana is direct. The biggest initial gap was trust in the HR function itself. “Historically HR was having a head of a police,” she says, “which for me doesn’t make any sense, right? I mean, ultimately, the core of this function is to be a co-driver of the strategy.” She rejects the framing that HR is a support function. “HR is not a thing we do,” she tells Muzamil. “It’s a thing that runs our business.”
She does not approach culture work as transformation, she says. She approaches it as evolution. The DNA of the company is fifty-five years old, the founders’ philosophy is something she describes as beautiful and inspiring, and her job is not to overwrite it. Her job is to challenge specific boundaries in a respectful and constructive way and to be given the room to do that. The freedom to do that, she says, is something she will never take lightly. “It’s something you don’t even get the opportunity very often in multinational organisations.”
She is also explicit about the method. She does not believe in copy-paste from global best practice. The two things that bridge global frameworks and local traditions, she says, are deep listening and adaptive integration. She arrived without claiming to understand Pakistani culture. She paused. She listened. She brought her team into the conversation rather than handing them a finished policy from a closed office. The proof point she offers is the evolution of trust in HR over two years, and the way the leadership team — what they call the Mancom — now owns the people agenda alongside her.
What Pakistani talent has, and what it is missing
This is the section of the conversation Muzamil pushes hardest on, and Ivana’s answer is the most quotable thing in the episode.
What Pakistani talent has, she says, is the thing she cannot teach. “I cannot teach a hungerness, right, for the results. I cannot teach a value alignment. I cannot teach genuine care. That’s what I want to see.” The energy and the integrity people bring on board is what she appreciates most. Skills can be taught. Mindset cannot.
What it is missing is more interesting. “One thing that for me is missing more and more is that ability to pause from time to time,” she says. “Sometimes we are like hamsters, right? In that little wheel, and we are doing things that historically we are used to do.” The downstream consequence of that, she argues, is that people struggle to connect the dots — to see how what they personally do reflects on the outcome the business needs. They talk fluently about innovation and digital transformation but get uncomfortable when asked to tell the tangible story in their own function. She does not read this as resistance. She reads it as something that has not been taught.
She also names the structural backdrop. The economic situation in Pakistan is hard, the tax burden is real, hyperinflation has worn people down, and the biggest single risk to her people function is retention. “There is not one single visit that I have without someone approaching me saying, Hey, Ivana, my immigration papers came through.” Canada, the United States, Australia — whatever comes through first. She calls it a bittersweet feeling. She is happy for the individual; she does not want to lose the talent her team invested in. The response, she says, cannot be to take the back seat. It has to be career mapping, succession planning, and what she calls small wins — one of National Foods’ best sales talents now running a market in Canada for the company, the best finance person promoted to finance controller for the international division in Dubai.
Muzamil pushes on the cliché Pakistani-talent critiques — discipline, time, work ethic. Ivana does not take the bait. She reframes the question as generational rather than national. National Foods has roughly twenty-two percent Generation Z on staff and around fifteen percent Generation X, and she says the conflict between what each cohort wants is louder than any of the national-stereotype critiques. Generation Z wants purpose, inclusivity, visibility, exposure to leadership. The right answer, she says, is not to dismiss that as unreasonable. The world that produced the company-loyalty-for-fifteen-years model is gone, and she does not particularly want it back.
The day the CEO killed working from home
The single best story in the conversation is from her first day. It was 2 January 2023. She was sitting in the Dubai office and a company-wide announcement landed on her screen: no more working from home. “My heart skipped a beat for a second,” she says. She had had explicit conversations during the recruitment process about her stance. She nearly went in with a prepared speech. Instead she paused, took her boss to lunch, listened to him for an hour, and only then explained her side.
His concern was control — people abusing the system, no way to police it. Her counter was that COVID did not just change where work happens; it changed how work happens, and the leadership response has to change with it. The exchange ended with him telling her to bring back a hybrid proposal. That proposal is the policy National Foods runs today.
The principle she draws out of the anecdote is the one that scales. “When you don’t start with this narrative of I need to control you, I need to owe you, but it’s much more of the empathetic way of leading the organisation, I think people react better.” A few people will abuse the system. There need to be consequences for those people. But penalising the whole organisation to manage a minority is a leadership failure, not a workforce failure.
Performance culture, calibration, and calling a spade a spade
Muzamil pushes Ivana on the harder operational question — how, in a legacy Pakistani company with eight hundred and fifty full-time employees and thousands more seasonal operators across factories in Karachi, Faisalabad, Port Qasim and Nooriabad, does she actually measure whether anyone is performing.
The answer is process, but the process is in service of a cultural shift. Every back-office employee has KPIs set at the start of the year. Mid-year there is a talent review where line managers evaluate against skill set, potential and next career step. The leadership team then runs a calibration cycle — Ivana sat through every conversation in her first one. What she found was that people were genuinely uncomfortable calling a spade a spade. They took underperformance personally. They struggled to point at someone who was not delivering and say so. Four weeks of conversations went into raising the bar — agreeing as a leadership team that what used to be “meets expectations” five years ago was not enough today.
She is careful, though, to keep the framing human. “Talent is not process-driven,” she says. “It has to be human-driven.” If the international division promised ten percent market share growth in sauces and supply chain disrupted the plan, she is not going to hold an individual seller responsible for the macro. Flexibility is invited into the process. The process is just the scaffolding.
The mechanism she is proudest of is a monthly people meeting where the leadership team talks only about people topics. One of her team members told her early on that she was being over-transparent — sharing too much of the bad news. She disagreed. “I do show, you know, bad facts. I do expose problems because I need us to attack those problems together.” She is not interested in being the leader who solves people problems in isolation. She is interested in the leadership team owning the culture together.
Diversity is a behavioural practice, not a slogan
Muzamil raises the obvious question — gender and the Pakistani workforce — and Ivana opens with a warning. “Diversity became a buzzword. I wouldn’t be surprised if people start rolling their eyes and stop listening to your podcast.” Her answer is to talk about what National Foods actually does, not the framing.
The example she chooses is the company’s first female apprentices programme in STEM. Twenty-plus young female scientists were brought into the Faisalabad factories this year. Before they arrived, every line manager went through gender-sensitisation training. The code of conduct and anti-discrimination policy are non-negotiable. There is an Integrity at Work hotline for anyone to use. The CEO flew to Faisalabad to welcome the cohort in person. She had expected the new joiners to be quiet and a little intimidated. They were the opposite. “They were outspoken. They were hungry. They wanted to be seen. They wanted to stand up.”
There are two adjacent points she makes that are easy to miss. The first is that National Foods runs family-friendly policies, not female-friendly policies — because the load on dual-career families is a partnership question, not a women’s question. The second is that she is allergic to the perception of positive discrimination. “It’s a very sensitive point,” she says. “We need at all costs to avoid the perception of positive discrimination. For National Foods particularly, it’s about the right candidate. If we have the right candidate or two right candidates, only then the gender is going to play its role.”
The advice she ends this section with is the one she would give to any young Pakistani woman in the workforce. “Don’t try to blend in. Stand up.” And then, more pointedly: “I want your work to speak louder than your passport.”
AI, S/4HANA, and a deliberately patient digital roadmap
Asked about AI and digital transformation, Ivana does not oversell what National Foods is doing. The company is at the start of that journey, she says. The foundation work — implementing SAP S/4HANA — is ongoing. A new IT leader joins in June with digital transformation as one of the main mandates. The board supports it. They are nowhere close to ready.
What they have started is small and within her own function. She wanted the people team to be the first to adopt — partly competitive, partly because it is safer to learn by doing inside HR than to push it onto operations first. They are piloting talent acquisition solutions, outsourcing repetitive administrative work, and looking at a chatbot for factory floor populations.
Where she lands philosophically is closer to the Muzamil framing than to the standard corporate one. She does not think AI replaces people. She thinks it should free the organisation up to use that human capacity for things that matter more — culture, leadership, judgement. “That cannot be outsourced to AI,” she says. “Whatever, presentation making, data analytics — that’s incredible. How about we modernise our entire operations and manufacturing facilities with new tools, new systems, and we use a skillset of those people into something else a bit more meaningful?” The work National Foods is starting now is on educating the organisation about ethical AI use — including young people in schools and universities — rather than fighting the change.
What Ivana would tell Pakistani companies trying to globalise
Muzamil asks the question that frames the whole conversation. If a Pakistani company — MNC or SME — is hungry to globalise itself, especially in services and exports, where should it start? Ivana laughs at the inevitability of her answer. “I would be putting myself in the foot if I don’t say a people function.”
But she does not stop there. The starting point, she says, is an honest conversation at the board level about how willing the ownership actually is to invite a different opinion into the room. She had that conversation in her second and third rounds with the chairman and CEO. She told them she would speak up. She told them she would voice opinions, talk about problems, push on things they might find uncomfortable. She told them it was fine if they did not feel ready for that, but they needed to sleep on it before saying yes. The chairman jokes with her now that sometimes he has to leave the office and sleep on what she has just told him before he can respond. She loves it.
The way forward, she says, is a blend. Diversity in ethnicity makes the organisation more resilient, more innovative, more human. She is also explicit that her preference is to grow local talent first and only tap the global market when there is a genuine skill-set gap that does not exist in Pakistan. National Foods’ new head of international sales is a foreigner who moved from the UK with mainstream-channel experience the team did not have. That is the right reason to hire a foreigner. Wherever the skill exists in Pakistan, the role goes to a Pakistani.
Pakistan in twenty-five years — and the one variable that decides it
By the end of the conversation Muzamil asks Ivana the question he asks most guests. Where does she see Pakistan in 2050. She calls it a billion-dollar question and is honest that she is still in the early stages of forming a view. But she gives a clean answer anyway.
“I really think it’s going to come down to the level of openness,” she says, “of inviting people who know, right? People who understand.” She uses her CEO as a small example — someone who knows agriculture deeply, who could contribute to broader country-level conversations on the sector if invited in. The intellectual capacity exists. National Foods recently sponsored the first Pakistani conference at Harvard, and Ivana says the conversation, the quality of debate and the level of care from young Pakistanis who want to come back and contribute was the most hopeful signal she has had in years. The question is whether the country gives them the space to do it, and whether they are invited back earlier in their careers rather than after retirement.
The book recommendation she leaves Muzamil with is consistent with the leadership stance she has held all conversation. Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek and Dare to Lead by Brené Brown. Authenticity, courage, intent over appearance, vulnerability, empathy. None of it is novel. All of it is rarely practised at the top of Pakistani companies. The episode closes with Muzamil thanking her — and saying he hopes National Foods outshines its global ambitions, because what helps National Foods helps Pakistan.
Full transcript
सालों, ख़ाबतीनों, आज़रात. Welcome back to another episode of thought behind things. आज की conversation बहुत सारी ऐसी दरमियान में आती है but आज की भी एक ऐसी है जो कि completely English में होगी क्योंकि जो मेरे guest हैं, जो मेरी guest है she is not a पाकिस्तानी but is working for one of the biggest पाकिस्तानी companies. थोड़ा सा इनके बारे में अगर मैं आपको बताऊं तो she is originally from Croatia. She is working as the chief peoples officer at National Foods. अब National Foods एक ऐसी चीज़ है जो कि आप सब ने कहीं ना कहीं देखी हुई है. You've interacted with it, you've consumed it लेकिन वह इतनी effortlessly पाकिस्तानी है कि ज़्यादा उसके बारे में लोग सोचते भी नहीं हैं. मैं जब यहां पर Dubai में आया तो I found out every store had national foods और जो scale है, जो size है, it's absolutely phenomenal. They have a global footprint. They have a huge, you know, export market as well and particularly क्योंकि मैं recently export के ऊपर बहुत focus भी कर रहा हूं, मैं उसको देख भी रहा हूं. So I was curious to see कि अगर एक पाकिस्तानी company अपनी global footprint बनाती है वह जाकर के पूरी दुनिया में export करती है. So what does that look like? What does that mean? And for that we have इवाना बायामिक from National Foods, the chief peoples officer. Thank you so much for being part of the show. Thank you for having me today. I hope I pronounced the name correctly.
Well, living in Dubai I can tell you five different pronunciations. I'll take this one. In reality, it's Bayamich. Bayamich, nice. So I'll start off with just trying to understand what do you do? What's the role?
Tell me a little bit about, you know, what what you're up to at National Foods. I don't lead through the title. I
believe I lead much better without one. And why is that? Because for me, what really matters is the way I show up, right? It's the intent that I bring to the environment of national foods. It's the trust I'm trying to build, right? With my team, with my colleagues, with the shareholders, and ultimately the impact that I'm going to create regardless of hierarchy. Now, having said that, of course, I'll go back to the question you asked and what is that job all about. So there are two functions under my leadership today. One is people or traditionally known as HR, and the other one, more recent one, is called corporate reputation. So what does it mean in its core? It means that my day to day, whatever I do, it's about taking care of a human and reputational core of the company. That is, you know, part of every conversation I have with people. That is the way we want to lead people's experiences in nationalhow do we create that sense of belonging, right? How do we give people meaningful reasons to join us, to stay with us? And ultimately, how do we create those moments that matter? For me, that's what people side is all about. On the reputational side, it is how do we make sure we communicate consistently with the right intent, right? And how do we drive that trust, again internally and externally? And it's actually funny, just want to share a quick anecdote with you because I have a daughter. She's... She just turned six. And approximately six months ago, at her school, they started inviting parents, right, to talk about their professions. And I love to be part of that community. I go to the school a lot. This time around I wasn't even invited. And she came home and she said, Look, mommy, I've been to your offices. I know you're working on laptop, you're buying stuff on laptop. But what is that you really do? Right? And I tried to explain her in a very simple language, and she looked at me and she's like, Why you cannot have a normal job like all other parents? I said, What do you mean? And then she tells me, you know, This mom has a beauty salon, this dad is a personal trainer, doctor, whatever that is, right? And you have such a weird job, I cannot even understand. So I think that, in a nutshell, explains what I do every day. Historically, you've had a career in HR before you came to National Foods.
Is is the current role similar to or or an extension of HR? Because, again, it's it's it's a fairly new role, at least the way that you sort of title it or or National Foods titles it. Is there an extension of HR?
It's a core of HR. Okay. Right? So people people is a name that we use in National Foods for DHR function. Right. And then corporate reputation would be a standalone separate function. And the reason why I've been given, you know, a very humble opportunity of leading both is because for me, the corporate reputation pillar starts with the proper communication, right? You cannot drive engagement internally or externally without the proper communication. You cannot drive the culture you want to drive. So it was just, again, very unique and very lucky opportunity for me to expand that scope outside of HR as well. Makes sense. How long have you been with National Foods? It's been two and a half years. And it's funny because I still sound fairly new, but that's actually not the case anymore. Makes sense. Tell me a little bit about the history of National Foods and
again you know most पाकिस्तानीs they interact with at least one aspect of of of the company whether it's अचार, whether it's some sort of a sauce or a ketchup But it's interesting. I I actually, you know, when we were setting this up, I actually messaged a few friend friends of mine, I asked them, know, what do you know about the company? And they said they named all the products, but they don't really know a lot about what's happening behind the scenes. And so tell me a little bit about the history of the company and the current scale of operations.
So, I will start by saying that NFL has a beautiful history of fifty five almost fifty five years. It was established back in 1970 by two partners - two families who are not related, two partnersfamily Majid and family Hasan. And today it's led by the second generation of both families. It is publicly listed, I'm not going to share with you all the boring statistics. But I do want to share with you the most recent developments and kind of the focus areas as we speak of the organization. So, looking only, you know, in the first nine months of this year, we grew only, you know, this year of around 17% in terms of net sales, and that's both our local business and international business. What's very unique is that we covering 60 - we are covering 40 plus countries in the world through our exports with a focus, of course, understandably so, on GCC, Canada, US, UK because of a large diaspora. But what's very exciting and one of the reasons why I've been invited to join the organization - it's still very difficult for people, right, to connect my face to national foods - is because in our international arena, we are not talking only about diaspora. For anyone who's not foodie as much as I am and who's, you know, who doesn't have this as a part of their everyday, The demand and the love in the markets for the ethnic food is incredible. And what does it mean? It means that our, you know, potential consumer range increased. We are talking today about open minded foodies, we are talking people who are well traveled, who like to experiment with things. And I remember in my first week when I joined, there was a Taste of Dubai event here in Media City, And there was a chef in the office, you know, preparing and experimenting with some of our products that you can see here - our masala range. These are the new ones that are coming up. These are the new ones. So today we have a separate product range for the international business. We have beautiful sauces. I think that chili one is absolutely my favorite. Plum is incredible. I'll give it to you to taste it so that I don't sound very biased. Right. Mean, I can see the particularly the masala skin. Yes.
It's basically essentially a mix - masala steak, masala burger, masala Correct. This is exclusively
for the international market or is it available locally in Pakistan as well? So, what you see here these are products exclusively for the international markets because we don't just launch the products, right? We want to understand our consumer, we want to understand their needs, we want to understand their taste palate, and this is what differs. Of course, some of our key products like recipes, like spices tend to be very, very similar. In terms of sauces, and especially because one of our main objectives is to penetrate the mainstream. Today, are present at Morrisons in UK. We are working with Costco in Canada. We've worked on different pilots with different mainstreams. And we believe that this is, you know, a winning range for us moving forward, along with our crushed pickles that you have to try. This is just one version I could bring here. I came with two bags and I couldn't fit everything. Nice. But just want to give the opportunity to everyone to try it and to speak for themselves. Now the crush pickle, definitely... I mean, that's a that's a house favorite that we have here.
In terms of the chilli garlic and the red chilli sauce, these are two because I've I so, I mean, chilli garlic is, you know, whenever I travel all over the world, I I there are certain staple things from Pakistan. There's tea. The पाक्षानी tea has a particular flavor. I personally use the the the powder as well with the tea, I take that with me. Then there's the chilli garlic, and that has to come with me. Because particularly because chilli garlic is contrary to my expectation, it's not widely available in the world. You know, you have a lot of ketchup, and then you have, like, a lot of hot sauce, but chilli garlic is is fairly unique to Pakistan. You have a couple of these red chilli sauce and the chilli garlic sauce. Correct. They look the same inside. So what's the difference?
So the difference is in the ingredients, right, that we are putting in there. There is a sweet chili chutney here, a plum chili sauce. I don't know if you noticed in your traveling, chili became... It's not that people are experimenting with it, but it became a staple in so many different things. I don't know if you have tried a honey chili Chile Yeah, in And there are so many things, you know, that today consumers are willing to try and to experiment, and this is what we were trying to achieve with this range. Right? And that that's why you see seven, eight different, types of types of sauces, but with that specific recognizable flavor of national.
Makes sense. Makes sense. And I can see the branding as well. It's very sort of globalized. And so one of the most interesting things that I've... For me, in all of this is the idea that you wanna go beyond diaspora, which is something that a lot of पाकिस्तानी companies struggle with. They're, I mean, Pakistan is a huge population with the fifth largest in the world. But more often than not, पाकिस्तानीs tend to target पाकिस्तानीs even with a lot of पाकिस्तानी restaurants all over the world. I, my family is in The US. I've I've I've I've traveled there extensively. You know, you you see Irani or Indian or a lot of other restaurants and they've sort of globalized themselves and they've made it, you know, very sort of गोरा friendly and international friendly. Right? But पाकिस्तानी tend to just sort of stick to their own community. What you're doing here now with is you're taking Pakistan to the world. And that also again for the viewers, the reason why I I was excited about this conversation is because more often than not, don't find non पाकिस्तानीs working in पाकिस्तानी companies. You need the mind, you need the thought process. And so I'm I'm curious to understand in the last two and a half years, how has that evolution been since you've joined in terms of bringing the, you know, the Think Global Act local, in terms of bringing the, bringing your expertise and your experience to National Foods? And if you could sort of touch upon what you were doing before National, and where what were all of the places that you worked at,
that'd be great as well. Well, I try not to give a very long answer because now it's been almost twenty years and it's a scary thought when I start thinking about the entire course of my career. But I actually haven't started in HR. I started in marketing. Just because as a fresh graduate, I didn't really know what the world was all about. And I worked for some very cool fashion brands, and I remember going through my first year, second year, and it was fun, right? It was nice. It was a great environment. It just didn't feel right for me. I didn't feel fulfilled. I wasn't excited about it. And I'm all about energy, right? I'm all about creating that, you know, purpose and just being very mindful how I spend my time. And in that same organization, I remember asking my boss - because again, I was very young - I said, Hey, for me to be able to be a better marketeer, can I spend maybe $2.03 months of our high season on the shop floor? Right? I want to understand the consumer better. We didn't have a bunch of money, right, for all the reports, for Nielsen, etc. We said, Let me engage with people who are coming to our stores. And throughout this process, I started talking to the sales reps. I, you know, I had a feeling I could kind of help on how to approach our customers and partners. We started talking about, you know, or at least I started thinking how do we reward them properly with the sales incentives? And it felt like someone put a fire under my chair. And I know it can sound like a very small thing, but I started enjoying. So fast forward, this kind of brought me to realization that that's what I want to do. I want to be part of HR. And another thing was the fact that we did have kind of the admin type of a department in the organization, but it worked in a complete detachment from the business. I'm like, imagine how wonderful it would be to bridge that gap, right? And for HR to really understand pain points, pros and cons of every position, being able to partner with them. So I jumped on that sheet. And this organization was in Croatia? Yes, that organization was in Croatia. I was... I am a very proud Croatian woman. I never thought I'm going to leave my country - probably like a lot of Pakistanis right And back it just happened. So, I left Croatia in 2008. So it's been a while now. I lived in Boston, in US. I lived in Barcelona, in Spain. I worked for German organization, Adidas Group. I worked for Brazilian organization, Brazilian poultry producer. So I like to say that I've seen a lot in the terms that I've set on the global teams like I'm doing right now. There's no head quarter in the role who will tell me what is the right next step. I sat in the regional role and had to work, right, with the global teams. I sat on the global project teams. So, I felt that when the opportunity of national came, although it was a very nontraditional career move, I felt I do have a competitive advantage as someone who can put myself in the shoes, right, of people in different roles and who knew how to kind of drive that agenda. Now, I don't believe in a copy paste approach. I don't believe it works. So when people tell me, you know, How did you manage to apply those global best practices? I don't think I did. And what do I mean by this? I think that the key to successful, you know, merger for global practices and the local traditions is in two things: in a deep listening and adaptive integration. And what do I mean by this? I've been in Dubai and the cultural diversity is, you know, almost my second nature. So it wasn't weird from that side. But I would never claim that I knew or understood Pakistani culture, right? I never claimed that I knew enough about, you know, traditional norms, society norms, unspoken traditions that are deeply rooted in your origin. So I literally paused and listened, and gave enough time to myself to learn and to kind of understand what to do now with those information. And of course, I came with that kind of global knowledge, global language of business if you wish. And then what became very clear to me is that I cannot succeed in isolation of everyone else. So, my approach is very much empowering and bringing my team on board and being my colleagues on board, right? To say, Hey, let's engage in a dialogue, let's co create, rather than being that head of HR, right? Coming with a solution in the closed office and just expecting it's going to be implemented. It won't. So I'm measuring this because what I've seen in the last two years is, number one, the evolution of trust towards HR, which for me, it's probably one transformation I'm the most proud of. And I don't take for granted the fact that I do have so much support from my colleagues and my team. And second, I see... Know, my colleaguesand we call this a Mancom, a leadership team or a MancomI see them starting owning a people agenda much more in a way that's really driving the evolution of the overall culture. People might say, you know, and you hear people saying we need to transform. I don't feel the same way. I think we have to evolve, right? Because we have a beautifully rooted tradition in our DNA, we have a beautiful, inspiring founder's philosophy. That by bringing innovation in slightly different ways of working and kind of... It's about challenging those boundaries in a respectful and constructive way. And the fact I've been giving freedom to do that is something I will never take lightly. And it's something you don't even get the opportunity very often in multinational organizations.
Makes sense. Couple of things have you been to Pakistan? Oh, yeah, I'm there on a monthly basis. Nice. So, what old did you? Is it like Karachi?
Our head offices are in Karachi, but we also have the newest beautiful state of art factory in Feislabad. Not sure if I'm pronouncing it completely correctly. You're actually pronouncing it quite well. Thank you. People will be pleasantly surprised. And we have factories in Port Kassim and Nuriabad, where our salt factories.
Nice. So you and you've visited all of these Absolutely. Places as Absolutely. I'm curious. You mentioned transformation, and mostly when people use those terms in corporate or or or or MNCs. They're generally looking at digital transformation or they're looking at, you know, restructuring the way that the organization sort of works. With HR, I'm curious what does the what what would transformation mean, particularly in the context of globalizing the organization. Yeah. And then I'll follow that up with I'm I'm trying to understand how you found the the talent from Pakistan, particularly. I mean, obviously, you're looking at a lot of global talent as well. But for the talent that is in Pakistan, what has your experience been in terms of your own experience in other organizations? And it's important to mention here the other organizations were huge. Right? So the the Brazilian poultry company, my understanding is that had, like, over a 100,000 people working there. Correct. Adidas is Adidas. Everybody knows that. So in a lot of ways, compared to that, this is more of a more more of a startup environment, and you're basically building or or or creating the structures for the next phase of growth.
So what what was your experience with the local talent? Oh, there are so many things. I want to share this because it's really exciting. But let me just start by saying that I am at a stage of my careerand two years ago when I was making this decision, I was at a stage of my career that, for me, the name of the organization didn't matter as much as when I was, you know, a young intern. It wasn't about numbers of employees, it wasn't about the revenue, it was about the vision and the passion of driving the business, right? And something that really stood out for me when I, got interviewed by my boss today and the CEO, Mr. Abrad Hassan - he doesn't allow me to call him Mr and I don't. So Abrad Hassan, was... That he's one of the pioneers of HR in national foods, right? He spoke and started implementing this back in 70s, if I'm not mistaken. So, you know, I knew I'm joining the organization which is going to invite HR on the decision making table. Whether we are going to keep that position or not depends on us or on me in this case, right? But that trust and that invite has been there, right? So it's a beautiful starting point. I think, you know, traditionally, HR is still in a lot of organizations in Pakistan and globally seen as a support function, right? We come into the room a decision is already made, I'm very, very proud to say that's not the case in Pakistan. First of all, what I would like people to understand, and I want to drive them a bit through my experience, I remember again making decision whether to join and make that, you know, take a leap of faith, I guess. I, you know, I went to visit our head office in Karachi, I went to visit our factories, and I rememberand I didn't know what to expect, right? I haven't worked in Karachi before. I visited the north part of the country through my friends. They were getting married and I had a blast, right, visiting there, but it's a very different purpose. And I remember entering, you know, the office premises, and my first thought - I'll never forget that moment - was if I didn't know I was in Karachi National Foods, this could be any organization in the world, right? In terms of very contemporary working environment, in terms of systems, in terms of toolsso that was kind of that first perception. Going through onboarding, you start talking to people, etc. As I mentioned before, the initial challenge that I wasn't even feeling, you know, uncomfortable about was the statement that people didn't have a lot of trust in HR. And I think that came from the fact that historically HR was having a head of a police, which for me doesn't make any sense, right? I mean, ultimately, the core of this function is to be a co driver of the strategy. And someone asked me in the very early days What does it mean, right? What are you talking about? What is this, you know, theory you're describing? And I try to take a very simple example and, you know, let's call... Let's talk about a process of workforce planning. There's a business strategy, these are positions that you need to fill. You can do it in two ways, right? You can say, Okay, give me a job description, I'll go to the market, I'll bring a candidate, and that's it. We can actually sit with the business and genuinely want to understand what they're trying to do. We were talking about global expansion - it doesn't come easy, right? There is a very different skill set, there is a very particular skill set. It's not the same to work with the ethnic or traditional trade, the way we call it, versus the mainstream. You know, we had to look into the structure. Is it the future proof? Do we have the basics for growth? So, it's not really a supportive function. It's called strategy, right? So, I was joking with my colleagues. I always say that HR is not a thing we do, it's a thing that runs our business, right? So I still feel that there is a lot of responsibility in the hands of us as the HR professionals. And ultimately, it's almost us deciding whether we want to have that, you know, backseat role or we want to make the impact. And for me, it's always about being intentional and making that impact. So I went in, I asked questions, I tried to understand the business. I think it really helped with the fact I came from a manufacturing environment because it's very particular. It helped that I was part of commercial teams in the future. It helped that I can understand P and L and everything else. But I think what, again, makes such a huge difference is that authenticity in the approach, right? So I really try to humanize HR and encourage, you know, people to be a bit more courageous with speaking up the truth. And again, I was given a space and I think that was absolutely a key here. Makes sense. You mentioned HR being a support function. That's
that's fascinating. Because in Pakistan and and this is something that I've personally experienced as well. There are a lot of small and medium enterprise companies, you know, anywhere between 50 to 500 people. And either they wouldn't have HR, or even if they would have HR, the HR would I mean, support is still you'll you're being gracious with it. Right? And and it's in in in Pakistan, beyond the sort of big corporate organizations... And Pakistan, by the way, 70% small and medium. And it's a huge country. Again, I'll I'll I'll repeat that. You have 250,000,000 people. You have 5,000,000 people entering the workforce every year, and you have to sort of create jobs for them. People are what drive Pakistan and what will drive Pakistan. And for a lot of, पाकिस्तानी youth, they're looking at, jobs and they're looking at services, particularly in terms of exports as well. And so the raw material then ends up becoming hewns. Right? And and and how well you're able to educate them and how well you're able to train them, and how much can you facilitate maximum productivity. And this last particular statement is where I see a lot of conflict in Pakistan, where organizations want a certain, benchmark of productivity, and the talent more often than not fails to deliver it. And so because there is that conflict, they're both fighting each other. And for me, that's, it it's it's a curious thing for me because if someone is not performing, there is a there is a process of learning and development that you can, impart and have them perform. It's it shouldn't be that complicated, but I understand humans are complicated. So I'm so, again, the first thing I wanna understand is what was your experience exclusively with the पाकिस्तानी talent? What were some of the, let's say, the weaknesses, the things that in your experience were present in global talent that you found missing in the Pakistani talent? And then tie that up for me with how you were able to create an environment or processes of learning and development to sort of inculcate in a systematic manner the global benchmarks of how people should, should sort of function within the learning and development at National Foods.
So you mentioned humans are complicated, which I tend to agree, but I also want to acknowledge that circumstances in Pakistan are complicated for people, right? Needless to say, economic situation doesn't help. Last two years, there has been a hyperinflation environment. A tax burden is real, and I think the biggest challenge is for sure growing and retaining the talent, right? Now, you asked me before how often do I go to Pakistan? I go mainly to Karachi. I used to go twice per month. Now the team is much more solid, built, you know, self sufficient. So I go probably every two months. And still, there is not one single visit that I have without someone approaching me saying, Hey, Ivana, my immigration papers came through. You know, I'm taking my family be to Canada, to US, to Australia. Sometimes it's whatever comes first, right? And obviously, it creates a lot of frustration. It's actually a bittersweet feeling because you're kind of happy for the individual who's getting the opportunity for what he or she thinks is going to be a better lie, but you don't want to lose that individual. You kind of invested the efforts in And my team comes andnot complains, right?but just expresses their frustrations. And I always say that it's not a unique situation for National Foods. It's a situation that every single organization is experiencing. So I still don't want to take a back seat saying, Well, that's our reality and there is nothing we can do about it. Because we can, right? And we did. And that's what I want to talk to you a bit more about because we didn't jump straightforward into compensation. We did a lot on that front, really trying to ease the burden for our people. But we went into the mode of revamping our talent practices. We started talking extensively about performance culture. We started, you know, the conversation of how do we differentiate talent. People still come and talk about job security. I like to talk about performance culture, right? Because one without the other, just doesn't make sense. We started doing a career mapping, you know, we started talking about succession planning, etc. With the aim of kind of showing the light at the end of the tunnel or at least showing the lips of hope that if people do decide to stick around for various reasons, there can be a better tomorrow for them. And for me, it came down to small wins. And what do I mean by this? One of our biggest sales talents in Pakistan is now in Canada, driving a sales market there, doing a fabulous job. Our best finance talent moved to Dubai to be a finance controller for our international division. And of course, we want to continue with this approach. So, we started talking about a concept of reverse mentoring, right? And I do that on a very informal basis, and let me tell you, that's a very interesting process that teaches you a lot of humility, right? We didn't implement it kind of officially and formally, but it's one of our objectives for the next year. So despite, you know, everything that's happening around us, I still want us to be that, you know, purposeful, empathetic working environment that does whatever we can do for people to stick around. Now, to answer your question, what I feel there'sit's missing? Or what feel that, you know, we need to develop? I spent a fair share of my career in talent acquisition, right? And I'd have to start by saying that I believeor for me personallyis the most exhausting, part of HR is the most strategic, and very often the most unpreciated, right? You give everything you have to that candidate to kind of help him put a pieces of puzzle together and help drive that experience. And what I always look for, I take a CV, I read it, it was Okay, interesting. And then I turn it on the other side, right? A blank page. Because for me, it's always much more about a mindset, right? I want to be able to see your ability to learn to unlearn or unlearn to relearn. Because things are changing. We spoke earlier, you know, people come from big multinationals like I did. They come with a PowerPoint, right? Presentation of the strategy, and this is what we're going to be doing. I think they're on the wrong path, right? So that ability of connecting different dots and taking people on board with what they want to achieve is what I very much appreciate in any candidate, including Pakistani candidate. Something that I found a lot in Pakistan and that I appreciate more than anything is the energy and integrity that people bring on board. I always like to say skills you teach, right? I love mentoring young generations when there is a right mindset. So, for me, I cannot teach a hungerness, right, for the results. I cannot teach a value alignment. I cannot teach genuine care. That's what I want to see. On the flip sideand I'm not sure if it's only for Pakistan because I'm so Pakistani focusedbut one thing that for me is missing more and more is that ability to pause from time to time, right? Sometimes we are like hamsters, right? In that little wheel, and we are doing things that historically we are used to do. And I think sometimes it's just extremely important to pause, to relook, to see are we doing too much? Are we on the right track? Do we have to readjust, etc. Why? Because it also then brings me to my next point where, you know, being able to tell very compelling story with all loose ends being kind of tightened and being met is a very important skill nowadays, right? And what do I mean by this? When you talk to people in the organization or candidates in the market, they all talk about innovation, right? Digital transformation, product, processes, which is beautiful. But when you ask them about tangible experience or you ask them to do that in their field, there is still a lot of discomfort. I don't think it's about resistance purely. I don't think that people don't want to do it, but we do need to teach them how to do it overall. So again, like everything else in life, I like to do things slightly different, which basically means when I talk to young Pakistanis or, you know, people for leadership positions because that's what I'm exposed much more nowadays. For me, it's not about what you know, what you have done so far only. But it's about the way you think, it's about the way you've been growing and you would want to continue growing. How do you lead in times of uncertainty, right? Any kind of rigidity in the approach, I think, is going to come back as a boomerang and we'll be in trouble. Makes sense. How
would you compare Croatia, where you grew up, to Pakistan?
Well, unfortunately, equallyor similar challenges, right? Croatia, is a very small country, right? We're talking about population of 4,500,000 people. So it's like a suburb in Karachi, but with a huge brain drain, right? So that's problem number one. Problem number two is economic situation. People are living because there isn't enough job, there isn't enough growth mindset, there's a lot of pressure on the cost of living. If I tell you that, you know, the prices of properties in Dubai are cheaper than the property in my hometown split Are you serious? I am that serious. I tried, I tried. Again, from the cultural perspective, it's very different, right? It's a different religion, it's a different climate, etc. But what I see as a main similarity and why I feel like we're into loving Pakistanic people and that entire environment became my second home is that, you know, the way people accept you with the open heart, the way they make you feel safe, the way they want to make you feel a part of the broader organization, I didn't expect that. I thought I'm going to be met with a lot of resistance, and that hasn't been the case at all. Interesting. And football helps. Interesting.
You mentioned quite a few things. I actually made notes here as well. You mentioned the energy and integrity that that, that you found in the talent. You also mentioned that particularly a lot of younger people need to really think about pausing and having the sort of patience and the sort of reflection mindset where just because they're spending that time does not mean that time being spent or the effort being spent is actually actually productive for themselves as well in their career development. And I'm seeing this a lot, and I don't blame people as well because, like you mentioned, the economic situation is such that people are, there's a lot of anxiety and so you see a lot of people hustling and, you know, trying to do five different things and failing at all of them rather than doing one thing and being able to, do that properly. I also see a lot of people wanting immediate reward for whatever they're doing, and so they find it difficult to invest. And investment, mostly people think in terms of money, but quite often, you invest your time and energies and efforts for long term gain, which I feel like a lot of younger people don't really think about in terms of, okay, we'll we'll put in the effort today and then maybe a decade from now in terms of our career, comfort, risk. There's going to be a lot of reward around that. I wanna understand, again, the the the major challenges. You've mentioned the the good things, and this is not to nitpick and say, oh, you know, there are so too so many bad things. Every talent all over the world has certain weaknesses. It's not to identify that these are bad things. It's to identify what can be improved. And so in that context, if I were to ask you and I've I've asked a lot of people in the services sector, what is stopping पाकिस्तानी talent from being global? And the things that they mentioned, for example, are our sort of discipline. They wouldn't come on time. Our our work ethic. There's there's a there's a very different work ethic in Pakistan. There's a very different understanding of what different statements and commitments mean. And then when you tie that up with global talent or or or global opportunities, people particularly in the western markets get confused. So in in terms of your experience, very different culture coming into Pakistan, getting all those commitments, getting all those experiences. What were some of the major weaknesses that you felt could be improved in Pakistani talent?
So just go back to my previous statement that I do feel that the ability of understanding the big picture, right? And the ability of connecting the dots, how whatever I do reflects on the outcome, is still not there. Maybe that's because we're not teaching well enough, right? Or maybe... What I'm trying to say is that there's a learning for us there. Also, what I do feel is that we need to embrace and accept differences of the new generations, right? You were mentioning discipline, you were mentioning different expectations. Today, we have around 22% of generation Z on board. We have around 15% on the other spectrum, right, of generation X. And, you hear a lot of back and forthwhat's working, what's not working, what one needs, what one wants. And even sometimes people tell me, you know, What do we do? Right? There are conflicting realities. And I don't think so. I don't think it's choosing one generation over the other. It's about bridging this gap because why? Then things that we are talking, they're missing in those young professionals. They're asking for the purpose, right? They're asking for inclusivity. They're asking for visibility. So yes, you can say, Oh, you know, when I started my career, didn't dream about presenting to the leadership team or I didn't dream about being exposed to the board, but that's what I want today. Is it right to say That's not okay? Right? Is it right to say, How dare they? That's going to be the case. That's not going to be the... That's not going to change. I think that the time of people joining the organization is sticking for ten years or fifteen years, they're all gone. And quite frankly, I don't even think that's so bad, right? Because you need to learn, you need to evolve, you need to see different environments. So I cannot actually say that we see a huge challenge, you know, like things of discipline or similar. But we need... We do see a challenge of, you know, people belonging to different types of functions or different line managers where that culture is not necessarily reflective of what the culture of organization is. And I'll... I want to share one very interesting story that happened first day in National Foods. It was January 1. I joined 01/01/2023. Actually, it was second because first was Sunday. And I was sitting in the office and my wonderful boss actually came to Dubai to sit with me to help me with the onboarding. And sometime midday there was a company wide announcement popping up on my screen, and it said No more working from home policy. And my heart skipped a bit for a second because we had those conversations throughout the recruitment process, he knew what I stand for, etc. And I almost went all in with my, you know, well prepared speech, why that's not possible, and was like, It's your first job, right? At work, you would like to have a work day after as well. Jokes aside, I just paused. I said, You know what? Let's go for lunch, let's go for a walk, let me understand your reasons. And he spoke a lot about, Oh, I cannot control people, you know, there are people who are abusing the system. And I listened, right, for one hour. And then I gave my side of the story, trying to be very factual. So, you know, going through COVID and not to go back to the COVID, it didn't change just the way... Or just the fact from where we work. It changed how we work. But that means it has to change the way we show up for our people and we support them. And what do I mean by this? Again, just to finish my initial story, my boss actually, after that entire lunch, came to me and he said, Okay, recall that conversation, come back to me with a hybrid working proposal. That's very much what we have today. But what does it mean? It does mean giving autonomymore autonomyto people from what's natural to us or to certain generations. It means believing and trusting people they're going to deliver. You don't have to control them, right? That's why you have processes in place. That's why you have your KPIs. That's why we have a very, you know, dedicated talent team to performance management. That's why we do our talent reviews. That's why we're creating visibility over them. But we also need to accept the fact that, work and life lines are getting very blurry. I mean, I talk to people and they still say worklife balance, and I don't believe in it. It's a complete integration. And of course, it's not easy for everyone. So my point is, I think when you don't start with this narrative of I need to control you, I need to owe you, but it's much more of the empathetic way of leading the organization, I think people react better, right? When you have this type of culture, people will speak up. They will share what's bothering them. They're not going to turn and leave overnight, and you can learn so much. So for me, kind of, you know, that concept of just dealing with people or abusing the system there, there has to be consequences for this, but not penalizing the entire organization makes a huge difference. So try to understand that unique skills. Still stand your ground what's important to you. But when that's clearly defined, you know what starts happening? People who don't feel belonging, right? People who cannot relate to this way of working, they believe by themselves. They won't even kind of stick around. So I don't think it's one thing that's generally missing. But I think, again, we have results of engagement survey, we have results of focus groups, and not to go into all HR corporate stuff. We are in a very good place from that perspective. And, you know, it's something that I want to continue building on because it is and it will continue being our competitive advantage. Instead of pointing finger, take responsibility for what you can change. Yeah. That's that's fascinating
for a few reasons. But just to start off with, legacy companies in Pakistan, generally, they're considered they're called in the local language, they're called said companies. Right? And the idea is that you have a a businessman or two, who's probably grandfather started a company and, there there's not a lot of corporatization of it or or, you know, you don't see a board, you don't see this or that. And and all of that really stems from control. And a lot of times when I I have a lot of these state friends as well. So I've every time I've spoken to them, I said, listen. The reason why you I mean, you're the king of the village, but you're always operating in a village. Right? And the reason why you're not really regionally competitive or globally competitive is because every time the succession basically is that, you know, we're gonna break the company down into 10 parts and give a part to each cousin. And how do you sort of in a in a in a heavily globalized world where economy of scale is everything, how do you even compete? And the feedback I always receive is always all about control and how, you know, instead of everybody get shareholdings and letting one person take the lead, you know, we don't wanna do that, or we don't wanna give it outside of the family. We don't want professional sort of management teams coming in. And that obviously reflects on the entire workforce of the organization as well. In terms of and that's top down. If I look at bottom up, I've spoken to I mean, this is one probably one of the four hundred fiftieth episode. And so there are a lot of business leaders I've spoken, too small to very, very large scale. And on the organization side, I keep on hearing the same thing that you heard where, you know, people are going to hack the system in the first, step. And, it's it seems like it's almost an impossibility to give people the same level of autonomy that you tend to experience in the developed world. And the argument is that the developed world has certain systems in place that you're really built into the with the sort of trust and integrity ground up. And so a lot of this talent, because they're coming in from a very sort of fight and flight mode, they will hack the system if you give them certain, privileges and and and space. What you've done is you've taken a legacy company, you've given them extremely progressive, sort of autonomous space, and you're saying that has worked out for you. And so I'm curious, what does the current structure what's what does the current structure look like? How are you able to create the system of accountability? And, again, for a lot of tech companies, for example, there are a lot of ways that they can sort of gauge the the productivity output of an individual while they work from home or they're able to sort of work autonomously. For legacy companies, that becomes more and more difficult because there's no not really a lot of quantifiable ways through which you can, identify how much they've worked. And so I'm curious. What were some of the some of the policies that you implemented, and how were you able to build those systems to to identify who's actually performing well and who's not, and what what's the repercussion or the consequence that you mentioned of the of the people who aren't performing?
So there's a lot to share there. First of all, I want to say that none of those things comes without friction, right? So it's still very much work in progress, but the numbers, facts, and feedbacks show us we are moving in the right direction, which is encouraging, right? I think it's a never ending story. Thisand this work will never just stop. Now, what have we done? And I don't want to say it differently or not. First of all, the organization in terms of the board is very progressive thinking. Although we have a second and a third generation sitting on the board, the empowerment, you know, or a trust towards professional to lead the business and to lead their functions is there. And if I tell you, and I mean this in the most positive way, that sometimes I don't talk to my boss for weeks, right? There's a quick WhatsApp message. If you have to align something, of course, we're going to talk. There are things to discuss, But what the entire organization knows is if he starts getting actively involved in certain areas, it means there is a problem there, right? So it's almost very good news for him not to have to get involved. So that empowering and trusting leadership style from the top is something that helps tremendously. Now, some people feel comfortable with it, some people don't. When we were talking, right, about this level of flexibilitycontrolno controlwhat does it even mean control? People sitting from eight to five or nine to six, doesn't matter? Clocking in and out? That doesn't mean anything, right? It, you know, quite frankly never meant anything apart from tick the box of, you know, you're meeting my policy. I think that first of all, every single employee of National Foods in back office positions has KPIs, right? Those KPIs are set at the beginning of the year. Align managers supposed to have a frequent conversation, a cultural feedback. You know, it's under the progress, I would dare to say. It's not something that comes natural to people. It's something that we, as a people function, still very much facilitate through mid year. In the middle of the year, we do something which we call talent review process. This seats to see where people sit against our skill set, to see where could they progress in terms of, you know, next career steps, to see if there's a potential, there is none, who are those key players, etc. Once a line manager completes the entire evaluation of their team, we come together as a leadership team in the process which is called calibration. And every year, it's equally interesting process. I remember my first one in National Foods, and I think this is probably where there was a bit of shock in comparison with the global organizations where their performance culture was a bit more present. You know, people felt very uncomfortable calling a spade a spade, right? They felt very uncomfortable and it took it personally. They had to point out someone not performing. And that was a lot of work, a lot of conversation that we built there where we as a leadership team had to agree on our principles, right? We have to raise the bar higher. What used to be meets expectations five years ago, maybe today it's not good enough. And these are difficult conversations because they're very emotional. They are conversations about people, and you are impacting people's lives. A lot of effort went into this. I think my first cycle, if I remember correctly, I think we had three, four weeks. I sat in every single one literally understanding where the discomfort is coming from, what can we do about it, how can we give people skills to feel a bit more comfortable, right, having those difficult conversations. How do we build KPIs that are measurable, right? So we can actually have a very objectively driven conversation if someone has delivered or not, and things of this kind. The way I talk about it, it sounds like very process driven, right? For me, talent is not process driven. It has to be human driven, right? So that's why I'm saying you have to accept that individual as a whole, understand unique circumstances, understand, you know, a typical example, right? We promise that international division is going to deliver sauces and they're going to grow 10% market share. Well, if our supply chain, you know, had disruptions like a lot of organizations in Pakistan had, how can I hold this, you know, against anyone in the market? So things of this kind, that's where I invite that flexibility into the process. Yes, but the talent practices are there, the frameworks are there, and the process of educating aligned managers what those do for them is also there. But it's very much work in progress, and as long as we work with the humans, it will continue being working in progress. But then again, something that we have seen and something we are pushing strongly is that internal talent, right? Even me coming on board, I think it feltthe organization was clear what my, you know, mandate is in terms of international exposure and those, you know, new practices, processes, contemporary approach to HR. But I wasand I still am very much dedicated to growing and nourishing local talent, right?and having them around. We have again examples of people who spend their entire life in supplysorry, in sales. Now they're in a supply chain. So again, just creating that land of opportunities in a way that your processes are not rigid, that you recognize, right, the people who have what it takes, right, and kind of what ticks, in the organization and pushing that agenda, across. One thing that I started doing, we implemented the concept ofwe call that a people meeting, right? It's a monthly meeting where the entire leadership comes and we talk only about people topics. And I remember in one of the early stages, one of my team members told me, But Ivana, you are overly transparent with them, right? You're sharing too much. I said, That's okay, right? That's who I am as a leader. If I get a feedback from them that this is really too much, I'll back out. But I want to bring a controversial topic in terms of I want to bring our challenges. VSHR, we don't own people, right? We don't... We are facilitators of the culture in total. But this... Mean, we all need to understand on the individual basis and the leadership basis, we all own, you know, the culture of the organization. So I do come to my Mancom team. I do show, you know, bad facts, you know, not sound such a nice truth. I do expose problems because I need us to attack those problems together. Again, I don't want to be that leader who works in isolation. And I do feel, right, that again create an additional layer of trust of saying, Okay, we can actually... When we have a problem, I can use this my thinking body. I can, you know, I can speak to you in confidence and try to create a better, better environment overall. Are we there yet? Well, today we have 800 full time employees - actually, eight fifty. But we have thousands, right, of operators in the factory. Also know that our products are fairly seasonal, right? So we have a mango season, we have a chili season, etc. So, you know, throughout the year we can go all the way up to 4,000 employees at a time. So it's a big, right, population to manage. There's a big chain of leadership to manage. That's why I would never, you know, be as optimistic to say we are there. We are walking the talk, we are improving every day. I think the impact on the business results is there. Todayand I don't want to talk about, again, matrices and numbersbut there's a clear correlation between engagement and productivity, and profitability, and the turnover rate that tends to be very expensive, etc. So everyone who kind of really wants to accept new ways of working if you wish, can easily educate themselves.
Makes sense. And spoke about - again, you've continuously spoken about how it's a work in progress and you're working very closely the with the organization. Mean, say, 150 people, that's that's a big number to manage or at least in the Pakistani context, and we hope that you can 10x that in the next few years. But how have you sort of created a structure? Was there already a structure in place for that upgradation of that talent? You also mentioned, you know, five years ago, maybe certain things where they were exceed expectations, maybe they're not good enough. And and we're hearing a lot of that today with this sort of advent of AI where the the new conversation is, you know, one person can do the job of 15 individuals, and companies will begin to lay off. I feel like, you know, there's a there's that's a negative way of looking at things. The positive way potentially could look like, you know, how do we increase productivity using these new tools so much that we can actually grow the company. And instead of laying people off, we can actually overall grow the entire business. But, obviously, a lot of that requires talent that has the domain knowledge for whatever company that they're working for. In this case, let's say, Foods with the supply chain, the sales, and the, you know, the the the the understanding of the consumer. And then give them the tools that are that helps them work 10 x faster or in a more efficient way. And for context, I mean, that could very well include, do you do you spend four hours on a presentation, or do you now use ChatGPT with Canva with three other tools and just sort of quickly create it? Do you actually, you know, know, crunch the numbers through some sort of a calculator, or do you actually integrate AI into your data systems and and and directly get reports very, very rapidly and create better, like, take better decisions? And so, again, I wanna understand how agile is, are the processes in the company now in terms of integrating new systems, particularly in the age of AI first. Second, how do you see AI for legacy companies like yourself? Again, for for a lot of tech companies, that's the first wave. They're seeing it, so on. But at some point, that wave is gonna hit you as well. And then the third and most important is what is the upskilling process or structure through which you're able to sort of facilitate individuals into learning some of those new tools, which they might be averse to. But, actually, it's it ends up being extremely useful for them and their growth.
So to start with, we are at the very early stage of transforming the business from the perspective of that digital literacy. And why is that? And why am I saying this? Because you need to prepare your entire infrastructure to be able to build on. So, are in a processor we actually implemented S4HANA as our, you know, kind of a foundation, and there is still work to be done on that level. We are actually having a new IT leader joining us now in June with one of the key objectives of driving that transformation. So it is one of the strategic pillars, minds, initiatives, and something that the board expects and very much supports. Nowhere close to be ready and to really understand the universe of that change. Something that we started doing purely in people, and I think this is where my competitiveness kicks in. I used to play handball, so that sports mindset stayed with me. I said, Okay, I actually want to be that first function who started working in it. So today we have different solutions for talent acquisition processes. We are looking into different solutions of outsourcing all repetitive, administrational type of things. We are looking into, you know, a chat box in our factories. How do we cater towards such a big population there? How do we make all those repetitive processes very easily accessible? So that's a starting point because it's safe, it's learning by doing, and it's becoming... It's a process of becoming more comfortable for bigger things. And I think that's the healthy way in the organization like ours. So that's number one. Number two, a big portion of our L and D efforts moving forward is related to AI, and this links directly into what I believe and what I see. You hear a lot of people complaining, right? People or kids at school using AI or, you know, people writing emails using AI. We can continue fighting it for as long as we want. That's not going to change. So for me, the question is, how do we educate the organization, the people, the students at the schools, universities of ethical usage, right? This has to be complementary to each other. It's not competing against each other. And that's why, you know, when I talk about the culture and leadership in general, that cannot be outsourced to AI. What's the problem with outsourcing? Whatever, presentation making, data analyticsthat's incredible, right? How about we modernize our entire operations and manufacturing facilities with new tools, new systems, etc. And we use a skillset, you know, of those people into something else a bit more meaningful, long term for them and their careers and their families. So I see, like everything else in life, the change is happening so fast. And that's why I said sometimes you just need to pause and understand what does it mean for us. And we are still kind of tapping into this space fairly shy, but I do see this becoming a much bigger, important aspect of national agenda
moving forward. Makes sense. We're at the one hour mark. I'm gonna sort of begin to wrap it up. But just a few questions. Pakistan historically has not have like, is not big on on on female workforce, and that I feel like has has really impacted the economic growth as well. Have, 50% of your population is tends to be unproductive, and there are a lot of reasons for that. Culture being one of them. Safety, security. You don't have the tools and, systems built in place for the cultural contextualization of what it means for the women to start working. Now considering how the economy is evolving, yes, you can change the culture. You can tell people all about do this or that. But I feel like, really, when it comes to economics, that tends to be the biggest driver of of changing people's behaviors. And so now you're actually seeing a lot more women willing to work simply because they just have to because the double income households are becoming a thing. And so as a lot of women, there are a lot of different, I would say, problems associated with that or challenges associated with that. The first being, a lot of these women were not historically they they did not grow up with the idea that we'll be we'll actually be going in and working. And so, they're not ready culturally, to perform the same way that a lot of men would. And I'm not saying that they're not as good. All I'm saying is they were designed differently, it's a generation of them as we're going through this transition. The other is, obviously, safety, security, and the sort of systems that are in place to facilitate them and where I feel like you'll have to put in or our organization will have to put in more effort to facilitate women entering the workforce. It's gonna take a generation, and then it's gonna be second nature, and everything's gonna be fine. And so I'm curious. How important is diversity at National Foods? How what what are some of the steps that you guys have taken? And I keep on mentioning this in terms of safety, security, and facilitation of integrating women into the workforce.
So I feel that diversity became a buzzword. So I wouldn't be surprised if people start rolling their eyes and stop listening to your podcast. So I just want them to stick around because I want to answer it in a very tangible way. Why? Because diversity in terms of gender or any other, you know, meaning of that word is not something you say, it's something you do. Right? And spot on with all the comments, I think this is exactly what has been my experience. And we asked a lot of times ourselves, How do we track more people? So it becomes with beingit starts with being very intentional about people you bring into the room, right? So talking about women, we are not focusing all in women in leadership. We feel for us as the organization it's a wrong approach. We want to build people from within, right? So I'm not going to go into all different initiatives, but one thing I was so proud of this year: we launched our first female apprentices program in STEM, and we brought 20 plus young, you know, scientistsfemale scientists to face labour to our factories. We didn't just bring them from one day to another. We made sure that everyone went through very rigorous - this is one time when I do feelI do implement rigor - everyone went through gender sanitization training. They needed to be taught in some cases, right? How to deal with those young ladies, you know, what's appropriate, whatnot. We haveagain, another thing we are very rigid on is our code of conduct, you know, anti-discriminatory policy of any kind. We have our Integrity at Work hotline, right? Our system in the organization that anyone can use in case of any issues. Those ladies were welcomed by the CEO of the organization. He flew to Feyzlabad, he sat around the table, and it was a very proud moment. He expectedor we actually all expectedI was connecting online because I was in Canada on the project, and we expect them to be maybe a bit quiet, right? I don't want to say intimidating and I don't mean anything wrong, but didn't expect what we saw in a very positive way. They were outspoken. They were hungry. They wanted to be seen. They wanted to stand up. And it's very humbling to see that. So you do see a change in that generational thinking. Quite a lot. There's a lot of ambition, young Pakistani ladies that I'm meeting. There are a lot of them very proactively coming to me and say, Hey, what do I have to do? Right? And I love those conversations. There is also, on the other side, what we did was implementation of family friendly policies. And I'm not talking about female friendly policies. Why? Because it has to come down to the partnership. How can I be today where I am if my husband at home doesn't take a part in whatever he needs to take a part of, right? That's always the case with the families, with the dual careers. It's all about, you know, today I'm giving my 70%, tomorrow I'll be able to give 10%. So, as a national, we invest a lot in diversity in general. The question was about gender, so yes, we are prioritizing women. However, being a woman myself, it's a very sensitive point. And I always have an extensive need to say we need to at all costs avoid the perception of positive discrimination. For national foods, particularly is about the right candidate. If we have the right candidate or two right candidates, only then the gender is going to play its role. And one thing that I still feeland I don't know if this is your perception as well, so, you know, correct me if I'm wrongbut you know, I feel that young Pakistani women shouldn't look at their identity as someone toas something to overcome, but something to own proudly and every day. And for me, being a Croatian woman, being a, you know, kind of a female leader outside of the country shaped out the way I think about a leadership so much. And I remember those first days - and this was probably fifteen years ago - my career grew fairly fast. And not because I was chasing a title, I never had the ambition of becoming a chief people officer, but for me was the ambition of growing and adding value. Just going, you know, through any open door that would open in front of me. What I'm trying to say is, when you find yourself in that situation of actually not understanding 70% of the meeting, right? Abbreviations, P and L, processesknock on the door, right? People, more often than not, they lean in. They're willing to help. So, my invitation to Pakistani women, to the women of the world, is very muchdon't try to blend in. Stand up. I mean, when I see how rich your history is, right? How every single perspective of those young ladies isit came from the, you know, upbringing, from education, etc. That's something which is incredibly valuable. I always tell them, you know, occupy that space. Don't be shy, right? Because I want your work to speak louder than your passport. And of course, there are biases. There will always going to be spokenunspoken, consciousunconscious. I actually remember when I came in Dubai 2010, I couldn't get a job interview for the first six months. I couldn't. My life was depending on it and I was getting increasingly worried, frustrated, you name it. And I sat down with the recruiter who became a very dear acquaintance of mine throughout this process, and I said, Okay, what's wrong? Help me out! Because it's not that I failed at the interview and I could learn something, but I didn't get a chance. You know what he told me? He said, Ivana, is there a way for you to remove your surname from the CV? He said, Is this your, you know, family surname? He said, Can you take your husband's ores? No, this is my family surname. I said, But why should I remove it? And he tells me because there is a certain perception that people see Eastern European surname right on the CV. I was shocked. Apart from the fact geographically is completely inaccurate, which really doesn't matter in this context, I didn't want to allow those biases to be louder than my voice because that's how I felt that I was setting the tone for the generations to come. So, you know, again, ladies, go in with the courage, go in with the open heart, open mindset, and take up that space in a respectful, constructive way. But there's nothing that's stopping. And being Croatian or being Pakistani or being any other nationality doesn't make you more valuable because a global mindset is not about the place where you work, right? It's much more about the way work. I sit in Dubai, the team is in Karachi, my boss is in Karachi or traveling the world, and it's working just fine.
Makes sense. Couple of questions. First being, if I were to expand this, you you you had a focused, sort of recommendation for ladies. But, generally, for talent, when they're looking at global roles and globalizing themselves in terms of their sort of careers, what would be your recommendation knowing the Pakistani, talent? What are some of the things that they should be doing to actually potentially tap into the global market, within their careers?
Well, I want to say that in addition to mindset and, willingness, it takes work, right? And putting this in the context of my function or my functions, you need to understand the global language of business, right? In HR today, you need to understand the digital transformation. You need to understand DIA. You need to understand the importance of people analytics. You cannot be, you know, that theoretical, you know, policy driven professional and expect that's going to work. And I'm not talking only about, you know, how that works in theory, but how does it translate to practice. You need to be able of saying, Okay, this is what's happening in the world, this is what matters, how do I implement it, and vice versa. That's the right language. So pure ambition without the effort, without learning, is useless pretty much. One thing that does tick me off, and I say always this is my hot button, is when people say there are no learning, there are no enough learning opportunities. I mean, today, the learning is at a fingerprint of every single individual, right? Not only through corporate offerings, through LinkedIn, through Curseras, whatever we have, our LMSs, etc. But whatever you want. The amount of things I learned here today from you only, right? And going through this process is incredible. So that mindset is something that for me is very much make it or break it. We do have a career mapping, right? And we tell you, like, what are the steps that you have to go? But I always say, don't take this literally, right? There is no career map that can show you the world of possibilities. I started in marketing in Croatia in a very small hometown of Split. I'm leading a, you know, corporate reputation and NHR in Dubai for a Pakistani company. There was absolutely no one who could have mapped that career to me. So, go through that process of a bit more patience
and bit more learning and accepting, you know. There are things I don't I think the the humility and trust to to believe that the nature has a plan for you and you'll find it eventually. Lot of people, they wanna they wanna control that and and try to map out what ten years later looks like. I feel like we're in a time where the world is changing so much that you can really just I mean, it's it's good to be a planner. It's good to take control of your life. But at at a certain point, you also have to let go and just do do the hard work and hope for the best. I think the positive energy also sort of brings you back the positive outcomes and results as well. For a lot of for, you know, पाकिस्तानी companies, they've tried to globalize themselves and they've tried to bring in a lot of global talent to be able to redesign how they work and be able to so they would bring in sales talent and this and that. One thing that that I it's actually very interesting while I was speaking to you I realized I don't know how many other non पाकिस्तानीs are currently working at National Foods. Very few. Very few. Thank you. So I think it was pretty smart now that I think about it to actually bring in on a leadership level a people's function that's that's outside of Pakistan because I feel like that's at the heart and core. A lot of the other talent tends to leave. And and when I've spoken to them, they've always said, oh, you know, I mean, we had these ideas. These people weren't moving fast enough, or there were a lot of cultural clashes. Whereas with HR and and and and people's function, what you're doing is you're you're really, first of all, evolving the foundations and getting it ready for sort of the next tier, which where where you can actually bring in a lot of non-पाक्स्तानी talent in a lot of other function and they can globalize them individually. Is your experience the same and if you were to recommend for for for wider पाक्षतानी companies, whether they're MNC, whether they're small and medium, who are hungry to globalize themselves? Again, particularly in the services domain, there's going to be a lot of this is my belief. There's going to be a lot of growth there, and and Pakistan is now going towards an export led economic policy. And so this is a major challenge for a lot of पाकिस्तानी companies in terms of how do we globalize ourselves? How do we tap into the global markets? How do we go for the sales and the marketing and, you know, growing the business on that on that level? Where should they be starting at, knowing your experience for the last two and a half years?
Well, I would be putting, you know, myself in the foot if I if I don't say a people function. Right? And interestingly enough, that's exactly how I joined National Foods. National Foods was working on the project on how the structure for the global expansion should look like with a HR consultancy. And they actually advised them that before they start putting anything in place to bring their head of HR or global lead of HR to help them build that, you know, definition of how good looks like. This is how I actually got a call, right? And say, Hey, would you be willing to help? I don't even want to tell you what my first recommendation is. But I don't think it's one size fits all. It never is. I think there is a very high importance of having an honest conversation on the ownership level or board level, how willing they are, right? To invite someone of a different opinion, different way of functioning, different way of speaking up into the organization. And I remember having my, you know, second, third round of interview with both chairman and CEO of the organization. I told them, Look, I speak up, right? As a person, as the HR professional, respectfully, you know, with the full alignment. But I do voice my opinions. I do talk about problems. I do have the extensive need of addressing the problems. And it's okay if you don't feel comfortable, but you need to think about it, right? I don't want to put you on the spot, you just need to tell me if you feel comfortable or not. It was obviously very encouraging - I wouldn't have joined, but you never know how that's going to look like in reality. And sometimes those conversations are not straightforward. I have a joke with our chairman. He tells me, Sometimes I need to leave the office and sleep on everything that you tell me just to know kind of, you know, how to proceed because sometimes it's really out of my comfort, right? I'm like, But I love it! And the other way around, I need to understand, in a lot of cases, their perspective, which is very, very different. So I think that's a very good starting point if there is enough openness on that level of the leadership level of the organization, enough eagerness. I do believe that the way forward is very much the blend of two, right? The diversity in terms of ethnicityagain, you become more resilient, you become way more innovative, and quite frankly, you become much more human, right, as the organization overall. So I actually don't see absolutely anything bad about it. We have a great head of international sales who actually moved from UK for this particular role with a great mainstream experience. We didn't have this on the team, who blended in just fine. So that's why I'm always saying when you're recruiting for those positions, don't look just from the perspective of a CV, right? Look from the broader mindset perspective because that, you know, those are not easy situations. Things have to align. The stars have to click in, right? Altogether, has to be right. We've seen examples also in National Foods where this didn't work out necessarily as good, and that's all part of the learning, right? And I was always very intentional about not creating a perception I just want to continue bringing foreigners because that's not the case. Wherever we have identified the gap, right? And in terms of having this skill set in the market, we have to tap into that global map. But otherwise, always rather, you know, kind of expose and give the opportunities to our people. Makes sense.
Possibly the last question on this. What does the future look like for National Foods? I mean, you've obviously, you you were brought in for a particular purpose, and, you've had your fair share of challenges as well over the last two and a half years. It's it's one thing to say global global expansion. Is there... What's the vision? What I'm trying to understand is, where does all of this go?
Well, I'll have to be very careful how much I share, and I want to share a lot. But I think there's also fundamental difference between our different businesses and geographies. So in Pakistan, we have a very much established business, right? We have a very significant market share across most of our categories. So for me, Pakistani business, it's very much about the product innovation, new range, you know, new consumers. People are not using spices as much, right? They want blends, they want recipes. We have the way we have those sauces for the international markets, we have a beautiful category of drizzle sauces on the local market. So there's a lot going on about a product specifically. International division, it's much more about, as I mentioned, the mainstream opening new distribution hub across making sure that our supply chain is intact. Equally so, to maintain the highest quality standards across all geographies, we absolutely don't differentiate and it's a big nonnegotiable. So the future from that perspective is bright. I also believe that, you know, we had some very good learnings from the past in terms of expanding our businesses, in terms of, you know, potential different partnerships across in whatever shape and form. So it's not something I'm preview completely, but I do know that this is the ambition of the organization, and we're going to see a lot of... How aggressive is the growth push? The appetite is there. The financing is there, which is very good. So I think for us it's about the right next opportunity.
Makes sense. Just before I sort of wrap up, a couple of quick questions. Is is there any one book that you recommend? I'm I've recently started asking guests about their book recommendations because, as you mentioned early on, it's important to pause. Right? And so we're we're such a real generation that we want all of the wisdom from a three second reel. And more often than not, that's not really practically possible. And I feel like the best way to really sort of sit down and pause is to actually listen to long form, non exciting content like books because there's actually a whole lot of value there. And so is there any particular book that impacted you or has actually helped you? You know, sometimes you read something and there's a eureka moment of something that you always had at the back of your mind but were able to now articulate.
I love books. I try to read a lot with too little kids. It doesn't always happens. I do feel that I learn about leadership much more from real observational practices. But if there is one book that I would recommend, it's called Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek. And I think reading that book just resonated so much with me because he does speak about showing up with that authenticity and courage and leading and influencing from that perspective versus a pure hierarchy, right? Kind of intent over appearance. And there is another one that I recently got as a gift from my team, it's from Brene Brown. It's called Dare to Lead. And I think it's very much talking about leadership from the female perspective, right? Talking about vulnerability and kind of empathy and that authenticity, I think it just speaks to my heart because these are some of my core values. So yes, invitation to check out on those too if these are some of your leadership
principles as well. It's going to resonate. Makes sense. Second quick question, that's a personal one. And, you know, you've spoken a lot about partnerships in terms of, men and women particularly married who are who are now working together to create their own sort of microempires. And so you have young kids. You have a six year old. And a four year old. And a four year old. I have a four year old and a zero year old who's just recently had a daughter. And so I'm curious, how does the work life, how has the work life balance been for you? Particularly because it's one thing to say, you know, it's a, it's very exciting to know, oh, you're a you're a c level executive. But when you're actually there, it's quite something. You know, it's actually the title goes away after two days, and then it's the work and the responsibility and the decision making. And it's actually easier to work without a title and the responsibility. But when you have young kids and you've you've been able to, you know, get that position at a at a comparatively younger age, it's a nightmare. Right? And so I work in a in a fairly me and my wife work in fairly high anxiety, high responsibility, high decision making environments. And and sometimes it's just like, you know, I I I because I don't have a boss and a boss is boss is boss, and I can't just sort of clock out at five and someone else has to deal with it. And so I have, like, a daughter who's crying and then a son who's screaming, and then I have to also perform. And that's something that a lot of people don't realize. So I'm curious. What what how has your experience been, and what recommendation would you, a, give, for for being young but in a high, anxiety environment or a high decision making environment? And then the second is you've probably had these sort of probably career pauses or breaks or or or sort of retreats, especially in the early years. I feel like the first year of a child is always you don't really know what's going on. You're living by the day. And so, how did you sort of deal with that? Because I have a lot of these conversations with my wife as well where, you know, I mean, I can see her sort of retreating, but I also feel like at at a certain point, she'll have to sort of study the entire thing and then decide a plan to come back because she might get stuck.
So what would your recommendations be on both? Well, first of all, thank you for acknowledging this because it's not easy. There's a lot of suffering, like profound suffering behind. I remember going through the interview process and being very courageous in addressing this upfront. I knew I could not be part of the organization, which is very rigid. And I actually said to my, you know, two bosses, right? To the chairman and to the CEO, said, you know, one thing that's very important for me to share is that I come with two little packages, right? My son was just one, he turned one, and my daughter was three. And I said, that means that they will get sick, I will be absent. That means I will want to attend, you know, school performances, parent teacher meetings, and things of this kind. So what I very openly asked them in that process not to judge me by the clock, right? Ior by the time that I clock in. Not to tell me, you know, I have to be in the office it doesn't matter seven, eight, 9AM, any of those kind. But to really look at my results and to have a conversation based on this. Again, the verb very open about is, you know, certain level of discomfort but kind of as long as you can deliver, that's perfectly fine. Again, you never know how that's going to work in reality. So for me, when I talk about integration, what does it mean? If I have a late night call and that happens a lot, right? Just the first quarter of this year, there was a call with Canada probably three-four times per week, and that means, you know, eleven, midnight, 1PM. But 1AM... But if I could leave the office at four or 5PM and spend few hours with my, you know, kids, have a dinner together, have a conversation about their day, have a walk around the neighborhoodhonestly, it's good enough for me, right? And for... And then putting them to sleep, reconnecting, answering emails. So it's very simple in my mind, right? You can make it work, but that's why the line becomes very blurry. It's not, Oh, the evenings are for me. I'm going to talk to my husband. I'll have a conversation with my friends. I'll put on this movie. I'll read the book. Don't know. It's very fluid, right? But ultimately, you're organizing your time in order to deliver. And again, so far so good, right? Because you truly have to genuinely have to care about the impact you're making and the fact that you need to add value. So, in national foods in particular, that's something that worked really well for me. I had different experiences, right? Having, you know, my daughter while I was with a different organization, had to come back after three months. I wasn't in a good mental place. I felt I was abandoning my child. It's not natural, it's completely biologically unnatural and unhealthy to have to leave your baby with someone else. And you go back to the working environment and nothing changed, right? Everything remains the same. But you profoundly changed and you have very different priorities. And when you have the environment who's not recognizing this in any wayand very often I felt punished, right? Because of that, I knew immediately, right? If things do not change, if I don't voice my opinion, that's not going to be an environment in which I want to continue belonging and operating. I don't know, you know, a bit of a blessing in disguise was the fact that the COVID hit when my baby was 10 old. Sort of, I kind of, you know, stayed at home until she was two and a half. I got my second kid. I got to spend much more quality time. And it really again changed the way that we all looked at things. But I feel that going through those experiences, I became much more courageous to voice my needs. And if I get rejected, that's okay, right? That means we're really not the right fit for each other. And let's move on, right? Let's look for another opportunity. But again, nevertheless,
extremely grateful for the trust that I got. Makes sense. And so the last question, this is something that I ask all of my guests. You've been working for National Foods for two and a half years. Were you exposed to Pakistan on that level before that? Not on that level. Right. And so you've been going sometimes couple of, twice a month recently month or two. You've probably understood Pakistan a whole lot more over the last two and a half years. And because you're in a leadership role role, it's, it tends to involve a lot of strategy, and it involves a lot of macros and you trying to visualize what a certain, you know, set of policies can potentially do over the next five years or ten years or fifteen years. And so if I were to ask you to wear the same hat but for Pakistan as a country Mhmm. How would you see Pakistan in 2050 knowing what you know now, seeing what you've seen and understood about the entire economy, the entire people, the the the country that exists today and that is really just at the at the start of opening itself to the world because we have fairly been locked out for one reason or the other.
How would you see Pakistan in twenty, fifty, twenty five years from now? I feel it's a million dollar question, a billion dollar question. And with full honesty, I just more recently started having a very deep conversations, right, with my Pakistani colleagues trying to understand internal dynamics, trying to understand the regional dynamics, and things of this kind. So I find it to be fairly unpredictable, and I really think it's going to come down to the level of openness, of inviting people who know, right? People who understand. I'll give example of our CEO who knows so much about agriculture, who could help from that perspective, to the broader country, to the development, etc. If you invite people who really know and care into the dialogue and decision making, I think this country has so much potential. I just took agriculture as one example because it's close to our industry, but it equally applies across. I think it's again about the openness of starting to change things, and one thing that gave me a lot of, hope, I guess. Just recently, at the end of April, National Foods sponsored a first Pakistani conference at Harvard. I don't know if you have heard about it. I have, yes. The conversation, the quality of conversation, the level of care, right, for Pakistan and from seeing a better future is incredible. So you have intellectual power, right? You have well educating youngsters who have seen the role who actually do want to come back and do better and contribute, provided they are given that space. So I think this is where, you know, the tipping point is going to be - they will be given the space or not. We had this internal conversation, right? And my boss was like, Can we start looking into some of those people? I said, Of course, we always will, but the larger ecosystem has to make sense for them. So I'm hopeful, I'll always remain hopeful. The country has so much to offer. Take it from me, right? And I hope to see people and a big part of the asper actually wanting to come back. Nowadays I feel when people start reaching a certain age, right, they're open to go back. But I think for real change that has to happen a bit earlier in their careers. Makes sense. Ivana, thank you so much for taking the time out and sharing all that insight.
Again, this is maybe this is a selfish thing as well because it is close to my heart. It is close to Pakistan. But I hope you guys grow incredibly well and I hope that you can, fulfill all of the and in fact, outshine the global ambitions that you have, because it helps national, but it also helps Pakistan. Thank you, for all that you're doing, and thank you for taking the time out and sharing all that insight. And thank you for very warm wishes. We hope, you know, we'll see each other five, ten years down the line and we'll have a conversation on the results. Definitely. Sounds good. For all of you guys, thank you so much for watching. अगर आपको यह episode पसंद आई हो तो दोस्तों नार साथ, ज़रूर share करिएगा. Let know in the comment section below. Is there any particular national product that you've used, that you've been in love with? Are there any areas of improvement that you think, national should take in? As you can, tell from the conversation, they're fairly progressive in terms of, taking that feedback and trying to make themselves better as well. Would love to know your thoughts and comments in the comment section below. But, nonetheless, this was Sayed Muzamelas and Zedi. You're watching Thought Behind Things. Thank you so much for watching, and I'll see you in the next one.
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