How Taking Career Risks Can Lead to Success
Richard Letzelter, CHRO at Acino, discusses the importance of cultural adaptability and authentic leadership in creating high-performing, people-centered teams. He shares strategies for navigating global business challenges, fostering resilience in fast-changing environments, and empowering leaders to unlock their potential.
In today’s episode of the HR Leaders Podcast, we welcome Richard Letzelter, CHRO at Acino. Richard dives into the critical role of cultural adaptability and authentic leadership in shaping high-performing teams.
He shares practical insights on balancing global business demands with people-centric strategies, fostering resilience in fast-changing environments, and taking deliberate career risks to unlock growth. Richard also discusses how leaders can cultivate self-awareness to harness their innate talents and drive meaningful impact.
🎓 In this episode, Richard discusses:
How cultural adaptability shapes leadership and fosters inclusivity.
Balancing global business demands with people-centered strategies.
Why taking career risks can lead to professional and personal growth.
The importance of self-awareness and authentic leadership in building trust.
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Richard Letzelter 0:00
Been fully present, really engaged in in the moment is is crucial. Oftentimes, the leaders try to change a behavior, but without understanding the underlying reason why the behavior has emerged, you cannot do lasting transformation with with leaders. And that's why it's really important to delve a bit deeper. Actually, in the in the development of yourself, you cannot stay just at the behavioral level, because these transformations will probably come back to what they were once you're in stress movement.
Chris Rainey 0:42
You Hey, Richard, welcome to the show. How are you my friend?
Richard Letzelter 0:45
Yeah, very good. Thank you, Chris, thank you for having me on
Chris Rainey 0:48
the show. Yeah, you're making me feel lazy now because you've got the stand up desk, right? I feel like I bought a stand up desk. I thought I was fully committed, and it doesn't get used in the pandemic. I was really good with it. You know, every day I was there, but now I've reverted back to a desk. I need to You've inspired me to get back to doing
Richard Letzelter 1:09
it. Yeah? So much changed into pandemic in the way we ever we're looking at ourselves, so even Yeah, we do with the cameras and everything else.
Chris Rainey 1:16
Yeah, have you really random? Have you ever experimented with those mats that you can stand on, like, like to support where it kind of makes you move, because it has kind of like the bumps and concaves, if that makes sense. Indeed,
Richard Letzelter 1:28
I can tell you a story, even of a compliance issue we had with associates who were on a treadmill while doing a call in a global leadership meeting. Yeah, 400 people actually attending, and they were panting and breathing very, you know, strongly and still being visible on camera. And this was the start, actually, of appearing on video cameras, when people, everybody was actually starting being on cameras. And this week, I was thinking about, you know, when did it happen that you used to have interviews face to face. And very, very occasionally, and rarely would you have interviews on video. And now it's completely the opposite.
Chris Rainey 2:07
Yes, it's rare to be interesting. Yeah, yeah, you
Richard Letzelter 2:11
have to justify for people to come here and and really, really have the face to face interaction.
Chris Rainey 2:17
Yeah, I love the fact that that's the one person who was running that should be on mute. You know, in the somebody of all the people that should be on mute, he's the one as well I love. He set himself a challenge. He's like everyone's going to be here. So let me show them dumb sticking to my commitment before we jump in more. Richard, tell everyone a little bit more about your background, because you have quite an unconventional journey to where we are today, and then we'll jump into some of the topics. Yeah,
Richard Letzelter 2:45
sure. So I'm, I'm a graduate from a business school. I didn't do HR as a correct choice. HR chose me, actually, but, you know, very briefly, two blocks in pharma and telecoms. 10 years each. I've done a lot of specialist halls and journalist halls. I worked in three different continents, in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, more specifically Middle East as well. I spent nine years of my year of my career. I lived and worked in seven countries, London, Paris, Tokyo, Cairo, Dubai, Switzerland, in Brazil and Zurich and, yeah,
Chris Rainey 3:29
wow, I love that. There's so much, so much to go into in that now working in seven countries, right? How is that? How did that shape you, both as a HR professional, but also as a father and
Richard Letzelter 3:45
a husband. Well, mobility is a family decision, yeah, and I think with my wife, we always had the intention to actually go and explore the world. And ever since I was very, very young, I wanted to have experiences outside of my surroundings, and so being a family decision, so you got to think about the children, you know, and both my children were born during the period when we lived in Egypt, for example, and you live and you work in different cultures on a day to day basis. It's a continuous challenge, and it's exhilarating. You know, it's really what I wanted to do. Sometimes it comes with difficult moments. And you know, in retrospect, you always remember the good times of your assignments. Where have you been? Whatever happened? It's always good times that that come back to mind when somebody, let's
Chris Rainey 4:44
break that down for people that are considering some of these, because these are big career opportunities, career defining that has really shaped you as a leader, right? That the you know, the exposure that you have to those multiple cultures, and the with every one of those cultures come. Different perspectives and insights, right in terms of how you lead, how you give feedback, you know, etc, as well. What are some of the biggest challenges that you, that you faced that perhaps going in, you maybe have been a little bit naive about, and then, what are some of the benefits that you receive, both personally and also profession, with the family as well.
Richard Letzelter 5:20
Yeah, I can. I can start with something maybe a bit more more funny here. So cultural mishaps, very, very easy to get through. You know? Yeah. So Japan, for example, I offered for a birthday what I thought was a simple bouquet, what was my money could afford at the time, and these were funeral flowers. Oh, no, yeah. And just to make things worse, I offered it to my manager. I offered it in public, and I offered it was in Japan. So that was probably one of the most embarrassing career moments I had to live through. Sorry. Again. You know, at sukko, if you watch this, I love you lots. But this was, yeah, the most embarrassing, embarrassing for myself, but embarrassing for her, because she had to tell me at some point. And oftentimes in these circumstances, you don't get to know, you know, for like six months, until someone tells you how. You remember at that moment you broke relationship with that person. They didn't talk to you anymore at that point. And these are the sort of things that happened. But I mean, you have to learn to adapt to these new surroundings. And I probably built a atrofied muscle my brains right to to do this to adapt to the new surroundings, new environments, and away from the general stereotypes that you find you know, you shake a hand with women in the Middle East, or how deep you bow in Japan, how to give a business card. So these are the stereotypes, but you know how you appreciate, actually, those differences in society, in the norms of the ways of working, how to be able to operate, actually, in those different environments, and to get the best results. And what I, you know, in a prospect, I think I've incorporated a lot of those things that I've learned, even in Japan, in my role here in Zurich. So one thing that really stuck with me when I started to delve a bit deeper in cultural differences, in cultural models, you will find lots of cultural models that exist out there. This is one that really stuck with me, the one from gertosh today. And in particular, there is an element called the power distance. It's a concept that says that describes, actually the extent to which the less powerful members of an organization expects or accepts that power is not equally distributed. And and this tells, actually, the way relationship can work in in companies. And you know, when you are then announcing something in certain countries, you go by that filter as well. You know you go by by Yeah, how you expect people to be interpreting this and how much is going to be accepted in different in different places? Yeah, so in Japan, for example, was very famous in Japan is this decision making, which involves a collective and consensual approach, right? And it's often described as this spiral, right? You start from the outer circle, and then you enter into the center of the spiral. It's called The NEMA washi. It's the process by laying all the groundwork for decision, by discussing it with all the people that need to be aware before any formal decision is made. And that's where in the meeting itself, actually, nothing gets really discussed. It's more about just formalizing the decision that's been made with everybody else, any types actually building that, yeah, yeah,
Chris Rainey 9:08
when you I just want to ask some personal questions, that's okay, when you made that decision to move and because I'm asking this is like, essentially when we first spoke, after 1000 of episodes of doing this show, some of the most successful HR executives that I've spoken to have said yes to these opportunities that you did. And they always tell me, Chris, if I didn't take those opportunities to work here, work there, pivot within the business. These are the things, the career defining moments that I didn't know at the time would really lead me to where I am right now. So when you sat down with your wife and had that conversation, what led to the Yes? What was the main benefit where you were like, okay, these yes challenges, but this is why we have to do this.
Richard Letzelter 9:53
Yeah, I think it started deep and deep and far. Actually, in my year, in my case, on personal level, I come from a. The eastern part of France. And, you know, my surrounding, in my surroundings, the people working on the other side of the border, Germany, had actually gained a different status. And I think ever since I'm a kid, you know, I was thinking about that and and seeing them as the hero in the family. So go back, you know, into into the decision that I had to to make very early on. I wanted to make those, those moves, and understood that I had a better opportunity, actually, on the other side of of the border, whatever that border was, continent, as well. But, yeah, when you live and work in those different cultures, you have to make, sometimes, a lot of sacrifices as well, in the way that that when discussing with with the family, the spouse has to take a decision about their own career. There are some families where it's just not possible, because when, for example, the family member, when I work for pharmaceutical company, when the family member is the spouse is a doctor, for example, when they have patients, they have a degree, operate in a certain country, doesn't operate in different ones. Go in our case, it was, it was different, and my partner was able to actually work as well in these other countries, but it's undoubtedly something that we you got to discuss, you know, together, and the chance it also gives to your children, which are sometimes born in a different country and then educated in The different country, in operating in very multicultural faceted environment really opens their mind to something completely different. And we know Chris, when I realized that the most was when I came back to France. I like to say sometimes that my most exotic career experience was when I returned back to France in an HR directors Hall because I had fundamentally changed. You know, in the first 10 years of my career, or 15 years of my career, I fundamentally mentally changed from my compatriots there, and it was difficult for me to accept again, moving in this back into this environment. And you also have to think about when to come back. I had so many of those, of those mobilities, so many, you know, house changes, and there comes a time when you don't want anymore to be opening a bank account to buy a new car, to open new phone
Chris Rainey 12:43
lines, turns all the things that people don't think about, right? Yeah,
Richard Letzelter 12:47
say goodbye to friends, organize a move. We've done probably more than 10 moves in the last 25 years as a family. Wow, and it's enormous. Yeah,
Chris Rainey 12:58
yeah. Do you become? Is there, is there a do you become, you know, I don't know how to say the guy in the organization they go to now, like, I mean, like, it seems like, once you've done one or two, they're like, Okay, we know who we need to send in. We know we've got the experience here with Richard, because he can do this. He said, is that something that you expected, or did you plan for that? You know? Does that make sense? My question, yeah,
Richard Letzelter 13:28
yes. It reminds me, actually, people I had seen in the Middle East, for example, it was in in Egypt, and they describe themselves as mercenaries that you send. Off to the robot sometimes, AI tragic, actually, but yeah, no, not really, actually. For me, it was always a case of of deciding to go somewhere to acquire a new experience, to sometimes learn a new culture, then returning back to Europe to acquire knowledge about the way decisions are taken in the headquarters, then returning to a country to experiment again with a broader role, looking after a larger single country, then going back to the to the headquarters, to the capital region and a multitude of smaller countries this, you know, when you drive a career, I always advise, you know, the people that I mentor for their career development, I advise them to be very deliberate and tactical in the way they make those career choices. It has to be improved. You know, it doesn't happen by coincidence, although companies sometimes make it possible, you still are in the driving seat. And it's not a right for you to develop. It's a responsibility. You know, it's no mitigation and to continuously try to be better, to be more. Marketable. And I think that's the perspective I took personally. So in making those those movements, you know, also studied in one of the company I was working for, what took some of the leaders to the top of the organization, and oftentimes they had done multi divisions, yeah, and the organization. They had done multi cultures, and they had done regional and local roles as well. And this is really career defining moments. You know, when you can bring in these three dimensions, you really started to operate at the more more global level as a leader.
Chris Rainey 15:39
Yeah, I noticed the same thing. If there's one of the trends throughout doing this for this long I'm doing my interviews, you're right. They've worked across multiple functions, multiple continents, multiple cultures, then that and that exposure. They really understand the organization, you know, not just you know, they truly understand the business and inside and out, and I think that's really important, but it's hard, right? Let's not, let's not pretend it's easy, because you've had to create an entire family, lifestyle and support system to support this decision that
Richard Letzelter 16:14
that, and there comes a time also when you realize that you have, like that description I heard once in a documentary, someone talking about about living abroad. And when you do that over and over again, you end up having met a lot of people and having encountered a lot of people and colleagues actually in a horizontal way, right, but not in a vertical way. And and you've you've seen people in a slice of their life, if that makes sense. You've seen them at point in time they're married, they have one kid, and then, you know, 10 years later, they're divorced, and they have another family setup, and their life has movement into a completely different way. So yeah, you end up having, having these disparities between those who have traveled a lot and done a lot of those experiences. And that's you know, when I talk about, when I say you you have to think about when to come back. Your parents are getting older, your family is getting tired. You're getting tired as well. You want to reconnect with your roots, if nothing actually keeps you in the country where you're based, beat religion, a marriage actually, with someone from that culture. You need to share something deeper, actually, with with that place. And otherwise, most of the people who actually would would end up living in a place where they feel is back to their roots. And you have to define sometimes, who are, where are those rules? You know, I'm often asked, where is home? I always say, you know, home is where I have my bed. And that's the easiest definition I can I can give about what home is actually, yeah, I love
Chris Rainey 17:54
that. Do you think you'd be as successful, as successful as a chro without that experience?
Richard Letzelter 17:58
No, probably not. Yeah. This really gave me the possibility to be considered as a global as a global leader, the fact that you understand more, you're more likely to appreciate the different cultures and the ways of thinking. So yeah, it really defined me as a person and as a leader in my
Chris Rainey 18:21
whole, yeah, yeah. So that's, that's, I think that's great advice for everyone listening, right? For them to really stand out, you know, this is a way for them to really stand out from, you know, their peers. You know, there's, there's not many CHRO seats in the world, and the level of experience that you, that you bring to the table. And when did you know at this point in your career, to that, to that point, you just mentioned that this was the now the time for you to plant some roots and step into it. This is your first iTero role. If I'm correct, yes, that's correct, yeah. And I know for like, even though I don't know you that well, I could fight this. Was very intentional about planting roots. When did you know that now is the time that I want to really plant roots and step into the Situ role?
Richard Letzelter 19:09
You know, I was doing that career transition actually, and I wanted to do a career break, and I put together my bucket list of what I really wanted to do, and my point number one was to enroll into a psychology course. And by the way, I never got to point number two, because I thought
Chris Rainey 19:28
that's a good thing. You didn't get distracted. That's good. That's
Richard Letzelter 19:32
good. But then, you know, I was looking at different different models of psychology, like transaction analysis, and I came across Gestalt therapy, and I learned a lot about myself and who I was, what I wanted to do, and this is one of the interventions which made me clear about who I was and the direction I was going to take in my in my life, I had other interventions such as AI. A leadership intervention where I learned to understand better what was my innate talent. And it's something that that I'm really passionate about. The I think it was Kevin Cashman who described leadership as courageous, authentic influence that creates enduring value, which
Chris Rainey 20:20
I love as a definition this is
Richard Letzelter 20:23
about people being who they really are, not being someone else. And you can be working in a very large organization, being, you know, in a super, super nice position, actually, and still being a very small cog in in that very large business. So being CHRO means that you get a lot more independence, you get a lot more opportunities to take decisions yourself, but then you also expect it to be driving the organization with your set of values and the talents that are innate to you. And this is something I'm trying to develop with the leaders that I coach and the leaders that I mentor, it's helping them being really themselves, not being someone else.
Chris Rainey 21:06
Yeah, I struggled with that a lot in my career. I think early on, I kind of was trying to live up to an expectation of what I thought this I should be right. And it's exhausting right, because you're Yeah, you don't realize how much energy and drain it is taking, and it's hard to really make meaningful connections. And I think, unfortunately, I came from a leadership style in that organization, that the way they led was, you know, you know, led with a carrot and a stick, and is, you know, they're not your employees. Aren't your friends. You know, you don't, you don't go out to lunch with them. You go, you don't go and meet them on the weekend, and you're the manager they employee. And for a couple of years, it really was painful. And I think the breakthrough for me is when I got, I figured, like a 360 feedback with my team, and I kind of saw all of the it was really hard to read, and I was like, That's not who I am, but I'm like, well, that's not what I was projecting. And I think the moment I really opened up and just became Chris, and it was just a game changer, you know, like, build real, meaningful connections based on and trust, beyond the job title, beyond the seat, beyond all of that, and all of a sudden it's just a game changer. Yeah, I
Richard Letzelter 22:28
can totally relate you to what you're saying, because this is very often where leaders start their leadership journey. It's about being who they really are, not being someone else. And many of the key talents and successors are in the shadow of a charismatic leader. Imagine being, you know, working for Amazon or Apple in the shadow of Jeff Bezos or Steve Jobs and and these people not perfect
Chris Rainey 22:54
by any means. They're not. They
Richard Letzelter 22:56
all come with their dark sides. But there are references for these, these key leaders, and then those leaders they want to become, but they cannot, because they are not them, right? So the intervention specifically that really changed my perception is that I had to understand what was my key, innate talents, the talents that I was using the most naturally, without forcing, without noticing, without counting my time. You know, it's when I get in my flow, actually, of work, yeah. And then, you know, for some it's public speaking, not for me. For others, it's recording a podcast and making people feel comfortable. That's maybe one of your your talent. For some it's analyzing insights. And they just get into their thing, and they love it. And when you feel it, you're not really working anymore. This is when really your goal, right? And then it's also about understanding, what are the leaders, personal values, you know, something really deep, actually deeply ingrained, into who they are. It's not the company values, yeah, which tend to be always the same, you know, between you take the mix of the 10 most successful companies, you end up having a list of what are the values. You'll find pretty much anywhere, but it's theirs. You know, it's what someone really, totally stands for. It comes down to education, to experience, to influences, and where you have your personal talents and the flow meet your personal values. That's the magic place I call your leadership intent. Leaders who touch that point really make a difference, because then they become this authentic influence, and they create value, enduring value, defining that place and being then deliberate in communicating about it as a leader to your teams, projecting yourself as that to your teams, filtering the decisions your own. What you're taking as a leader is really what what I'm trying to do in my in my world. That's why I personally enjoy the most. Now.
Chris Rainey 25:09
I love this, and I talk about this all the time on the show, and Shane and I, my co founder, when we first started the company, that wasn't clear for us. You know, we were in terms of where our strengths or weakness is, what gives us energy, what takes away energy. And it was kind of a bit of chaos in that and in silence. There were things I was doing which were making me miserable, vice versa for him. But we didn't tell each other. We were just trying to plow forward, right? And we happened to go to a sort of a mastermind, two day mastermind, led by a guy called Nick Craig. He wrote a best selling book called leading with purpose. So companies like Unilever, you know, they put over 15,000 of their leaders through this program and everything around connecting the purpose with the business, right, and really the personal purpose. But it goes a lot deeper than that. You know, you know, you go into your crucible story, you look back at your childhood kind of really how that suffering defines. And, you know, Shane and I were like, Ah, this, oh, we don't have time to go to this, you know, but we end up going to it, and it was the biggest game changer for us as leaders, because we were in separate groups, actually, throughout the two days. So we never really had a chance to do that. But I came out of that realizing that I was all the things that I was doing were like not leaning into my strengths to your point. And a lot of that came back to my childhood. And at the end of it, we came together. And you end, you end the event with a purpose statement. So my purpose statement was to be the unbreakable artist that dances you to life, right? And the reason that means a lot, I grew up as a dancer. I grew up as an artist. So there's like, keywords in there that really trigger an emotion and a memory and dance use to life. Represents my passion for growing and development talent, an unbreakable artist. Is my role as CEO and founder of the company is to constantly be challenging the status quo, disrupting, even when the team don't understand it and they think I'm crazy. And Shane has the opposite, right? So that's Shane manages our finance, our operations. He steadies the ship. He's the foundation of the business. So I can be out there running and constantly challenging, you know, so between us both, we have that, I know I can go out, sell products, create, create products, sell them, speak to incredible people like you, build the brand, and Shane then delivers on that promise to our customers, whereas before we had that flipped around, which and so I explained that to the team. I explained it to any new person that, hey, I'm a little bit unorganized. It's a bit chaotic when you're working with me, so just expect that, right? I might have one idea today, and I might be running enough so people understand that, so they will probably go to Shane when they want a bit more organization, right? Whereas I need to be let loose in order to do that, and before, I felt constrained to be able to do that, but just to give you an idea, we 5x star revenue the next year after that, right? So it wasn't just something that has happened, it and someone yesterday. We had an external producer. We hired in just for the day yesterday for a show. He pulled me to one side, you'd appreciate this. And he said, Call me over. He's like, Chris, can I have a quick conversation? I was like, Sure. He was like, you don't stop. And I was like, What do you mean? He's like, since you've been here, you've gone from one meeting to a podcast to an interview to a podcast to doing some work there. He's like, I don't understand. And I was like, I'm having fun. And I think he didn't understand. He was like, you haven't even taken a second or a break. I was like, this is fun for me, right? And he just, he was almost confused via that. But anyways, so I love what you're saying, and I think it's such an important point, so I really appreciate you bringing
Richard Letzelter 28:53
that up. That's exactly what we're saying before. You know when you feel you're not really working anymore, that's really the place where the where you want to be and just to share my own personal intent with compassion and insight. Reveal and inspire, reveal and inspire possibilities together with courage and decisiveness. And when filtering the things I'm doing through that lens, yes, I know that I'm going to be in the right space actually to do what's really mattering matters for me. Yeah.
Chris Rainey 29:20
And also during the chaos, like during the pandemic, that acted for me and Shane as a foundation to make decisions. So when there was no real no one really knew where the world was going, no one knew exactly what's happening. You know this? You know you can only control the controllables. We made decisions based on that foundation, and it's always served us well. So ignoring external noise, ignoring the fear mongering and the things and just like let's make decisions based on these principles and these foundations, ignore all the noise and it's always served us well. And the team can see that that we stick to it and we live by what we set. AI and we go do it most importantly as well.
Richard Letzelter 30:05
Go on, sorry. In my psychological, psychological studies of Gestalt, I became a practitioner of Gestalt foundations, actually, and I needed to learn getting a deeper understanding of my own emotions. You talking about shame, but also the biases, the reactions that I have, and that self awareness allows me to be a lot more effective than in my interactions with people. But you're talking about being present. So here as well, you know being fully present, really engaged in in the moment is is crucial. Oftentimes, the leaders try to change a behavior, but without understanding the underlying reason why the behavior has emerged, you cannot do lasting transformation with with leaders, and that's why it's really important to delve a bit deeper, actually in the in the development of of yourself. Yeah, you cannot stay just at the behavioral level, because these transformations will probably come back to what they were once you're in stress movement. Yeah,
Chris Rainey 31:16
no, I love that. I wanted to ask you, when you stepped into this role, did did did perception meet reality? Your idea of what you would face as a chro you've been obviously working towards this a lot, you know, in your entire career, did perception meet reality when you sat down in the CHRO seat? Now you've been in a role for some time?
Richard Letzelter 31:39
Yeah, so certainly, but nothing else stay static anyway, you know? So things have moved on, things so it's only been two years now, things have already moved on, and I can see that the role is also transforming in the future, and for, you know, good reasons. So yeah, I was never disappointed actually, with the choices I've made in those in those roles, there's been, you know, harder moments than others, but, yeah, this has been a roller coaster so far. It will probably continue. I love it, you know, I love the ability to take decisions, the large latitude that you're given in this, in this position, to make a difference in people's lives. And this really fulfills my need, my intent as a leader as well. So as long as I'm able to do that, then I think I'm in the right place. Yeah,
Chris Rainey 32:29
I love the way you put that. You know, you're okay with the the ongoing barrage of challenges, whether it's a pandemic where pandemic, whether it's politics, whether it's, you know, there's this social movement. You know, there's always something right coming up, but your north star and your foundation is well, well, that's fine, as long as I can continue to live a value for our employees and for society and their families. You know, it's like a balance, right? Totally. And,
Richard Letzelter 32:57
you know, we were talking about mobilities earlier on, and experiences that you have there, and social movements, and there is also, you know, the revolution sometimes that happen, yeah, and these also come in, in the way of your career. We were in Egypt when we got evacuated, for example, with one child, and I couldn't actually go with my family back to Europe. I was standing there because my passport had burned into a year my civil office. In these moments, you really realize what really matters, and where do you place your priorities and families, that your priority in that in that context, and that brings actually, the realism back into what we are trying to do as leaders as well, because we are first fathers, husbands, sons, before being a leader even kind
Chris Rainey 33:50
of well listen before I let you go. Firstly, thank you for coming on the show. I appreciate. I've really enjoyed it, and you've kind of unlocked some memories for me and make me consider some pivotal moments that we've had right that I'd never really had thought about for a long while as well, which is super important. So I appreciate you for bringing that up, kind of giving me some time to reflect on that maybe, maybe need to catch up with Shane and have another conversation. What would be your parting piece of advice for all of the HR leaders out there that are sort of working their way to sit in that seat, or currently are sitting in that seat that you're in right now and then we'll say goodbye.
Richard Letzelter 34:34
I'd say, you know, on a personal level, take development risks. You know, don't stay where you are, you feel comfortable, but Yeah, take that extra risk that can actually take you, take you to that next step. It's a responsibility really, and really be who you are and say what you feel. I think it's the doctor so is saying, because who, those who mind, don't matter, and those who. Matter. Don't mind. Just don't get yourself fired in the process, actually.
Chris Rainey 35:07
But on that point, sometimes you do have to walk away. So there's also many leaders I spoke to in the past that say, Chris, there is a time that, if you don't get that, don't just hang around. There is a time that you do also need to stop waiting for a tap on the shoulder and take charge as well. Well, listen, I appreciate you coming on the show. I wish you all the best. Hope we get to meet in person one day. Enjoy the rest your day. Thanks a lot.
Richard Letzelter 35:34
Thanks a lot you.
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Richard Letzelter, CHRO at Acino.