Winning the hotly-contested category of Best People-Focused CEO requires more than a firm handshake or warm smile. CEOs need to have a genuine passion for their people.
Whether they are driving the people agenda themselves, or supporting their HRD through thick and thin, winners must show that they are true advocates of people-first leadership.
To help give an idea of what a winning CEO looks like, read all about the winner of the HR Excellence Award for Best People-Focussed CEO 2023.
Not started your entry? Look at 2024's categories here.
Best People-Focused CEO: Angela Cretu, Avon
Inspirational leadership is hard to come by.
In today’s world of constant visibility, social media and hyperactive communications teams, it is all too easy for employees to look to their chief executive for leadership, and see an effigy trotting out the same tired platitudes for the fifth LinkedIn video series in a row.
We understand that leaders need to be visible – but they also need to be visibly interested.
Avon’s Angela Cretu, however, is not just interested, she is totally invested in her people, fired by a genuine zeal and real faith in the company’s mission.
Whether talking to employees, or representing them in the national media, she is visibly energised by the issues that Avon – a subsidiary of the world’s largest B-Corp – cares so much about.
For Breast Cancer Awareness Month in 2022, Cretu took part in a series of television interviews, including on live Sky TV, to raise awareness. For International Womens’ Day, she led the launch of Avon’s Global Progress Report for Women, exploring social barriers for women, and was featured on BBC Radio 4 and Sky TV.
The energy that Cretu displays championing these causes on behalf of the business is matched many times over by her tireless efforts within Avon to make it a safe, caring employer.
She led the firm’s creation of an employee value proposition, is a resolute supporter of diversity and inclusion (D&I) and also leads the senior team’s dialogue with the organisation’s diversity steering committee, which invites employee network members into reverse mentoring programmes.
Cretu’s passion for D&I has helped propel the business to world-leading policy offerings, including an additional five days’ menopause leave across all markets the business operates in, alongside flexible working considerations.
It is not unusual for firms of Avon’s size to avow itself of high-minded moral positions. Avon, under Cretu’s leadership, however, always puts action behind words.
Supporting the UN’s 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence with an internal campaign, the business' leaders launched company-wide training, communicating support for colleagues experiencing abuse and signposting the company’s paid leave for victims.
A donation of $91 million (around £73 million) to domestic abuse charities around the world followed the campaign, helping an estimated 15 million women and girls receive support. Avon maintains a zero-tolerance approach to harassment or discrimination.
It is exactly this mixture of visible, vocal leadership, backed by material action, that has made Cretu such an ally to Avon’s people team and a catalyst for transformative action.
Her achievements, including the reduction of Avon’s gender pay gap to just 0.79%, her construction of a 51.7% female leadership team, and a reward strategy that sees every associate paid their region’s living wage at minimum, left judges awed.
“I see evidence of real drive for the people agenda from [Cretu],” one said.
“Getting out in public to back important issues, and backing vital D&I issues – any HRD would be blessed with a CEO like her.”
