Building a Ship; Shaping Workplace Culture as a CPO.

Astrid Arndt, Chief People Officer at Zalando, joins Janine Matos to discuss leadership, workplace culture, and personal growth.

Astrid explains her role in helping to shape Zalando’s culture, focusing on the importance of talent attraction, colleague retention, and understanding customer needs. The conversation also covers insights into long-term strategy, shifts in customer behaviour, and even Ted Lasso.

Astrid’s three “Pieces of Me” reflect some key lessons in leadership and self-belief. They symbolise the significance of collective achievements, the importance of asking for help and Astrid’s love of the ocean.

To learn more about careers at Zalando, visit jobs.zalando.com. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Building a ship means crafting your own destiny, daring to embark to new adventures and trying, yeah, seeing where the winds take you.

SPEAKER_02 0:12

Hi, my name is Janine Matos and I'm the host of the Pieces of Me podcast by Zalando. Career development advice, industry insights and stories from leaders at Zalando to supercharge your career in fashion and lifestyle e-commerce. Today, I have Astrid And with me, CPO, Corporate Functions and Management Board member. Hi, Astrid. Hi, Janine. Nice meeting you. Nice

SPEAKER_01 0:33

meeting you. Nice having you here with me today. I love it. And I mean, it's impressive to see the lineup of all the colleagues that you had in your podcast already. So it's a privilege and honor to be here today.

SPEAKER_02 0:44

Thank you. So then you brought three pieces. I see them right in front of me. And please tell me which one is the close to your heart piece.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

So the close to my heart piece is this postcard from the seaside. Then your career item. As a career item, I brought this little boat in a bottle toolkit. I will tell you a bit more later.

SPEAKER_02 1:09

And now I see a personalized Zalando bottle in front of me. So is this your Zalando item?

SPEAKER_01 1:16

Yes, my Zalando item is also a bottle, but a very different one. It's a drinking bottle which says... Astrid liefert in German, so Astrid delivers. And it's a personalized gift that we've actually shared with our colleagues in the warehouses recently. And the team was kind enough to give me one too.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

Oh, that's nice. Looking forward to when you got it, why you got it. But then let's get started with what you do. You have two major positions. One is the CPO of corporate functions and you are a management board member. So let's start with the CPO in corporate functions.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

So I'm Zalando's chief people officer, and I'm also responsible for corporate functions. What that means is as a chief people officer, it's about attracting the right talent to Zalando and make sure they're developed and retained. And we create an environment that really, yeah, allows them to be the best at work. It's about building the organization that, yeah, helps Zalando develop and grow. And it's about creating the cultural environment that is close to our values and that is also creating a good environment. When you mention corporate functions, I'm also responsible for the teams that create our physical and digital workplace, as well as our corporate communication team and our public affairs team.

SPEAKER_02 2:37

So your main customer are the internal employees, but of course, and also attracting external talents to make sure that They are interested in joining Zalando and having this amazing culture. So I've been at Zalando now 12 years and I'm seeing how the culture somehow has stayed, that we are sometimes still having this startup mentality, but of course as a corporate company.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

Yeah, and I think you already mentioned a very important point about Zalando. So we've been founded in 2008 and we have many long-tenured colleagues as yourself. And also at the same time, we constantly onboard amazing new talent from all around the globe. And the company is also evolving naturally. Our strategy is becoming more and more ambitious. We grow our business. We recently built an additional growth vector with our B2B business in addition to our B2C business. So creating this ecosystem of fashion and lifestyle really allows us to explore many different opportunities and, of course, also create opportunities for our colleagues, new and talented. It's my job indeed is to make sure that we have what we need to execute the strategy and that also finds the right balance of preserving what makes Zalando unique. You mentioned the values and our culture. I think there is a really big red thread throughout the years that just describes who we are. And then, of course, the way we work, what we offer, that just comes with size, it comes with scope, it comes with change. And so my teams in my area make sure that we have what we need to focus on what matters most, creating amazing experiences for our customers.

SPEAKER_02 4:20

Okay, we talked about corporate functions. That's, of course, one side. And then we have the management board. So you are now how many years already

SPEAKER_01 4:26

part of the management

SPEAKER_02 4:27

board?

SPEAKER_01 4:28

I was appointed to be a member of the management board in April 2021, and I just started my second term in September last year. I think we are together in charge of providing the long-term strategy to the company and ensuring that our teams are empowered to drive the execution of that strategy. And we work closely with internal and external stakeholders to and are striving to bring our ecosystem strategy to life that we launched last year.

SPEAKER_02 5:00

Do you have a part of the strategy where you have your main focus on or something that you really say, this is where I really want to see really changes happening?

SPEAKER_01 5:10

Yeah, good question. I mean, I'm excited by all different areas that we strive at. My role is actually horizontal, so it goes into all areas of what we do, and it's making sure that we have what we need. to deliver on these different aspects of our strategy. So be it how to build our lifestyle expansion in our business to consumer business or further grow into our business to business angle. It's about building new capabilities. We've recently opened an office in Shenzhen, China to further enhance our technical capabilities when it's around creating an experience for customers that's way more into inspiration and entertainment. So I think there is different capabilities that we need to build in our different parts of the organization. My teams and myself, we are supporting all these different areas.

SPEAKER_02 6:04

So one thing that I haven't asked you yet is actually how long have you been at Celan? When did you start? I

SPEAKER_01 6:11

started in 2018, so seven years ago.

SPEAKER_02 6:14

Congratulations. Also part of the dinosaurs. Would you say so? I think it's seven, eight years. I mean, what do you think? I think many people leave after three, four years, I guess. So I think seven, eight years is a very big accomplishment already.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

Well, it feels certainly at the same time like a very long time because so much has happened. Then at the same time, I still remember day one and how exciting that was. I had different roles in the seven years. I actually joined as a vice president in our people and organization team. I was responsible for talent acquisition and people operations at the time. And then when my boss moved to another internal role, I actually got the chance to then be in charge of the entire people and organizations team. And then, as I said before, in 2021, I was appointed to the management board.

SPEAKER_02 7:08

That's a really nice development. Also, looking at the span of two, three years, it's a really good accomplishment. Looking back at the eight years you've been at Zalando, what is maybe an accomplishment that you're mostly proud of? Is there something specific?

SPEAKER_01 7:26

I think it's not so much a personal accomplishment, but it's more what I see as a collective accomplishment. What I think at Zalando collectively we've been always good at and which I try to embrace myself is really understanding our customer and solving a customer problem that matters. And these customer problems change over time. So it is about not being complacent but continuing to ask the question of what really matters to our customers. What's needed at that point in time. And I think when Robert and David started the company in 2008, it was the idea of selling shoes online and creating an online business for people to experience the shopping experience in a digital world. And then more recently, I think we now see shifts in our customer behavior. So the question is, how can we create or develop and evolve our customer experience in a way that, yeah, delights our customers nowadays? So I think this ability to constantly question how we do things, what is the problem that we're trying to solve, not getting complacent, I think this is something I find really important and What I try to achieve here is to make sure from my vantage point that this appetite, this drive, this ability to move fast, to be bold, to innovate, and to work together as a team, that this doesn't get lost over the years. So I think this is my biggest ambition, that I support the organization, our teams, and being as effective as we, I think, were throughout the years.

SPEAKER_02 9:15

So if your leadership style could be a movie or a book or a character, which one would it be?

SPEAKER_01 9:21

Oh, that's a really difficult one.

SPEAKER_02 9:23

By the way, this question was suggested by Priya, your assistant.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Well, when we talk about leadership style, it's very difficult to find this one role model in fiction. But I like the series of Ted Lasso a lot. Tad Lasso, I think, would be a reference that comes to my mind if you ask for a fictional character that somewhat reflects my idea of leadership. What I like about this series is it's about football at first sight, but it's very much about how to build a strong team. And I think the idea behind that manager of that football team, Tad Lasso, is to embrace leadership in a way that really sees the individual. Yeah, I think that is something that I try to do also in my work to really acknowledge that we have here personalities. We come together in a professional environment, but we are all people with various backgrounds and with a lot on our minds and in our hearts. And yeah, to get the best in a team setting out of bringing fantastic people together and being effective on the pitch, that is something I find quite inspirational.

SPEAKER_02 10:32

What is the best piece of advice or maybe even feedback that you ever received?

SPEAKER_01 10:37

Yeah, very good question. Probably there is way more than just one. One piece of advice that comes to my mind immediately is ask for help. Don't think that you need to do it on your own. Be aware that there are other people who can help you. I think that's a really good piece of advice, not just for myself, but which I've given others too. A second one would be make sure you listen carefully. Very often you see just the surface of a problem, but if you dig deeper, if you ask more questions, if you listen more, then you understand the actual scope of a problem and then you can engage into problem solving and find a solution. But I think these are two aspects that I try to remind myself frequently. Listen and ask for help.

UNKNOWN 11:25

Music

SPEAKER_02 11:28

So I would actually now like to start talking about your pieces. So you're close to your heart. You mentioned these are postcards from the Baltic Sea. So you are from the

SPEAKER_01 11:41

Baltic Sea. I am from the Baltic Sea. And so I brought a postcard from which, you know, it was sent to me years ago. It's actually quite old. It used to have a sound effect. So it was a sound effect that you can actually hear the ocean. And it was sent to me when I moved to Berlin, so away from the seaside. We have a lot of water here in Berlin, but it's not the ocean. Not the same. So the battery is now down, so I can't demonstrate the sound effect. And sometimes, you know, these people who ask you, are you a mountain person or are you a... seaside person so I'm clearly a seaside person. Same. So first I mean this postcard just reminds me of where I grew up and memories when I was little with my family and so it's just a happy place for me and I think over the years that's always important to know what your roots are and where you're grounded. So that's the one reason. The second one is I'm a very sociable person in my job and also in my personal life. I meet a lot of people. I talk a lot. And sometimes I just know how to recharge. And I think every one of us should know where to get energy from. And so if ever I feel like I need energy, some quiet time, I need to reflect, I need to refine or rebalance a bit, then I go to the sea and I always feel happy there. The third one is I just love the ocean and looking at it because it's the symbol for endless possibilities and also for this long-term, steady, it changes a lot, but there is some, it's just something that has a long horizon and yeah, that just gives me this peace of mind and focusing on what matters most.

UNKNOWN 13:29

Music

SPEAKER_02 13:32

So your career item is...

SPEAKER_01 13:35

My career item, well, I thought what to bring and I brought a gift that a friend gave me years ago when we went sailing together. And it's a little toolbox which allows you to build your own boat and it's meant to be a message in the bottle. So it's not really literally about building a boat, but I wanted to... And

SPEAKER_02 13:57

I

SPEAKER_01 13:58

think what I liked about that item is that when I started my career, I didn't quite know what to do yet. And probably because I felt there is an ocean of possibilities. And when I finished high school and I had the chance to go to university, I really found it difficult to pick my specialty because I was interested in so many different things. Over the years, I learned to embrace that idea of daring different things and exploring this ocean of possibilities. And so I found that is a good symbol. Building a ship means crafting your own destiny, daring to embark to new adventures and trying, yeah, seeing where the winds take you.

SPEAKER_02 14:40

It's a great gift, a great piece. And You really described it exactly how a lot of people often feel like if they don't have a clear vision and direction, like a lot of times it's just overwhelming. What do you want to do? Yeah. So you never actually built the bottle.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

I never built the bottle, literally, because it's just so pretty in this box. But yeah, I think in reality, of course, I built other stuff, but it wouldn't be a boat.

SPEAKER_02 15:04

So now your Zalando item is... Astrid liefert, Astrid delivers. Tell me about the water bottle I see in front of me.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

Yes. So as I said before, it's a drinking bottle and it has this tag Astrid liefert because it's a personalized thing. So we recently created these bottles for our warehouse teams. And yeah, the team was kind enough to give me one too. And I just loved it because for me, Zalando is really about delivering. It's about, I think, delivery. So Astra liefert, Astra delivers, or whoever Zalando delivers. I think it's a promise that we just give our customers, our partners, and also our employees in the end. I think it's about being reliable, keeping your promises, keeping your commitments. and bringing things to life. It's not just about creating concepts, but actually bringing things to life. And that's what I love about this term, we deliver. Yeah, of course, that's also a good ambition level for me personally, to make sure that people can rely on me, they can trust that I stick by my commitments and that I actually execute our strategy and bring things to life and make things better for our customers, partners, and Zalando as a workplace for our employees. Before we wrap

SPEAKER_02 16:21

up, Astrid, what would you say listeners should dare to do? I

SPEAKER_01 16:25

mean, first of all, I think the dare to already has a really great idea in it, which is trust your own abilities. And you typically can do more than you think. I think as a general advice, there's also limitations, obviously. But I think generally speaking, there is more we can do. And we typically find many reasons why things can't work. But my experience is if you just start and just dare to try, you typically either learn from it or you just accomplish it. So my biggest advice is dare to do, dare to act, keep an open mind. Let's just do it.

SPEAKER_02 17:07

Amazing. Thank you very much for being my guest today.

SPEAKER_01 17:09

Thank you very much, Janine.

SPEAKER_02 17:11

It's been a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you all so much for listening. If you'd like to know more about careers at Zalando, go to jobs.zalando.de. You'll find that link in the show notes or check out our Instagram page inside Zalando. Our next episode is coming in two weeks and I'll be talking to another guest from Zalando about life inside the fashion and tech retail industry. And of course, there are three pieces of me.