Actions speak louder than words. And when it comes to family, there are no higher stakes.
Eugene Galdi, Vice President and Chief Procurement Officer at Arxada, does things a little differently from the traditional procurement professional.
“My first rule when I meet a new organisation is that I have this policy where I tell everyone, ‘Put your phones on the table. If that phone rings or you get a text and it’s a friend or family, if you do not answer it, I will fire you.’ And they always get shocked, and I go, ‘Everybody knows you’re working. So if they’re sending you a message, it’s most likely they need to say something important.’ It is about family first, and you need leadership who believes in that.”
People first
It is safe to say Galdi has a particular leadership style. With a career involving roles with giants such as General Electric, Honeywell and 3M, you could be forgiven for expecting Galdi to be solely company-driven. However, as his previous anecdote demonstrated, quite the opposite is true. At his core, Galdi is fiercely people-focused. He believes in the power of talent and splits employees into three categories: right person right job, right person wrong job, wrong person. According to Galdi, empowering underwhelming staff is all about identifying what makes them tick in order to make them productive again.
“Find the issue and see if it’s fixable,” explains Galdi. “I’m not a psychiatrist, nor do I wish to seriously spend my time being one all day. But find what the issue is and work out if it was just bad advice that somebody was very open to fixing, or nobody ever told them, and address it. If it works, fantastic. If it doesn’t, then you sit down with the person and say ‘It’s not working.’ And I will tell you that the majority of the time, it was just a simple tweak to get that person to be productive again. And so, people are my foundation. You need to have talent, and you want people to be passionate as well.”
Inside Arxada
Galdi is an international logistics and supply chain leader with a diverse background leading cross-organisational teams to bring savings to the bottom line and improve logistics costs, engagement, and end-customer experience. The company he works for, Arxada, is a global science-based specialty ingredients business creating innovative chemistry and solutions. With customers in more than 100 countries, the company aims to solve the world’s toughest preservation challenges by enhancing sustainability with cleaner, greener solutions. Arxada focuses on multiple end-markets, primarily in human health and nutrition, home and personal care, paints and coatings and wood protection, providing a broad portfolio of differentiated products and solutions, supported by its science and innovation capabilities, in-depth regulatory know-how and track record in manufacturing and process development.
Headquartered in Switzerland, Arxada was created in 2021 following the sale of Lonza Specialty Ingredients to private equity firms Bain Capital and Cinven. Arxada was built from three different companies that were blended together; Lonza, Troy Chemical and Enviro Tech. Today, Arxada manages its supply chain through two business units, Microbial Control Solutions (MCS) and Nutrition, Care and Environmental (NCE). Galdi believes the merger was a significant moment in the organisation’s journey so far.
Read the full story in CPOstrategy Magazine here.
