Episode 31 – Leading Organisational Change: Interview with Jackie Lanham

Jackie Lanham is Hilton Food Group's Chief People Officer, with a career history that tells a story of leading change in all its forms to help businesses to achieve their goals. It comprises of 3 key phases:

HR Generalist and Business Partner covering all aspects of HR.

Large leadership roles establishing and running HR centralised and shared services.

Developing and implementing strategies to ensure business success now and for the future through culture, capability and organisation design.

What really makes her tick?

Change. Creativity. Performance. Fun. Results.

You Can Read the Full Transcript of Our Interview With Jackie Lanham Below

Darren A. Smith:

Welcome to the MBM block. We are absolutely delighted to welcome Jackie Lanham. Jackie, welcome.

Jackie Lanham:

Thank you, Darren.

Darren A. Smith:

This is our blog where we talk to experts and people who practice in the field right now, and we're talking to them about soft skills. Jackie and I know each other and we have selected the topic, well, Jackie did, of leading organisational change. Is that right?

Hilton Food Group's Chief People Officer

 

Jackie Lanham:

Yeah, absolutely spot on.

Darren A. Smith:

Good. I thought if we've chosen another topic, I've really stuffed up the first part of this, but that's okay.

Jackie Lanham:

We can do buying handbags if you like.

Darren A. Smith:

I'll tell you about a friend afterwards who did a vlog on all her handbooks. No, maybe one for another time. We have the pleasure of Jackie's company for about half an hour. We have a bunch of Google questions. So these are the questions that people typically ask around this topic. We're going to put them to Jackie. But before I waffle on anymore Jackie, would you tell us a little bit about you please?

Jackie Lanham:

Course. And thank you so much, Darren, for inviting me here to have this conversation with you. I'm really looking forward to it. As Darren said, my name is Jackie Lanham. I am the chief people and culture officer for Hilton Food Group. And Hilton Food Group is a premier food packaging organisation. Absolutely focused on the protein category. Well known in meats, also getting well-known in fish, and also in vegan and vegetarian products as well, on an international basis.

Jackie Lanham:

I love my job. I get the opportunity to talk to people across Europe, into Australia, and also have the wonderful opportunity of building things into new countries, most recently, Belgium. In my role, I'm really responsible for facilitating our thinking around our people strategy, and really ensuring that our people love working for us, are fully engaged in what we do, because we know people who love their work, love working for the business, produce the best.

Darren A. Smith:

Very true. Very true. Yeah, very true. Okay. And you haven't just worked at Hilton... I say just.

Jackie Lanham:

Oh, no, no, no. This white hair is earned, unfortunately. I got into human resources pretty quickly, and I have to say, I love it. Absolutely, felt very lucky to find my forte really early on in my career. I've worked across retail for the Co-operative and Tesco within the U.K. And also, I've worked on an international basis within the financial services' sector. A period of 11 years with JPMorgan Chase, and a period of seven years with, also, Aviva, in the insurance sector.

Jackie Lanham:

I think what I absolutely adore about the profession I'm in, is the fact that it's pretty transferable across different sectors. And I think I'm at my best when I'm working in businesses that are absolutely focused on delivering to the customer. Yeah, that what I enjoy doing, and really working with businesses who have that at their heart.

Darren A. Smith:

Brilliant. I'm going to go off at a slight tangent, and hopefully, you'll be okay with it-

Jackie Lanham:

You did.

Darren A. Smith: