Today, Laura Johnson is joined by Anthony Enright, Head of People (ANZ) at Klarna.

Anthony kick-started his career in recruitment straight out of University, where he studied HR and Marketing. Since then, he has used his resilience, logic and genuine interest in people to navigate his way through the business world. Describing the peaks and troughs he has endured in his career so far, Anthony is open about his journey to discovering where he excels most within the HR space.

Anthony’s first job was a six month gig at a boutique recruitment agency which he candidly admits was not a role that played to his strengths. Acknowledging that sales was not the direction he saw himself going in, he transitioned into what he called a “half HR role”. In this role he was primarily responsible for administrative tasks from payroll to negotiating with contractors. This led him onto his first full HR role where he stayed for three years before moving onto Ansarada.

“And that's where I would say my career started to go a little bit more rapidly scaling in that context.”

Working for Ansarada for six years, Anthony credits this period for teaching him a lot, allowing him to figure himself out and critique himself. When asked for his greatest career advice, he reflects on the leadership programme at Ansarada, highlighting the importance of “touching someone’s heart before asking for a hand”. This human aspect runs as a motif throughout the conversation, epitomised by the fact that Anthony did a psychology degree. Essentially, he explains that he loves to get the best out of people.

“The more value you can produce for other people, the more valuable that you've become in general.”

When discussing the value of mentorships, Anthony explains that helping people early and often is one of the best things you can do. As a coach at the Startmate Fellowship programme, Anthony is well-versed in mentoring and helping people along their journey of career development. His advice is to accept that a cookie-cutter approach won’t always work.

“Everybody's going to have things that make them tick, and things that are going to go against their personal values, and being very clear or being able to articulate them is going to be helpful.”

To hear more from Anthony, including the lessons he has learnt through trial and error, listen to the latest episode of Strivin and Thrivin now!