Becoming purposeful and performance-driven: A conversation with Jean-Luc Fleurial, EVP and CHRO of UCB

Welcome to The Heidrick & Struggles Leadership Podcast. Heidrick is the premier global provider of diversified solutions across senior-level executive search, leadership assessment and development, team and organizational effectiveness, and culture shaping. Every day, we speak with leaders around the world about how they're meeting rising expectations and managing through volatile times, thinking about individual leaders, teams, organizations, and society. Thank you for joining the conversation.

Marie-Hélène De Coster: Hi, I'm Marie-Hélène De Coster, managing partner with Heidrick and Struggles in the Brussels office and a member of our Global Healthcare & Life Sciences practice, as well as our CEO & Board practice. Today, I'm delighted to be joined by Jean-Luc Fleurial, executive vice president and CHRO of UCB. To introduce Jean-Luc briefly, he is a member of UCB’s executive committee and brings with him more than two decades of experience in global talent strategy, organization development, and leadership transformation. Before joining UCB, he held senior HR leadership roles at Bristol Myers Squibb and Procter & Gamble, working across geographies and business units. At UCB, he has played a key role in shaping the company's culture and talent strategy in support of its patient-focused mission, helping build an organization that is both purpose-driven and performance-oriented. Jean-Luc, welcome and thank you for taking the time to speak with us today.

Jean-Luc Fleurial: Hello, Marie-Hélène, and I'm so happy to exchange with you on all these critical topics.

Marie-Hélène De Coster: With regards to redefining HR effectiveness at the top, Jean-Luc, the role of the CHRO has evolved significantly in recent years and from your perspective, what does it mean today for HR to truly operate as a strategic partner to the CEO and to the board?

Jean-Luc Fleurial: For me, the first short answer is that if HR shows up after the strategy is decided, it's already too late. Because as a strategic partner, today, what it really means is that you need to participate to shape the strategy, not just supporting it afterward. And at CEO, with my colleagues from the executive committee, with the board, nobody wants to have just a functional HR view. We are all worried, concerned, and engaged to bring more value, to drive performance, to drive the sustainability of the company, and whether the organization and the people can actually deliver, and that's where we have a strategic role to play, to contribute to that.

So, at UCB, when we talk strategy, we really try to immediately talk about the culture, the leadership, the capabilities. Do we have the right people? Do we have the depths? Are we organized in a way that can sustain performance over time? So this is really part of strategy-shaping, it's really integrated into the full strategy. So for me, the CHRO today is less about HR programs; it’s much more about joining the core business conversation. And it starts from a clear understanding of our purpose, about the business challenges, the business opportunity.

So, every time I go into a market, I do a field visit. I try to understand what's happening with our stakeholders, with our people, and I would say it's really contributing with this deep understanding of the business, but with the people lens that's directly tied to the outcomes we want to have.

Marie-Hélène De Coster: So, and if we go a little bit further, if we further focus on that enterprise-level strategy that you were talking about, and those cross-functional priorities, and maybe less on those pure HR operational matters. You were mentioning that, you know, when you go into the field, you actually are, you know, closer to the business. Is there anything else that you do differently, more upward, more outward?

Jean-Luc Fleurial: The big difference when you come to this executive committee role is that the way you manage your time has to be different,  So you spend far less time, I would say, inside, I would say, HR topics or processes, and much more time up and out with the CEO, the board, outside the organization, with stakeholders. And upwards means that you focus on a few enterprise critical issues—so leadership quality, succession, organization design, organization health. So not a lot of things, but a few things that are very focused and that will drive the outcome of the strategy of the company.

And it means that I need to have time in my calendar; it’s about having time to go outside, staying curious, talking to peers, advisors, sometimes also academics, to challenge my thinking. And it cannot be run only about my internal insights, otherwise you fall behind very quickly. And to be able to manage your calendar like this, you need to have a very strong HR team, because if you want to operate at that enterprise level, you cannot be pulled into day-to-day operations, so you need to have very strong people in your teams you can rely on.

Marie-Hélène De Coster: And you can delegate to.

Jean-Luc Fleurial: Yes, exactly.

Marie-Hélène De Coster: Now, if we go to the leadership, as such, and we look at the longer-term performance, what role, according to you, should the CHRO play in building board confidence around the leadership pipeline and the long-term performance of the company?

Jean-Luc Fleurial: It's a critical role. Like, every executive committee member that has a close interface with board member, you need to create trust. And for that, I don't think the board want reassurance; they want the truth and to have a good feeling that this is really the truth we are talking. So, it's to make this dialogue, this discussion very real to the board. So, for example, in succession planning or discussion about a leader, about what are the opportunities, where can we be exposed, but also what are our strengths, and how do we feel about the readiness in some places.

So, it's about talking and exchanging with the board about leadership journey, having open doors so that they can exchange directly with people within the organization, and to have them also even contribute and give input on the way we think about our leadership journey. This creates trust, instead of just trying to present things or to position things. That's where also the board can add value.

Marie-Hélène De Coster: You've seen different organizations, and you do talk, you know, with peers as well. You know, if there were a couple of things that you would mention that differentiate organizations that gets CEO and executive management succession well and others that are struggling a bit more with it, what are the key attributes that these successful companies have?

Jean-Luc Fleurial: It's quite clear that succession fails when it's treated as an event instead of a habit. So how in the cultural organization, by the process, by the accountability that you drive, is becoming part of the culture to work on the succession, to help the leaders within the organization to grow and being quite systematic about it; how to have a good understanding about the talent on the market, to be sure that we calibrate well, that we can also integrate some specific capability or disruption where we need to. And I would say this also gives a future leader real exposure.

So, to do that, we really try to accelerate people to put them in to complex development roles where there is big decision, where there is a visible and clear accountability. So just to get them challenged, but also learn new things—fail sometimes, but learn, always learn. And I think overall, so building this leadership journey together with the executive committee, with the board, and it really works when it's really felt like a shared responsibility. And I would say growing the people that can replace you or be your boss is really part of the culture of the company.

Marie-Hélène De Coster: Yes, interesting. I think what does stand out in what you say is the shared responsibility and the fact that it's not events-driven, but it is a continuous process that, over time, probably is really well digested.

I know this is another topic which you're passionate about, which is culture and the future organization. I think UCB distinguishes itself very strongly because it is a company which is highly purpose-driven and that is extremely patient-centric and has been one of the first companies to be so outspoken about the patient centricity. How would you translate that purpose into the behaviors in leadership you would want to see that give that away about UCB?

Jean-Luc Fleurial: That’s always interesting to talk about, patient value culture into pharma industry from organization, because that's a bit the normal mission, often the purpose of this company. But I would say what differentiates the most purposeful companies is when purpose matters if it changed decision. Because if purpose is on the wall or it's felt in the heart of the people, which is also important, but if it does not change strategic decision of the company, it is not something that I would qualify as a purpose which is lived to the core of the company. At UCB, we have this chant, that is purpose is not a slogan, it's a lens that we use in our leadership decisions, but our strategic business decision also. So that's really what I feel is the ultimate differentiation—is when purpose has a clear impact on your decision.

Marie-Hélène De Coster: Great. If you now add to that the fact that there are new technologies coming, a changing workforce expectation with the next generation, how would the leaders think about redesigning roles? And maybe especially in the middle management levels, those that will be the future leaders potentially of UCB, how should they think about redesigning some roles?

Jean-Luc Fleurial: So, I would not point out specifically middle management. I know there's some question about whether middle management will continue to exist or is there an entry point for new graduates within companies—

Marie-Hélène De Coster: Yes.

Jean-Luc Fleurial: —because of AI, new technology, these kinds of needs will disappear. I'm more thinking about what are the capability requires to lead—could be project, could be people—in the future that might be agentic AI. So, I'm more interested in terms of how people, and specifically leaders, update their skills and capability and growth. So, for me, there is not a middle management question or problem; it's more, Do this, middle management and continue to grow, versus being outdated and not being relevant in the change in the future as the context will continue to evolve.

Marie-Hélène De Coster: So if I take just what you said and apply it to you as a CHRO and with your peers as an executive team, which capabilities do you see you will need to keep developing to remain effective and for the company to remain successful in the coming years?

Jean-Luc Fleurial: I think it has been put to, we say, the revelator, with the AI acceleration, and you see how people can use ChatGPT. And there are many studies that show that there is a risk of losing critical thinking, because you just surrender your critical thinking to AI. While critical thinking will continue to be a competitive advantage in the future and how you connect, you put things together, and how you can put judgment in a context where you see all the nuances versus what can see AI, I will see that in the coming years it’s not about too much intelligence or expertise, because a lot of things can be, can come from technology. But how do we continue to develop this right judgment, this right critical thinking, this strong human judgment that associated with technology will create that differentiated benefit.

Marie-Hélène De Coster: I think you already answered the next question I was going to ask you, but I am going to ask it because maybe you see other pieces of advice for CHRO to increase your impact at the highest levels of the organization. It’s fascinating what you just said about the critical judgment. Is there anything else that you, as a CHRO, see as an opportunity to maintain and even increase the impact that you have on the organization?

Jean-Luc Fleurial: Well, maybe I would double down on this notion about being really part of the strategy, really a deep understanding about the core business, but keeping that human lens, judgment, critical thinking, with connecting the dots between the purpose, the key business, strategic focus of the company, and the culture, the leadership, the people, the engagement that you create. So, it's really about stopping to just be the HR expert in the room but really thinking like a businessperson with a superhuman power, who can really connect the dots and make it a differentiator with your culture, with your people, with your organization.

Marie-Hélène De Coster: Wonderful. Well, Jean-Luc, thank you so much, first of all, for making the time to speak to us, and second, for so openly sharing your experience. Thank you so much.

Jean-Luc Fleurial: Thank you, Marie-Hélène.

Thanks for listening to The Heidrick & Struggles Leadership Podcast. To make sure you don't miss the next conversation, please subscribe to our channel on your preferred podcast app, and if you're listening via LinkedIn or YouTube, why not share this with your connections? Until next time.

About the interviewer

Marie-Hélène De Coster (mhdecoster@heidrick.com) is the partner in charge of Heidrick & Struggles’ Belux region; she is based in the Brussels office.