Harold Hillman

Harold Hillman, Managing Director of Sigmoid, migrated to New Zealand in 2003 to join Fonterra, New Zealand’s largest company, and help lay the foundation for the dairy co-operative to realise its vision to be the global leader in dairy.

Harold served in two roles with Fonterra, initially as Interim Group HR Director on the Fonterra Leadership Team and then in the role for which he was recruited, Director of Talent & Organisational Development. Harold’s contributions established Fonterra as a benchmark in people engagement strategies, evidenced by strong performance on key engagement factors four years in the life cycle of global companies of comparable size.

Harold has advised Fonterra’s Board, ShareholderCouncil, and Executive teams on strategies to attract, develop, and retain the very best talent for the Co-op. Along with Glen Petersen, Harold is a lead assessor on Fonterra’s Assessment and Development Centre, which is focused on enhancing succession for senior tier and ‘next generation’ leaders.

Harold’s career highlights include:

• Chief Aviation Psychologist, Myrtle Beach Air Force Base, South Carolina
  
  
• Assistant Professor and Director, Leadership Programs at the US Air Force Academy, Colorado
  
  
• Director, Amoco Management Learning Center, Amoco Corporation, Chicago
  
  
• Dean, Amoco Marketing University, Amoco Corporation, Chicago
  
  
• Vice President, Executive Development, Prudential Financial, New York
  
  
• Corporate Vice President & Chief Learning Officer, Prudential Financial, New York

Harold believes that executives must understand the significance of their role as leaders and the impact strong leadership can have on a company’s performance. He engages with leaders on a ‘journey’ that starts with a heightened sense of self-awareness, understanding what it means to ‘be’ rather than ‘do,’ and having them get to the point where they realise that coming up with the right questions are more important than always needing to have the right answers.

As either a direct report or in an advisory capacity, Harold has worked with a number of prominent chief executives in the U.S. and Australasia, including Larry Fuller of Amoco, Art Ryan of Prudential Financial, Irene Rosenfeld of Kraft Foods and Sanjay Khosla of Kraft Foods International, Andrew Ferrier of Fonterra, Graham Stuart of Sealord, Simon Carter and Pat Hills of Transfield Worley, Ken Rivers of Shell and NZ Refining Company, Andrew Thorburn of Bank of New Zealand, Rick Ellis of TVNZ and Doug McKay of Auckland City Council.

Harold’s other clients include Foodstuffs, Zespri, RD1, Dairy NZ, University of Melbourne, Duke University (USA) and FMG. Harold is also frequently invited to deliver keynote speeches and presentations at conferences in the arena of talent and human capital.

Harold earned a Master’s Degree in Education from Harvard University and his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Pittsburgh (USA). Harold is currently publishing his first book, ‘Building a Learning Team: A Guide for Leaders.’

Stephen Richardson's Bio Follows

Stephen Richardson

Steve first came to New Zealand in 1998 when travelling and fell in love with the country and its people. Initially he returned to the UK to continue his career in consulting with Mercer in London returning to make NZ his home in 2001.  In the UK Steve worked for British Airways and then the Mercer consulting group, where he worked with many large MNCs in a consulting capacity including British Aerospace, AXA Insurance, Kraft Foods, including working on projects such as the Compaq / Digital merger in Europe.

He moved over to live in Auckland in 2001 joining Mercer’s Human Capital consulting business. After a couple of very successful years with Mercer in NZ working with many of NZ leading employers on Human capital and compensation & benefits assignments, Steve was offered a role with Carter Holt Harvey as Group GM Organizational Development managing a team in Auckland and Melbourne. He built a strong team that developed learning & development programs, HR strategy for the group, worked closely with Gallup in the US on employee engagement strategies (as part of International Paper which was then the majority shareholder), performance management and talent management.

Steve was offered an opportunity in 2005 to join Fonterra as Group Organisational Development manager – initially working directly with Harold Hillman. Steve played a significant role in developing Fonterra’s talent strategies, use of competency profiling and performance management tools & processes. He served for a while as the interim Global Head of compensation & benefits for the group, before being appointed as the General Manager of HR for Asia, Middle east, China & Japan, based in Singapore. In this role Steve re-built the HR team in the region, revitalized the HR strategy with a particular focus on talent growth and retention. He was a key business partner to the business leaders, and played a significant part in restructuring particularly the branded goods business, Steve also played a key role in bringing in a number of significant senior talent hires at the right point to accelerate the growth curve of the business in Asia / Middle East.  Steve was a core member of Fonterra’s HR Executive team during his tenure at the business – shaping core HR strategy and programs.

Most recently Steve was the Vice President of HR for Hewlett Packard’s PC business across the Asia Pacific Japan region, based in Singapore. This is the world’s leading PC business with revenues in APJ of more than US9bn per annum, with employees in 18 countries spanning 5 main regions – India, SE Asia, Japan, ANZ and China. Reporting directly to the WW head of HR for the PSG group in California, Steve was instrumental in re-building the HR team in the region, re-establishing the HR strategy, coaching the executive team through significant change & transformation, and driving key initiatives for the business including sales productivity, and leadership strategies. He showed creativity, experience and expertise in leading the region in compensation & benefits strategies, engagement, communication, staffing and raising the bar in talent & performance across the business. Steve was a member of the APJ HR executive council for HP that was responsible for managing HP’s 85,000 employees in the region. He was also a core member of the Global PSG HR Executive council that collaborated on WW HR strategies for this US40bn+ PC businesses operating in Americas, EMEA and APJ.
 

Recommendations For Stephen

“Steve is a solid HR leader who is very responsible, professional and full of passion. He is always looking after the people and having their interest at heart, so that they can performed at their maximum capacity and returning best value to the corporation. A genuine team player with great sense of humor and “can-do” attitude.
I would always ready and honor to have him as a SWAT team member in any mission, under any condition. Under his charge, the Asia Pacific management team worked through many different situations and we enjoyed his energy level that multiplied through his team even under very difficult circumstances. He won many hearts in our team and was awarded the honor of “Who, Cares Wins” medal for his achievement in HP PSG human capital contribution” November 28, 2010"
Dennis Mark, VP & GM SE Asia & Taiwan, HP AP
worked directly with Stephen at Hewlett-Packard

“Steve was a colleague of mine at HP. He was one of the smartest and most creative HR professionals I have known. He was a great partner and was highly regarded by all who knew him.” November 17, 2010
Don Robertson, Vice President - Human Resources Global Operations - Asia Pacific Japan, Hewlett-Packard Corporation
worked directly with Stephen at Hewlett-Packard

Steve is a passionate, creative and capable HR leader, with a good rapport with senior business leaders, and employees alike. He is a good judge of talent, and an strong executive coach. He is both strategic and has an attention to detail at the same time, and has a strong business acumen, and helped our business through restructuring and transformation and some very sensitive issues with good balanced judgment. I am happy to recommend his work and advice.” November 24, 2010
Shalyn Lee, VP Supply Chain Asia Pacific Japan, Hewlett-Packard
worked directly with Stephen at Hewlett-Packard