our people – I need my people to be engaged and
feel supported by the business.”
But finding that balance as a parent is easier said
than done, she adds. “It’s about accepting that
sometimes you have to make sacrifices,” she muses.
“But that’s not just in your job it’s all over life.”
Another key area on de Noronha’s radar is L&D
and “building functional capability”, which she
believes is the “first and most important thing” HR
can do to help drive the organisation’s growth.
One function she is particularly conscious to
prioritise here is marketing, because “it’s very
directly connected to the organisation’s ability to
grow the top line of the organisation”.
The answer has partly come courtesy of the
launch of a digital learning platform called
Ownerversity, where employees take ownership of
their own development. “The whole idea of
Ownerversity is that you don’t have to be in a
function to learn about that function, you can
hashtag a topic you want to learn and then take
courses, read articles, and hear from speakers on it,”
says de Noronha. “I call it being function-agnostic.”
Being function-agnostic is something de Noronha
is especially passionate about given her own
unconventional route into HR. But giving people
the opportunity to change function or career is just
generally “very in line with the whole culture of
Kraft Heinz”, de Noronha explains, which she
describes as “super meritocratic”.
“What you’ve done in your past matters less to us
than what you’ve delivered and the potential you’ve
shown here,” she says. “I’m a living example of that
so that makes it a lot more real for people. We don’t
like to put anyone in a box.
“Lots of people want to change careers, and we
have lots of amazing examples of people who’ve
come from completely different industries or
functions and wanted to work in marketing or HR
or sales and didn’t get the chance somewhere else,
and I’ve given them that chance,” she adds.
She recounts hiring someone who now works in
compensation and benefits and leads D&I, who had
only ever worked in finance before: “I see her happy
and engaged and you feel you’re changing
someone’s life positively.”
“As someone who came from finance, went into
sales and then into people and performance, I
recognise that there’s no limit to what you can do
and what function you can work in.”
There’s also no limit to what employees do in
their individual roles, she adds, with a culture of
ownership and meritocracy running through
everything the organisation does: “I always joke that
we are a start-up with the scale of a global business
in the sense that you can start things and really
invent or reinvent something.”
Which means HR – along with hiring
entrepreneurial types and focusing on L&D –
“thinking about innovation in a disruptive manner”,
says de Noronha. “We need the right capabilities in
place, the right individuals with an entrepreneurial
mindset, and need to foster and enable innovation.”
Part of HR’s efforts to help foster innovation has
been the launch of Ideas in Practice, a global
competition where employees submit scalable
business ideas, with the winner receiving a
financial reward.
But there’s plenty more to do, muses de Noronha.
“My challenge is having to adapt to the everchanging
industry and new consumer trends and
that comes with lots of consequences for HR,” she
says. “It requires us in people and performance to be
ever-changing.”
So does that mean another career change
on the horizon? “I’m very open, but this is my role
today and my dream is to make sure I enable the
company to grow by having the most engaged
proudest employees.
“If I achieve those things I think I’ll want to
achieve more as you can’t ever have an end game to
these things.” HR
Profile Strategic HR
Five things
things I can’t live without
Humour
I don’t take myself
too seriously and
believe a bit of
humour is needed
even in the most
serious environments
Integrity
My most
valued
value
Sport
Keeps me sane…
and keeps my
competitive spirit alive
A good book
or documentary
My latest favourite
documentary is
Free Solo and latest
favourite book is
Dare to Lead
Family (and friends
who are family)
They’re the ones who keep
me going on tough days and
inspire me to do better
hrmagazine.co.uk June 2019 HR 29
/hrmagazine.co.uk