“This partnership with Rise & Lead (R&L) will help us drive our women leadership journey. Our goal is to empower our women leaders of today and tomorrow, support their growth within Kraft Heinz and give them the opportunity to network to develop themselves.”  – Birgitt van Driel

Tell us about yourself and your role in your organization

I’m a 30-year-old living in Amsterdam with a big passion for connecting people and solving problems. I joined the company over 4 years ago, have dealt with various people-oriented challenges and am very enthusiastic about the energetic vibe of Kraft Heinz. My focus now lies on growing the business mindset by providing our teams and talents with the right tools to develop themselves, enabling them to unlock their potential and contributing to creating the right environment where people can be their best version. I aim to find the gaps within a team’s professional performance and potential. This enables us to set the strategy for our talent agenda and get us closer to the goal of making employees feel welcome, challenged, and engaged in our organization.

Tell us about your organization’s vision towards building a more diverse and equitable world?

At Kraft Heinz, we choose to welcome everyone to our table. We choose to be inclusive because diverse backgrounds and perspectives make us stronger, more thoughtful, and more innovative. We believe that our diversity, inclusion, and belonging work helps us to walk in our Company Purpose: Let’s Make Life Delicious, and this will make a lasting impact for our employees, marketplace, and the communities where we live and work, for generations to come. That is why We Demand Diversity and commit to not only listening but to truly working to hear different points of view. 

Our goal is to move from ‘’reflecting on diversity’’ to enable in our people the development of an instinct of inclusion, to become – as a company – an environment where everyone feels welcome and empowered to bring their whole selves to work. 

We will move towards this goal by focusing on representation, flexibility, and empathy. 

We know a truly inclusive culture allows our people to contribute their unique perspectives and ideas, execute with excellence, and grow great careers. Moreover, we have set aspirations that are critical to our diversity, inclusion, and belonging journey while increasing accountability. 

Which diversity and Inclusion initiatives do you currently have in your organization? 

As a global organization, we have a lot of active initiatives. One of them is that we expanded our Company Values to affirm our diversity vision: We Demand Diversity. Also, we launched a Global Inclusion Council. 

I will zoom in on two of the points considered as key priorities for our business unit Continental Europe (which includes the following countries: the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, France, Germany and Italy). 

Firstly, the inclusive hiring process which we are currently improving. Inclusive hiring means creating a diverse candidate pipeline, an objective interview by standardizing questions and a diverse interview panel. This creates equal opportunities and supports diverse hiring. By focusing on inclusive hiring, we are creating an atmosphere of sustained creativity within the company. 

Secondly, we look at the current challenges that women encounter in the organization and aim to overcome them by providing business resource groups, additional leadership sessions, development plans, training and coaching. We aim to empower them and grow their career ambitions within Kraft Heinz. 

What does your organization wish to achieve through the Rise and Lead network, Partnership? 

This partnership with Rise & Lead Women network will help us drive our women leadership journey. Our goal is to empower our women leaders of today and tomorrow, support their growth within Kraft Heinz and give them the opportunity to network to develop themselves. Rise & Lead will be our partner in putting together a community, in which our women leaders can be inspired by other leaders from partners of Rise & Leads’ community. We see Rise & Lead Women Network as an additional resource to address what we can learn as individuals and what we can learn as a company in this journey we are on. For the future we see Rise & Lead Network being our partner in the growth of our talented women by expanding training and development opportunities. 

What would you like your employees to take away from the Rise & Lead Network? 

We would like our employees to feel connected, share experiences and learn and develop themselves by talking with people from other companies. We want them to be a part of a community with people in similar contexts, facing the same challenges and empowering each other. Peer-to-peer learning or coaching will be beneficial. We would like to see that the selected employees bring back new insights to inspire the people around them so that they follow the journey together with them. We believe that such inspiration will give them a boost in their career and contribute to building a better future for everyone!