CPO, NTT DATA, Inc.: How we deliver leadership excellence for 150,000 employees

NTT DATA, an IT behemoth of Japanese origin, boasts 150,000 employees across 70 countries.

Major operations across the US, Europe, Asia, and Africa have been established after 15 years of globalisation, with 110 acquisitions united under one roof.

Now reinventing itself for the era of AI, NTT DATA has worked hard to establish a culture of employee growth and development, facilitated by its 18,000-strong cohort of people leaders.

HR Grapevine caught up with Stijn Nauwelaerts, Chief People Officer at NTT DATA, Inc., to unpack how the firm is delivering leadership excellence for a truly global workforce.

You came into NTT DATA at a pivotal time – what was your main priority?

I’ve been at NTT DATA for 18 months, and the first focus was to work on our culture. As a general observation with companies, people ask themselves big questions, including: what am I doing here? What is this company all about? How can I connect my purpose to the company’s purpose?

At NTT DATA, we wanted to deliberately slow down, to then accelerate further. We asked everyone to chime in and share their point of view – what they liked about the culture, what we needed to keep, and what we needed to change. We landed on our mission and declared an espoused culture: ‘Be the place where people grow.’ Our work began to close the gap between this ambition and the lived experience of our people.

Our leaders are expected to work in service of that cultural transformation; to ensure they are truly living our mission and helping this culture become real. Of course, we’re not there yet – there’s always more to do – but at least people have a North Star of what we expect.

How are expectations for leaders changing?

In the past, leaders have grown their careers over decades, with the assumption that they had to have all the answers. Experts moved up to manager roles, managers to directors, directors to senior directors, and so on. They did so based on their know-how, understanding, and ability to transfer this knowledge to the new generation.

That is changing extremely fast because in the world of AI, knowledge is not necessarily something that only managers have. It is much, much more distributed. So, we're focusing on making sure that leaders have different skills and understand how they can optimise their teams.

What do you expect from your leaders, and why?

When we were creating our espoused culture, we surveyed everyone. What do they like about their leaders? What don't they like about them? What is it that is needed? We surveyed, interviewed, and ran workshops with the managers and leadership teams, too.

Read more from us

Big Interview | Chief Culture Officer, Sanofi: How culture became our operating system for success

This helped leaders understand how they’re evaluated and what is expected of them. It connected their purpose to the company’s purpose and helped them see they’re building something bigger than just doing their jobs.

It led to the creation of three leadership expectations for our leaders: to inspire, empower, and care.

First and foremost, we want our leaders to be learners, to be AI practitioners, and to inspire their team to do the same. We believe in high touch, powered by high tech – where technology is used to handle what is repeatable, remove friction, and elevate the quality of human interactions. Today’s managers have got to empower their team in a different way, asking the right questions rather than providing all the answers. We’re training our managers and coaching them on the art of asking questions. We want people to think, reflect, and have judgement, rather than just actioning work. Managers must also show a genuine interest in people's wellbeing and career expectations – you can’t fake it. Care is something that’s very often overlooked, but it’s the small things that make people leave companies or choose to stay.

We've got 18,000 people managers, and they have to know that their first job is to be a people manager and their second job is to be an individual contributor. There are also other things that matter in a global company, like the ability to work across systems and remove obstacles.