To lead is to serve
Having “worked for different companies, from different sectors and with different functions” is what distinguishes Cláudia de Lemos Silveira, currently Head of Engagement and Wellbeing, at Jerónimo Martins.
She considers herself to be an operations woman who is enthusiastic about putting strategic thinking into practice. However, before the strategy, there are the people, because “only teamwork leads us” to the creation of value for the business.
In 2019, he spent his time at AESE, attending the PDE – Business Management Program, which he considers to have been “absolutely essential for the consolidation” of his personal and professional trajectory.
What are the main milestones in your professional career that contributed to reaching the position you are in?
It’s been 25 years since I started working and the fact that I have worked for different companies, from different sectors and with different functions is what distinguishes me today as a professional and a person. Over the years, I have been able to extract from all experiences, positive and less positive, more impactful and less impactful experiences and it is this miscellany that pushes me forward. The company that has marked me the most to date is Telecel-Vodafone. For a 23-year-old, being alongside disruptive and visionary minds and growing up in a culture of innovation in the 90s was hard to find in Portugal. I remember absorbing every word of Eng. António Coimbra (at the time VP of Telecel and current President of Vodafone Spain) and being fascinated by the vision he had for telecommunications (I would say that everything came to pass!).
My time in consulting showed me that I would never be a good consultant. I am and will always be a woman to live operations and I am frankly enthusiastic about the translation of strategic thinking into practice.
In Health, I did several projects that were true milestones: Leading the Leaping Forward – World Congress of Medicine, in 2014, in the Espírito Santo Saúde group; To think and give birth to the Cuf Academy with all the valences it has today, to design and think about the Cuf Tejo Simulation Center, and in the last year, to give birth to the Knowledge Center of the Lusíadas group and to participate in different clinical Engagement actions with the United Healthcare group.
It is important to highlight, which was and continues to be crucial, studying, listening, learning… accompany your career with passages through moments of learning. The Business Management course at AESE (PDE), which was the most recent training I had the opportunity to take, was absolutely essential for the consolidation of my professional experience and to strengthen the meaning of my personal life.
What were your main achievements?
Every day of our life is an achievement (and this is not a cliché)… Our professional life is also made up of small nothings and big things.
But I would say that the greatest achievement was to have left a legacy and small marks where I went through with projects I developed and the teams I had the opportunity and joy of leading. The greatest achievement is the trail of friends and talented people that I helped or contributed to design. This is the greatest achievement! The people!
What are the main lessons that make you the leader you are today?
First the people, then the strategy. It is clear to me that it is not the business that creates value, but the people. Only teamwork leads us to the results we set. That each and every one of us contributes and that we must be able to exercise active listening on a permanent basis; The word empathy must be lived every second of our lives.
At the same time, to be resilient, agile and with a continuous ability to adapt to the situations that are imposed on me.
Anyway, To Lead is to serve, so it is easy to infer that the main lesson is to be at the service of those I have the opportunity and privilege to lead!
What values do you govern yourself by and that you transmit to your teams?
Loyalty, Truth, Courage, transparency, agility, simplicity, competence and trust.
If you could go back in time, what would you do differently?
I would have worked in other geographies… it’s what I miss the most, but my personal life didn’t allow me… it may still happen! With the older children and already on your own…
He would have stopped for a year to travel the world, live with other peoples, rehearse learning new languages
Professionally, how do you see yourself in 5 years?
Making the way, always giving the best of myself to each situation, to each team, to each person! To accept whatever is very good or not so good life brings me and to be grateful for everything I have done and lived and for everything I still dream and want to do!
So I see myself professionally in 5 years working hard with the same energy, joy and enthusiasm with which I have imprinted my professional life over these 25 years!
