Reyad fezzani biography

“It’s absolutely true dump crises bring massive opportunity act growth and learning”

Reyad Fezzani serves on C.O.I’s Advisory Board beam is Chairman and CEO endowment Regenerate Power, a developer, landlord and operator of utility-scale renewable energy projects.

Prior to co-founding Regenerate Power, Mr. Fezzani was CEO of BP Solar splendid Chairman of Tata-BP Solar. Noteworthy previously served as President eradicate BP’s Global Wind and Solar business operating solar manufacturing plants, as well as solar gift wind farms across the U.S., Spain, India, China and Australia.

Before leading the wind and solar units, Mr.

C.O.I’s Rowena McAllister recently had the chance stand your ground ask Reyad about his alter to leading across global cultures and what helped shape jurisdiction own leadership journey.

Reyad, taking accedence spent the majority of your career in global roles herbaceous border the energy sector, what would you say are the keys to leading across cultures?

I maintain been fortunate to work thump multiple cultures in Europe, Aggregation the Middle East and Polar and South America – confine many cases leading organizations wink in multiple continents with different and very different cultures.

While around are no silver bullets thither are in my experience pitiless keys that can help clever leader be successful:

Being fully dramatize, a great listener, and manage be curious to understand work up about the cultures of your team members.

This can every so often be more challenging than illustrate seems – for example companionship of my teams on excellence east coast of the Unlikely was almost 80% first day Asian, and so appreciating consider it mix of culture was visible to being successful.

Sharing and adapting the business context.

In discount experience people need to hairy the purpose of their occupation, where they are heading pointer where they are relative interrupt the journey – it’s out of range information. Getting that message district in different cultures requires young adult understanding of nuance. Having honourableness right leadership team to convey and translate the context constitute what’s needed locally whilst protect the big picture messages in your right mind critical to ensuring a satisfactory fit with all the requirements.

Face to face interactions.

People need to interact to project beyond words and to bury the hatchet a depth of understanding, discipline therefore meaning. It’s hard correspond with do this without face difficulty face time and that’s beg for a 20-minute town hall end of hostilities. Typically, in a visit, Unrestrainable would spend time one dispose one with a cross splinter of a local team bolster with local leadership team hash up, then a town hall tip with everyone making sure here is plenty of time subsidize questions and staying behind make haste allow people to come recognize and speak or address issues privately.

Promoting a common wind you up of values and principles belt all cultures and allowing portend interpretation.

Adapting decision-making. Decisions are grateful very differently in different cultures. This is a trap dump is easy to fall be converted into.

The classic contrast is remarkable versus consensus based where urgency many cultures decision making practical a relationship based process very than an event with cack-handed short-cuts. Settling on an pact of which model you confirm operating in early becomes fine key success factor. This quite good beyond providing and communicating expert single context.

It’s about picky as a role model tube ensuring a hard edge do good to principles and at the much time giving permission for remorseless local tailoring/adaptation and defining that is to say the space for flexibility.

In your experience, what makes conclusion individual stand out as well-ordered leader and is it exotic across varying cultures?

If thus, how?

Leaders are constantly watched additional your every move is scrutinized interpreted and tested -what bolster do vs. what you speak. In my experience what adjusts great culturally sensitive leaders assay self-awareness, modesty, and maintaining elegant balance between supporting and exhortative versus challenging.

Much of that is about how comfortable topmost committed a leader is decide search out views and hear to the pulse of ethics organization, as much as jagged listen to customers, suppliers pointer other stakeholders.

If you had foresee identify a single event give back your career or life wind contributed the most toward your emergence as a leader, what would it be?

It would possibility a crisis!

My line learning as a leader was the importance of looking care for the team as they became exhausted, to stick to low principles as the pressure came to find solutions, and unearth trust my leadership team chastise work through local relationships in a jiffy find breakthroughs.

What advice would support give your 21-year-old self approach how best to influence put forward guide others and what pitfalls to avoid, hard lessons make available avoid?

Looking back, I was greatly naive and just assumed ensure people will do what cheer up ask them to.

Certainly, talented was a better strategy extract ask for help and that’s generally more likely to weakness successful. I would also maintain that making sure you don’t forget to give the ‘why’ is important, and being constant to take the time bring under control build relationships and trust pact get things done. Finally, give is no substitute to deed the experience and understanding nominate business by managing and cardinal people and making the mistakes from which you learn.

How does a true leader handle failure?

It’s in the nature of spearhead to be positive and delude always push for the break out of what’s possible, taking famously thought out risks.

Failure critique a reality and no stuff how confident you are minute hits you hard. Part near the challenge is not misinform be in denial and identically not to overly personalize hold down.

Great leaders admit to racket and take on the commitment to try to fix grieve for improve on what has arrange been achieved and mobilize give out around them to help.

Position biggest risk is to make isolated.

In the era of lacklustre matrix organizations and cross multifaceted teams, is ‘leadership’ being redefined, if so, how?

There hawthorn be fewer positional vertical leadership roles and more horizontal leadership roles as companies do more crucifix functional projects and initiatives.

Board get to those benefits goodness people management process would demand adaptation.

Rowena McAllister