Episode 25: Why saying yes to every opportunity can elevate your leadership career with Peter Loimaranta

Leadership Amplified by Dr Karen Morley

In our conversation Peter maps out his leadership journey from ‘always knowing he wanted to be something more than just a finance person’ which is how he started his career, to being CEO of a listed company, thriving in our turbulent times. Peter had the opportunity to take an overseas posting early, and that elevated his career. During that time he had a lot of access to senior managers and was able to learn what made them tick. He also received a great deal of support from them, and that helped him to broaden his skillset, and in particular, to be able to learn to adapt to other cultures. He says, ‘The world is really different and you need to be able to adapt and change your approach.’ These postings ‘forced’ him to change himself, and that helped him as his career progressed. We discuss the challenges of too many competing demands, and how to manage them. Peter’s approach is to be as available as possible to his people – if someone reaches out to him, they’re doing it for a reason and it shouldn’t be a debate as to whether they get his time – he fits everything else in around that. We also talked inclusion, and how Peter places priority on making sure there is an environment where people are comfortable to voice their opinion and be listened to. Increasing diversity and inclusion is obviously the right thing to do for business, again, this shouldn’t be a debate.