Borderless Executive Live: The Podcast
Candid conversations with business leaders on a borderless life. Hosted by Andrew Kris, Founding Partner of Borderless.
Borderless Executive Live: The Podcast
Inclusion Made Real: a conversation with Luisa Boaretto of Grundfos
We chart Luisa Boareto’s shift from finance to global DEI leadership and test what makes inclusion truly business critical. From women in logistics to structured hiring and leadership modeling, we map practical steps, honest metrics, and the courage to act amid pushback.
• values-led career pivot from finance to DEI
• change management and influential leadership as core tools
• CEO sponsorship and strategy alignment
• polarization as a filter for authentic commitment
• systemic equity in talent processes
• women in logistics consortium as a business case
• measurement across representation, perception, and impact
• structured interviews and fair promotion discussions
• guidance for CEOs on tone, modeling, and consistency
• advice for emerging DEI leaders on focus and tailoring
Good morning Luisa. I have the the pleasure of welcoming you to Borderless Executive Life. And today we are gonna talk about a topic that is very close to your heart, uh, but also to mine. So we uh we uh we share a common interest here. Luisa Boareto, you are today the global head of diversity, equity and inclusion at uh Grundfoss. Before that, you held um you had a career at uh Dow Chemical and you jumped into this role. You actually didn't start out there, did you? When I look at your profile, you started in in financial services finance roles, is that correct?
SPEAKER_01:Yes, and good morning to you, Else, and thanks again for the invitation, as I said, to have a conversation around something we are both passionate around. Uh and and you're right, you know, now I have the global responsibility over diversity, equity, and inclusion in Grundfoss, but my background is totally different. Uh, I have a university degree in economics, and then where I started in DAO in in finance, where I spent 12 years of my career in different uh finance uh functions, treasury, auditing, uh, different areas. But then I was always getting a feeling that I was doing good, I was progressing, but I wasn't accomplished. And I'm glad I followed that gut feeling that sometimes we all have as human beings, and realized that I wanted to shift my career towards something which was closer to my values, which were people and impact. And at the time I didn't even know that were my values. I discovered them through a coaching uh journey with a professional coach. At the time where coaching wasn't uh yet such a common discipline. Although I think I had the courage and also the opportunity in a company like DAO to steer my career outside of finance. Now, interesting enough, we talked still about 10 years ago, and again, I wasn't the topic it is today, and and then I wasn't clear was DI what I wanted to do, but I was still following my intuition, starting the journey on areas that eventually turned out critical to be effective in DI. And specifically, I had an experience in change management, and that taught me change management basics, which are fundamental in the eye. The second experience I had, still outside of finance, in what I call now influential leadership, but the job title was uh a director in um Olympics and sports solutions, because my previous company, DAO, was an Olympic sponsor, a very interesting uh uh sponsor because it's a B2B company, so not a possibility to put the Olympic logo on a specific product or service. But that also helps to understand influential leadership and how to activate a platform like the Olympic for something uh which is not directly related to the business.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:And then the the the the other element that really helped me was the coaching. You know, after having experience on my own schemes, I became a professional certified coach myself. And that's what also taught me about the human potential and power that we all have, and it's really about finding those resources and enabling people to find those resources. Eventually, then there was a change of CEO, there was the new CEO putting inclusion in the new strategy, and what he did was opening up a department called the Office of Inclusion, not reporting to HR, reporting directly to the CEO. So and that was uh Jim Fitterling. That was Jim Fitterling, yes, and I would say very visionary. And when then those roles started to open up uh as regional director, I did apply and got the role as uh European Middle East, Africa, and India inclusion responsible at DAO. And that's what I did for five years before getting the global responsibility for.
SPEAKER_00:Wow. So that's um really putting a patchwork of different experiences together that actually leads you in the end um to DNI, and that's where you've now been for several years.
SPEAKER_01:What keeps you motivated in this role? It's a good question. I think it's uh it's a very energy-demanding role. But what gives me energy? Because that is the right things to do, and and whatever step we do is a step that not only all helps the company, helps the society we live. And and there is more and more a role we we have to play in in the private sector, because governments, which has always been historically the safeguards of social rights uh and of progress, they're evolving, uh, and I think the private sector has a huge role to play. Doing the right thing, I would say, is what eventually motivates me. And I know it sounds utopistic, and my job is really small, but still there is this feeling of even if it is a small step, it helps. Yes.
SPEAKER_00:And you talked at the beginning of the conversation about your own values, finding a role that was closely matched with your values. What are the values that um this role uh plays upon for you?
SPEAKER_01:Well, if I look at my personal values is really related to people. So as a coach, one of my missions is really to enable people to fulfill their potential, whatever it is, and not let uh the discrimination, the systemic biases, whatever we want to call it to prevent them to deliver their full potential. Yeah. And then there is the other big value about impact, and there is an element of contributing to a bigger purpose. So those two are for me guiding principle. And then there is a huge element, uh, is an element of integrity where you can still serve the purpose for a corporation, which again it's a corporation as a business purpose, as a return on investment, but at the same time doing the right things. So there is this possibility of matching, doing good and doing uh also business-wise, that makes sense.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, we all look for impact, and you mentioned that as well. You've been in this role and you've seen evolve over time. What positive shifts have you have you seen over your career in Light Luisa?
SPEAKER_01:Well, sometimes we we tend to focus on the negatives, but I think there is an increased awareness. Now, even, and maybe we will get there, through times of uh polarization, backlash, uh you name it, uh, the fact that those topics get to the highest agenda means those topics are relevant. So um this is a big shift. So topics that in the past were practically silent, now for good or bad, they are brought to the to the table, to the politician, to the society.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:The next step would be to make sure those topics progress. Um it takes a lot of energy, of course, to to distill what's relevant and being very clear for company, for society, for individual, where you stand.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, yeah. In a previous conversation that we had, you mentioned that the the current situation where there is, from a geopolitical uh point of view, more backlash to efforts around the AI. You told me something that resonated with me. You said, you know, situations like this also create opportunities, and it becomes clear for for which type of company this is business strategic and for whom it is not. Can you can you uh elaborate on that a little bit? What is your vision there?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and indeed I call it the moment of truth. Uh the moment after George Floyd uh it became a topic that company needed to have, maybe some company didn't uh ask themselves why they really need it. How does it align to the strategy? We talked before about Jim Fittling and Down put inclusion into the strategy with four pillars and one was inclusion. So in the moment in which you you receive a pushback, like what happened with the executive order, for example, in the US, that creates an opportunity to ask yourself, yes, what's important to us is the value we stand for, is the business model we have, because let's be honest, again, there are also business repercussions to a certain approach.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, very clear. And you know, you've you've gone through um a number of years in DNI. What from your perspective are things that you've seen working? What have you implemented, for instance, that you said, well, this is something that that takes us a step further that makes makes this sustainable and you know keep makes sure that it keeps being business critical.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and I I I believe what you said, the final two words, business critical, it's really the secret source uh for effective intervention. There are two, you know, about what's working, there are two levels. One is a systemic level. So the ultimate objective of any DAI work would be to create uh organization which operates uh under system and processes which are equitable. If you are really at equitable processes, then automatically it means also you are enabling uh diversity to thrive. Yes. But the other element uh, so that ideally will become the ideal world in the future that the best practices, especially on talent cycle, are equitable. And eventually we'll get there. It's again a matter of speed. But the other element which is critical is being able to tighten the journey to the business uh uh of the specific business of a company when you get the extra attention and the energy for the entire organization, and in this way the journey becomes sustainable.
SPEAKER_00:Can you maybe give an example from your own experience where you say, Well, I'm particularly proud that I have achieved that?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and and I think we were part uh partially of of the same uh when when we met the first time in person at Lisztelsa. So what we started, and again, kudos to do there, what we realized that really having this business angle was critical, and also realizing that it's a place of collaboration. And the power of having multiple companies pursues the same objective is priceless. And that's where we started initially with the European Petrochemical Association to have a dedicated session about DNI at EPCA conference, which is the annual conference for EPCA once a year, all the industry in the region meets. And as a spin-off of that effort, there was also the realization that there were specific needs in the industry that needed to be addressed. And a very powerful example is logistics. Logistics is a vital sector for all industry, but especially also for the chemical one. And especially to COVID, due to all the geopolitical changes, is under extreme pressure. Now, one of the pressure is also about workforce.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:And the realization that to the logistics sector, women is underrepresented. Traditionally, it's a sector where it's perceived to be long hours, away from home. We can discuss about perception of that. Yes. Realizing that if that sector was able to attract more women, actually it would increase uh the availability of workforce tremendously with a positive repro effect. And so out of the European Petrochemical Association, there was a spin-off, which was a creation of consortium, which is called Women in Logistics. And again, companies now are joining forces to really address the topic, but from an angle, how we can increase female representation to the logistics sector.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so that's really a business need to have more to have more people in jobs.
SPEAKER_01:And then it's not anymore a matter of do you believe in DNI? Do not believe it's a matter of we are here to make our industry and sector more efficient, more operational and viable, et cetera, et cetera. So that's for me, it's a very clear business example of what I mean when I say DNI to serve the business.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And, you know, when you see some practical implementation, I know from the example because um, you know, we we have also followed uh along the sideline this initiative. Um it's always difficult to measure. And if you say, you know, something's business critical, how do you measure actually the effect of anything a company does um on DNI policy? Yeah. What's your experience?
SPEAKER_01:Question and comments. You know, the first one, we know cash is king, right? Finance matters. So we tend, especially in the past, to measure all progresses to financial measure, return on investment. Talk about EBITDA, talk about, but it's a return on investment. Now, you remember when ESG came into play, we started to talk about financial and non-financial. So coming to your question, the first thing I think we are trying to measure something which is related to the business, but not a direct correlation. So we need to be careful to really, and I'm using correlation in a statistical way, to find a measure that if you do that, the return is this. Yes. On the other side, I do believe what measures get done. So metrics are fundamental. And I do like to separate the DNI matrix into three main categories. The first one is what is one of the most used matrix and is still, in my opinion, relevant, and is called the representation matrix, the diversity. Gender, people with disability, other metrics you can measure. You enter into the space of GDPR, and that's why often gender is seems to be the topic. But is often the case, mostly because of a privacy issue in measuring. So you can access gender data, you cannot access uh sexual orientation, even people with disabilities. There are limitations. But there are also studies that demonstrate that if a workplace works for women, work for many diversity. So again, not that gender is more important, but can be measured. But that's representation. Then there is the old space of what I call perception metrics. And people are important, especially to convince stakeholders which may be skeptical about the business case. An organization is made of people. People to thrive needs to be to simplify what said happy, happy, happy employees, happy customers, right? Yes. And what makes happiness is a very personal experience. You and I may be driven by value, someone else may be driven by external motivation, etc. Yes. But if they're able to capture through voice of employees, for example, those types of surveys, what matters to people, that's the perception on how they feel. And one element we know because we're a human being, our energy, our brain actually, gets really much derailed the moment we don't feel emotionally good. Yes. Well, you cannot just say, okay, today I'm working from here up, and if it makes me feel uncomfortable, I will not produce good results because I cannot concentrate, I cannot focus, I cannot deliver.
SPEAKER_00:Of course.
SPEAKER_01:So that's a very important metric, how people perceive how people feel. And then there is a third type of metric or two other metrics which are more related to impact. And one is external impact. Again, for example, what we have discussed uh engagement with the industry, with supplier, with customer, you know, supplier diversity, a full universum. But the other one, still borderline between external and internal, is employee engagement. As an employee, how much of my time, voluntary or part of my work, I'm willing to dedicate to those topics? Yes. And again, it doesn't need to be employee resource group and everything. Could also be in my day-to-day work with my stakeholder. What, what, you know, what I'm bringing to the agenda to my customer, what I'm bringing to my suppliers, what what are we discussing about? And yeah, so again, maybe it's not a direct correlation, but if you have all these types of metrics, you can start to monitor the journey and see what type of intervention you you can do.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so you can clearly see that it is measurable when you and then you can go into details.
SPEAKER_01:For example, if you take the talent processes, I think the beauty that we are moving away from forcing. A few years ago, there was inclusive hiring where you force the pools of candidates. First of all, I think the mentality is coming there that more diverse pool is better, but we don't need to force um already structure interview process, asking the same set of questions to all candidates and not asking a different question because you have a different dimension being asking a woman again, stereotypical. Sure, we all we all we all know those. What about your husband? I mean, in a promoting discussion at senior level, maybe she will not accept the role because the husband is not mobile. What has to do husband and wife and partners into all this spectrum? And would be the same question asked to a different gender. So yeah, structuring, for example. So it and you can measure if it is structure and blah, blah, blah. So you can go down to all levels for measuring.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Yeah. Coming back to the fact that it it's either strategic or it's not, what kind of advice would you give CEOs and top uh top line management around the I mean you've seen what works, you've seen what what doesn't work in in reality. I think you've also seen what um DNI washing is all about, what lip service is is about. So what kind of advice would you give, Louisa?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean, if you talk about the the top of the house, there is a huge role to play. Setting the tone from the top is fundamental. If the top of the house doesn't talk about it, and I know I should say believe it, but I'm gonna be very honest, you know, you still may need to do a lot of work in convincing the top. Still, they they need to play a role in setting the tone. And then, if possible, they really also need to do the next step, which is becoming role models. And role models doesn't mean to do the big stuff, uh small signs that matters. I give you a very positive example, which again it's very basic, but it's so powerful. We did a we had a change of chief HR or a chief HR officer recently in in the Grundfoss, and then yesterday there was the first town hall of the you know Chief HR officer, and she didn't talk during the town hall, I think send a very strong signal. We'll perceive she's a strong ally of the journey. So everybody knows that was a choice, it was a deliberate choice to have that as a background. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_01:So I would say really set the tone, be role model, do small things, but do it consistently. Being an advocate. Yeah, and having the the affinity to the topic to be able to ask the right question.
SPEAKER_00:These are not big steps, uh, and if you you can educate yourself, I mean, all the information, the specialists are in-house. So why is it that so few actually do this, Luisa? Do you have you found an answer to that?
SPEAKER_01:Well, I have my own answer and I'm smiling because maybe it's not the traditional answer, and it's fear. Again, I'm I'm using fear knowing it's quite provocative. Uh, but first of all, it's not an area where any of us will ever be an expert. That was also something I learned when I accepted my first role in this space. Uh, it's not a role where, especially many years ago, you learn from someone. You don't really know what you're doing because you know, one of the risks of this role is there are so many different angles you can tackle that unless you're very strategic, let me say, and very focused, the risk is dispersing energy rather than having an impact. As a senior executive or as a leader in a company, not many people feel comfortable in being vulnerable. What do I need to do? What if I do wrong? There is also this element of your perception and your status, if I may say, which is put a little bit into question, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:And and that is, I know it sounds basic, but back to human nature. Exactly. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And again, executives are human beings, uh, even if sometimes we believe they are astronauts, if I can use this analogy, eventually we are lower human beings.
SPEAKER_00:That is true. And you know, there might be some young DNI professionals uh watching us in this conversation today. What what kind of advice would you give to somebody who sets out on this journey, who who says, Oh, I'm I'm value-driven, this is what I want to do, I want to make an impact. What kind of advice would you give knowing what you know now?
SPEAKER_01:And and I hope there are many that uh still have this energy because it's a fresh energy and and motivation. Yes. So learn change management, communication, you know, all the tools that are needed to drive an influential change. If you need to bring systemic changes, you need to understand how the system works. Become familiar with best practices, there are plenty of business cases, peer community are wonderful. I mean, I think in DNA it's really a generous area.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:While you really need to be able, the the the secret, the the skill, the the art is to be able to customize uh for the specific need, the maturity level need, business case of the organization.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I'm always um admiring your uh stance on all of this and the way you talk about DNI and also what you have achieved. So I know a lot needs to be come from within you in terms of motivation because the organization doesn't always do that for you, as you say. What keeps you what keeps you going, Louisa?
SPEAKER_01:It's is um it first of all, it's uh it's a never boring job. Today challenge is different from yesterday, will be different from tomorrow. And you really have an opportunity to toen across the company. My regular stakeholder, of course, are HR people, but I talk to business people, I talk to country leaders, I talk to employees, shop floor, external customer supply startup in itself. So it's this this vibrant feeling of trying to juggle multiple balls at the same time. And as I said, it's heartwarming, but the feeling that whatever small or big goal is achieved has an impact on people. One people benefit, job done. It's their life. Even one progress matters as one hiring decision being done inclusively, it matters.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think there we we definitely see eye to eye. You know, it's all about crossing the river with putting little stones to make the path to cross the river, not in big leaps. Uh and to be able to treasure that also as an achievement. That's important to keep the motivation going. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And and if you allow me, I will store your analogy. There is a lot of value in getting to these professionals with some professional experience. Maybe it's not a status uh type of role. You know, yes, you get a big title, whatever, but it's it's not the the typical uh big status job. It's uh it gives you a constant connection to the reality of the organization. You know, the conversation you have are are are are often eye-opener and tells you the reality. There's constant connection with employees. Indeed, indeed.
SPEAKER_00:Maybe as a last question, Luisa, if you would have a magic wand and you could take away any barrier in an organization or a couple of barriers, what is is your top priority?
SPEAKER_01:Well, there are two. One is more about the individual and the other one is about organization. There's a bias you cannot take away from people, you can make them aware, but then it takes a lot of energy to counteract. So if I can like us uh syndrome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. People like us in the room, things we have done in the past, what should we change? And the other one is related, is uh then you need a lot of trust to change. And uh and again, especially in in corporate worlds where there's still finance rules, it means it's asking a bit lit fate sometimes to say trust that's the right things to do. And yes, maybe you cannot measure in a traditional way with a clear correlation to a return on investment.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, very clear, Louisa. Can you give me the magic wand, Elsa? I would if I could, definitely. But you're waving it one uh, you know, one step at a time, Louisa. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for the conversation. It's been an absolute pleasure to have you on uh Borderless Executive Live today. Thank you so much for uh for being here. Thank you, Elsa, and thank you to Borderless. Pleasure.