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Welcome back to the VOE Podcast! In our latest episode, we dive into the importance of human capital investment and effective human resources management with Amy Blair (MBA 1998)—senior vice president and chief people officer for Liberty Global, a world leader in converged broadband, video and mobile communications services. Blair shares the interconnectedness of her human resources career in the cable and telecommunications industry with the Daniels College of Business’s emphasis on ethics and values-based business education.
The VOE Podcast is an extension of Voices of Experience, the signature speaker series at the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business. Keep tuning in each month for more business insights from Daniels’ alumni voices of experience.
Transcript
Kristal Griffith:
Hello, and welcome to the VOE Podcast.
Jake Jensen:
An extension of Voices of Experience.
Amber D’Angelo:
The signature speaker series at the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business. We’re your hosts.
Kristal Griffith:
Kristal Griffith.
Jake Jensen:
Jake Jensen.
Amber D’Angelo:
And I’m Amber D’Angelo from the Daniels office of communications and marketing. We’ll be unpacking topics at the intersection of business and the public good with CEOs and other business leaders from the Daniels community. Let’s dive in.
Hi everyone, we’re back this month to continue our discussion on labor, employment and people management with Amy Blair. Amy is the senior vice president and chief people officer for Liberty Global, one of the world’s leading converged video, broadband and communications companies. Liberty Global’s consolidated businesses generate annual revenue of more than seven billion dollars and its joint ventures in the U.K. and the Netherlands have a combined annual revenue of more than 17 billion dollars. Amy graduated from the Daniels College of Business in 1998 with her MBA. Welcome to the VOE Podcast, Amy, thanks for joining us today.
Amy Blair:
Yes, thank you very much for having me.
Amber D’Angelo:
So, Amy, I was looking at Liberty Global’s statistics and they’re quite impressive. Your 36,000 employees connect over 85 million subscribers across Europe and the U.K. with next generation services over advanced fiber and 5G networks. And over the last 10 years, Liberty Global has done approximately 300 deals valued at an aggregate of 130 billion euros. That’s a lot of work and a lot of people to pull together into one cohesive workforce. Leading such a large global human resources function, can you tell us about some of the highlights and in particular, the challenges?
Amy Blair:
So, I guess if I step back for context, for those that are listening to this, the industry in which we operate has gone through incredible transformation over the last 30 years that I’ve worked at Liberty Global. Just look at how far the cable industry has come since the days of the Cable Cowboys to where we are now, which are real leaders in our industry. And if I look at Liberty Global, our own growth has mirrored that transformation, evolving many, many times, and it continues to do so.
Amy Blair:
Over the last three decades, we’ve grown from a small startup cable company to now a world leader in converged broadband, video and mobile communication services like you just said. We’ve operated all over the world, all over the Asia Pacific region and Latin America and throughout Europe, over the years. Today, we operate in eight countries and most of our workforce is in Europe.
Amy Blair:
So for me personally, it’s been amazing to have a front row seat and witness such innovation and transformation. So to your question about the highlights and the challenges of leading an HR function. First, I can start by saying that there have been many highlights and there have been many challenges in the last three decades. I can tell you without hesitation that leading an HR function is difficult in a business that never changes, but if you do it in this fast-paced industry, it certainly presents all kinds of challenges, and on the flip side, all kinds of opportunities. In the end, our job in HR is to drive the people strategy, which is aligned to the business strategy with a very clear aim to make sure that we attract, retain and engage the very best talent. To do this in a major time of rapid change starts with making sure that you have a deep bench of HR experts who are agile and well adept to managing transformation and change across the board.
Amy Blair:
And secondly, you have to have best in class strategies in place in all parts of the employee life cycle. So whether it’s in recruitment or reward, development, leadership, culture, communications, you need all the tools in your toolbox to make sure that you can deploy that against your talent strategy, all in an effort to make sure you get and retain the best people. Liberty Global’s people strategy has really paid off. We have been able to attract and retain the best people in the industry, in our markets. And for me, this is the highlight and the reason I’ve stayed with Liberty Global all these years, it is the people, from our chairman, who’s been one of the pioneers in this industry, John Malone, who’s been in this industry for nearly 60 years, to our CEO, who’s been in the industry for more than 30. We have longstanding experts who’ve guided and led the industry and our business through massive change that I’ve talked about. And that’s really been the glue and it’s also been the major highlight.
Amber D’Angelo:
Great. And to your point, you have been in the industry yourself for 30 years, is that correct?
Amy Blair:
I have. Yep. It’s hard to believe.
Amber D’Angelo:
And so, I’m curious to learn more about your career starting out as an intern, I believe. And then how you came to lead the people function at Liberty Global. Can you talk me through it?
Amy Blair:
Yes, absolutely. Like I said, it’s hard to believe that it’s been 30 years since I was hired as an intern, seems like yesterday on one hand, but a lifetime ago on another. I have indeed spent the majority of my career in the HR domain, starting as an intern and moving into my first role and moving quickly from there into an HR generalist role, overseeing all the aspects of the HR function in the early days of the company in its startup phase. After working for about six years or so, getting some solid experience under my belt, I entered The University of Denver Daniels College of Business as a matter of fact. My aim, of course, was to get a master’s in business while still maintaining my existing role at Liberty Global’s predecessor company at the time, which was United International Holdings. I can tell you those were some busy days, probably the busiest. I was working 40 or 50 hours a week plus attending classes two days a week at night. And I was studying with team members across the front range on the weekends; it was full on.
Amy Blair:
I did complete that goal in two years, which was in and of itself quite an accomplishment since I was working full time, as I said, and I was also in the full-time MBA program, not the executive program. So that was just slightly even more demanding. But what was great is as soon as I graduated with this MBA and I had eight years at that point of solid experience under my belt, I really used that moment to pivot in my career.
Amy Blair:
And I made a really big personal and professional decision to accept a position still within, inside the company. But it was outside of the United States and outside of the familiar world I had come to know of HR. I moved to Amsterdam in the Netherlands where I lived and worked for seven years. And this is probably where I had my most significant personal and professional growth. I had a chance to learn the business from a different perspective while stretching myself personally, by living in a different culture where every single thing was new, from friends I made to the food that I ate to the place that I lived, everything was new and it was quite challenging and it stretched me a lot. It was great, honestly, if I look back on it.
Amy Blair:
After I got some of the experience inside the business from a different perspective, I was then asked to take on my first big leadership role within the company heading up the HR functions across Europe. And ultimately, I returned back to Denver to take on a global head of HR role based here at our global headquarters in Denver. I think one of my reflections is I know that Daniels teaches a lot of courses on “intrepreneurship” as does the Cable Center, where I’m also on the board.
And this is where the definition is where an employee is really able to act like an entrepreneur inside of their own company. When I first heard this term, it really resonated with me so much because that is what I feel like I’ve been able to do within Liberty Global. I never had a job description largely because no one had held the positions I have taken before me, and I really, I had to create every position I ever had.
Amy Blair:
And there’s great freedom to this to create, to innovate and to seize areas of the business that no one had focused on before. So I feel very lucky. It hasn’t been a straight line, it’s been a curvy one, but it’s been a really exciting trajectory for sure in the last 30 years.
Amber D’Angelo:
It sounds like it. And along the way, you have founded quite a few innovative initiatives to develop your employees and particularly your leaders. What’s inspired those and what have been some of the results?
Amy Blair:
Well, at Liberty Global, we have a value proposition, which is, as we say, grow with us, and this is something we are super proud of. We’ve literally grown the careers of thousands of people who have joined us by giving them endless possibilities to move function, to move geography, to move businesses. And as I said earlier, the company has transformed many times over the last three decades. Through all of this growth and transformation, many opportunities have blossomed for our people. For example, when we spun off our Latin American business, we were able to transition 45 people to leadership roles from our European and our U.S. operations to start that business. Recent example, we formed a joint venture with a third party and we’ve opened up endless opportunities for our most talented people to take on new roles within this business and with other businesses as well.
Amy Blair:
So at the beginning, I would say we didn’t have any formalized development programs for our people, but as we’ve matured and over time, we’ve really put capital behind our talent programs because we know that this is an excellent return on investment. For example, we have a graduate program, which we’ve run across the business with just under 300 high-potential talent in it at any given time. This year, we welcomed 91 new graduates who will do 12-month rotations around the business to get a comprehensive understanding of how we operate.
Amy Blair:
Another example is a world-class program, which we’ve run now for the last decade, which we call fast forward. And fast forward is an experiential program, which targets our highest potential talent at the sort of director level, which is mid-level in our organization. And that’s also a 12-month program and allows people to create a network of people across the company, do a lot of work to hone in on their leadership skills. And we also put them to work on real-life business challenges.
Amy Blair:
We’ve, like I said, run this for about a decade and it’s been incredibly successful. We’ve had many of our graduates move on to take some of the most important leadership roles in the business. And we have high engagement from this population. We also have targeted programming to support female leaders. We have a network that we’ve just stood up and master classes that we’re offering. And within all of our functions, whether it be finance or technology or HR, we have a really comprehensive talent strategy, which aims at ensuring we have the best people in the right roles and that they are being given opportunities to grow.
Amy Blair:
So we definitely put our money where our mouth is when it comes to our value proposition with grow with us. And we strongly believe that it’s the right allocation of capital because its return is huge and we are able to keep and retain and engage and attract, as well, new employees through this proposition. So lots of efforts underway on this in that front.
Amber D’Angelo:
What a phenomenal investment in your people. I mean, that’s fantastic. You don’t hear about that always. That’s incredible. And diversity, equity and inclusion is on everyone’s minds. What is Liberty Global doing to drive the DEI agenda? I heard you talk about women a little bit, but would love to hear a little bit more about that as well.
Amy Blair:
Well, this is definitely one of our key strategic priorities currently, and we are doing a ton of work in this space that I’m really proud of. If I reflect back to just over a year ago now, prompted by the killing of George Floyd, our CEO stood resolve in his personal commitment and the organization’s commitment to face into the issues that cause such an injustice to occur in the first place. And at that time, we took a very targeted approach and very targeted actions, including, for the first time, we formally appointed a diversity, equity and inclusion officer that sits on my team and co-chairs a council of leaders across the business together with our CEO. This council has been charged to develop a vision, a strategy and a set of initiatives to address DEI everywhere.
Amy Blair:
This has been a very systematic, very business-led approach, and it’s delivering amazing results in the organization in a really short period of time. If you look at our strategy, we have a three-pronged approach is one way to say it, there’s a focus on our employees. There’s focus on communities and also our customers. Our journey a year ago began with a clear focus on our employees and our culture. Our aim has always been to ensure that we have a culture which is truly diverse, truly equitable, truly inclusive, where everyone belongs, where everyone feels safe and is able to bring their whole self to the office.
Amy Blair:
And we really began by focusing our efforts on foundational elements. We wanted to make sure that our DEI strategy would be sustainable for years to come. So we took a very thoughtful approach to building the foundations over the last year. We focused on building blocks like starting with policies and procedures and making sure that those policies and procedures reflected our ambitions.
Amy Blair:
We established employee resource groups to mobilize the actions of our employees. We’ve had a very strong focus on education. So people are very clear what we mean by DEI and what it means to Liberty Global. And we’re in the process right now of gathering data through a survey that we have launched for the very first time. And it’s really helping us test to see is our culture really inclusive? And where are the areas that we need to make sure that we focus on in building that and an even more inclusive future? And that will, that survey, the data results from that survey will really help us inform next year’s plan and the years after that.
Amy Blair:
So it’s been very thoughtful. It’s been very comprehensive, but the truth is our vision has always been to be broader than just looking internally. We want to have an impact in our communities. And of course, given the kind of company we are, we know we can have a positive impact with customers as well. So there’s plenty more to do in this space. And the key thing here is we are, it’s a journey, we’re keeping our eye very much on the end goal and we are working very hard on that. So thank you for asking.
Amber D’Angelo:
Of course, I can tell that’s a really important initial to Liberty Global and to you personally, it sounds like as well. So thank you for speaking to that. What other global macro trends are you seeing? I think in particular, in relation to the pandemic and the future of work, I know domestically, we’re seeing this kind of great resignation. So just curious, what other global macro trends that you are seeing?
Amy Blair:
Well, the pandemic is so obviously a macro trend that no one can ignore. It’s changed a lot of things. It’s been a game changer. We’ve been operating in a virtual environment for over 18 months now in many of our locations. And it’s almost so long that it’s become normal in a weird way. In Europe, where we have most of our employees, what we’re starting to see is that as vaccination rates go up, as societies are opening up, as economies are getting back to normal, which is slightly behind what we’re seeing in the U.S., we are now starting to, just now starting to open up our offices. Some of them are opening up in the next couple of weeks, some of them opened a couple of weeks ago. So we’re really at the beginning of that.
Amy Blair:
And this is something that businesses are grappling with all over the globe, finding the right work model now for themselves, for the businesses that they operate in and for employees. But we’re seeing some businesses are adapting a fully remote model while others have asked for people to return to the office five days a week. But at Liberty Global, we are taking what we call hybrid approach, which involves being in the office between two and three days a week, with an option to work remotely more than that.
Amy Blair:
And I think that this is a trend that we’re going to continue to have to, we’re going to have to follow, whether hybrid working works or not. What are the long-term implications on an organization’s culture, the ability to attract the right people, the ability to keep them engaged and go the extra mile and deliver on the priorities. These are things that we just don’t know yet. But this is a trend that we’re starting to see, we’re definitely starting to see that this move towards hybrid, a definite demand almost, by employees for greater flexibility.
Amy Blair:
And then what we’re also starting to put that together with is you now have four generations in the workforce, baby boomers, Gen X, millennials, Gen Z-ers and they all have very pronounced intergenerational differences amongst them, many values differ. So maybe what’s important to our older leaders that might be in the baby boomer age versus the Gen Z-ers are not always the same. For example, the Gen Z-ers and the millennials who will, by the way, make up 75% of our workforce by the year 2025. So only in a few years will 75% of the workforce be under the age of 45 or so. This is a generation of people who have a different set of values and a different set of expectations, a different way of communicating, a different way of interacting with technology, a different way of working when compared to the older generation.
Amy Blair:
So we are definitely monitoring this and actively making sure that we’re continuing to evolve our employee value proposition for our people to make sure that we’re staying up to date with the things that are happening and the demands that are changing. And when you put all of this together with the pandemic, you definitely see just an overall shift in the what matters to people. And we’re starting to also see, and I just talked about that a little bit within our DEI efforts, but our people are really want us to have a greater impact. And in the communities that we operate in, in making sure that we have a safe place to work, making sure that our customers are treated fairly and in a world of changing expectations, we are definitely in a talent war for scarce resources as well, because as people evolve their value proposition and offer things like more flexibility, more ways of impacting, making an impact, those are what really attracting people. So we’ve got to make sure that in this world where we’re competing for resources, we’re really staying on top of some of these macro trends.
Amber D’Angelo:
Absolutely. No, that makes a ton of sense. And when we talk about values, Daniels is known for teaching dedication to the public good and ethical leadership. I’m curious what values have guided you personally in your career?
Amy Blair:
If I, first of all, think back to what’s turning out to be a long time ago at this point, one of the key things that attracted me in the first place to Daniels College of Business was a very clearly stated ambition. It was embedded throughout the entire MBA to really reinforce the value of ethical business as well as personal conduct. And I understand that current-day MBA programs have all taken this on board, so it’s sort of table stakes, but at the time when I went to Daniels, this was a really unique differentiator.
Amy Blair:
So I’ve always been highly impressed with Daniels and their focus on public good, ethical leadership and just personal conduct overall. So much of the credit, I think for the forward looking way that Daniels has looked at this particular subject is probably a lot due to Bill Daniels, who is a huge donor and contributor to the school, and is also known as one of the pioneers in the cable industry, which ironically for me, this has all been very interlinked.
Amy Blair:
So the things that we were taught in Daniels are still with me today and have, whether that’s acting with honesty, integrity, building trust in all stakeholder relationships, being accountable and accepting responsibility for decisions and transparency, maintaining open and truthful communications, I have and I continue to follow what I would consider basic fundamental principles that I learned or that were reinforced in the Daniels College of Business, and I’ve continued to use those basic fundamental principles throughout my career.
Amy Blair:
Ironically, again, how it’s all linked back and intertwined, these are really the same principles that the entire cable industry has been built on and around. And I recognize this throughout my history with the company and those that I’ve worked with, be it all the way from John Malone, who was buddies with Bill Daniels back in the pioneer cable days, to all of the people that I currently work with today. So very connected.
Amber D’Angelo:
We love to hear that. That is definitely the core tenet of what we teach and preach here at Daniels. So wonderful to hear that that has stuck with you and been so interconnected throughout your career journey. Really appreciate you joining us today and sharing your story and your experience with us.
Amy Blair:
Thank you very much. Thank you guys. Have a great rest of your day.
Amber D’Angelo:
You too. Really appreciate it.
Amy Blair:
Thank you.
Kristal Griffith:
This has been the VOE podcast.
Jake Jensen:
Produced by the Daniels College of Business and sponsored by U.S. Bank.
Amber D’Angelo:
Music by Joshua Muetzel, music composition graduate student at the Lamont School of Music.
Kristal Griffith:
Join us next time for more business insights from our community.
Jake Jensen:
In the meantime, visit daniels.du.edu/voe-podcast.
Amber D’Angelo:
And please remember to like, follow and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.