Flipping the Barrel EP:094- Mark Heine, CEO at FUGRO

Yeah, lovely, thank you very much. And it's a pleasure to be here today. So hi everyone, I'm really excited to be here.

Yeah, great question Jamie. Well, I grew up with an older brother and a younger sister in the east of Holland. For people that don't know, it's a pretty small country and it's totally flat, so being a mountain climber and mountaineer is pretty special because you have to drive many hours to actually get to some mountains. But we grew up as an active family. My sister and my brother all studied; I studied at the Technical University in Delft in the west of Holland. They went into the medical field. My sister at the moment runs her own laboratory in the Amsterdam area and my brother is a plastic surgeon. So they all landed well and developed quite well. So you must wonder how was the family life? Were my parents on top of us saying you have to do this and you have to do that? I don't think so. I think it was very open and very much 'what do you want to do and how do you want to develop yourself?' I was a busy person. I was in the middle, obviously stuck between my older brother and my sister. When I was 12, my parents got divorced, but it was still a very amicable atmosphere and there were no arguments. So even after that, I think we had a wonderful childhood where we grew up giving us all the opportunities to further develop. But I started to work early, even at the age of 10, to deliver newspapers to make some money. I was very active as a Boy Scout, to be a young leader, a team leader as well, so I worked a lot with people my same age but pretty young, organizing things there as well. Even if I look back in one of my agendas from those days, every evening I had a meeting or I was sporting or I was doing something at a pretty young age. So probably there I picked up a lot of experience in those days. And then I started climbing pretty young, together with my parents. When I was at the age of 10, we wanted to go to the Alps, the Swiss Alps, and they booked a course where we could learn how to go over the glaciers and to be safe in the mountains. And there I got really hooked to the mountains. I started rock climbing thereafter, and later on also alpine climbing, even big wall climbing, and used everything about that. That was more during my study times and thereafter, so I became a real passionate mountaineer. And so that told me that as a climber and a mountaineer, you know that you always reach summits, and people would say that's success because that's your goal to reach the summit. But I've learned in these days that reaching the summit is already one of the goals, but first and foremost you never reach the main summit first. You always get to the first summit, then you see there after a bit of a valley you have to climb up to the next mountain or the next summit that you probably don't even know if that was the main summit. So having that in work life, you also understand that you have to go through valleys, reach summits, and then get to the next summit. It's not the main goal. But I also learned later on that it's probably not about the summit; it's probably getting home safely. Getting down from the mountain is even more important. So even if you don't reach the main summit and you get home safely, that's probably more of a success for me. So that's maybe a little bit of a lesson that I've learned over time.

Yeah, it's a great question. And it's probably a combination of many things because you obviously need to have the right circumstances as well. When you go through a company, you have the people around you that really support you, so that's very important. One of the advice I could already give here in the podcast is: if you don't have the people around you that really support you, then you probably have to move to a different role or a different position where you have somebody else supporting you. But I was probably lucky to have the right people around me. But also a combination of experience built up from a pretty young age, being involved with teams and working with a lot of people, trying to do a lot of things next to school and developing myself as a whole. And then not only being intelligent and having a decent IQ, but also the EQ is very important, the emotional intelligence, having the feelers for group dynamics, the sensitivity around how somebody is receiving the message that you're trying to bring. So that was something that I could do probably well, and maybe better than some other people. I also could focus on the key things and actually push aside the less important elements. So I could always quickly make a distinction: these are the main topics and these are side topics, and I shouldn't be too much involved in those. So I think those things in combination with having the right circumstances and then working hard, and not being super focused on 'I want to become a CEO of a company' – not at all. I was just trying to do my job well. Even when I started there, I was just working well and then somebody asked me, 'Hey, there's a new opening for you.' I said, 'I'm not finished here, I'm still in the middle of a transition or a change program, let me finish that.' They said, 'No, no, we want you to do this.' Okay, well fine, I will get on with that. And probably a few times in my career that happened. I really felt I'm not done yet, but they said, 'Well, we have a bigger task for you now and you need to move on.' Okay, well let's do it, but I'm almost more worried about what I left behind and who's taking over and if that would also be executed well. So it's probably a combination of all these things to be successful and then get the opportunity to make these steps, and then grabbing all these things by both hands is probably a hint that I can give to everyone: just go for it and work hard and do your best and then apply the talent that you have. I had some skills quite clearly and I could develop that quite well in the circumstances that I got.

Yeah, and one of the key values of Fugro is doing the right thing, and I still believe very strongly in that. So actually when we tried to develop the values of the company, we really embarked on a program where we asked all the people, or a lot of people, to get involved and actually talk and speak up and say, 'Okay, what are the key values of the company?' And these values came out as: doing what's right, being prepared for tomorrow, very determined to deliver. So those are values that the company actually developed and they're very close to my heart as well. I really believe that is very important. I wanted to stay close to myself when I executed all the roles that I got and all the positions that I had in Fugro. And Fugro plays a very important role. Fugro actually stands for 'Foundation' – 'Fu' is a Dutch word and 'Gro' is ground mechanics. So we're experts in foundation and ground mechanics. That means everything that's being built on this planet needs a foundation. Because the whole planet Earth is dynamic and it's moving all the time, continents are shifting even centimeters a year, they're sinking, they're moving up. Some is very soft soil, so you have sand or clay or rocks. If you want to actually build a building or a railway track or a tunnel, you need foundation experts. And Fugro is actually a unique company, a global company that has the knowledge to acquire the data – we call it geodata because there's always a geographic coordinate attached to it. 'In this location, there's this situation with sand and clay and rocks and all these kind of things, you need the foundation that is 20 meters long to actually have a solid building or railway track.' So those kind of things we get involved in. Everything that is being built needs that expertise. We acquire geodata, we analyze it in our laboratories as well, and then we advise on it. So acquisition, analytics, and advisory – we call ourselves a triple-A company. I thought that sounds really good for the banks and the investors as well, but that's a side note. But really, I believe especially nowadays with the world changing so rapidly, with the requirements on energy transition, the differentiation of what kind of energy you really use in the future, trying to steer away from coal for instance, and maybe even reducing oil over time, using gas as a transition, and moving into wind energy, hydrogen, carbon capture storage programs – all these things require the expertise of Fugro. The knowledge of the subsurface, and that's only the first 100 meters, so it's not deep deep seismic, it's only the first hundred meters. So this is really interesting. And then thinking about coastal resilience, climate resilience, sea level rise, all the change in the climate is actually also something that's very close to Fugro's expertise: collecting information about the oceans, the currents, the water depth, and all this kind of things. So I think we play a major role in this current day and age in a very rapidly changing world. I feel that it becomes more and more important for everything that's being built, and therefore also to create a safe and livable environment for everybody that lives on this planet and uses the planet as their home. And there's only one planet, so we cannot replace that home.

Yeah, great questions again, thank you very much. So, I think initially I didn't really have the feeling that I had to become CEO to be satisfied with how I would develop my life. I was very, very pleased with what I was doing before. I was a division manager, director, I had a lot of responsibility, I had a lot of things to do. And as I said before, I had a program, I had a transition to go through to make it more successful and make more money and to have an environment where everybody loves to work in. So there were many things to go through and to sort out. We were going through an energy crisis between 2014 and 2017, as you know, a very difficult period for many companies, so there was a lot to do. So in that sense, I was not really looking for becoming a CEO and then saying, 'Okay, now Mark, you're a really successful person in life and so on,' because reaching that top of the company potentially for me is not the main thing. I always say to a lot of my colleagues, 'Well, I happen to be the CEO, but your role is as important as mine. I just do certain things and you do certain things that are also so extremely important for the company to progress.' Because teamwork really makes the success in that sense. You can have very strong individuals, but you know that from any sports game where they play with teams: a good team with mediocre players will perform better than a lot of strong individuals on the field, hockey field, or football field, or whatever. So I strongly believe in that as well. So I wanted to stay myself. That is probably what the diamond knew: that I had the ingredients to probably do a role like that, but you never know until the time that you start doing it and then experience the difficulties and the problems and the hard times and the hurdles that you have to overcome. Then you actually know, 'Okay, can I actually cope with it, yes or no? And what kind of stress does it give you?' Because I also knew that the top role, despite the fact that I was division director and I had two thirds of the revenues of the company under my responsibility, I knew that being the top man, the CEO, would be very different because everybody's always looking at you and wondering, 'Okay, what's next?' So in that sense, I was really wondering, 'Okay, should I actually want this?' Because I don't need it to be satisfied with life and with myself. I had the feeling that I was doing well and I can do many things, and I can also try more and maybe have less work and travel more and enjoy nature. I have many plans. If I stop working, I have a long list of things that I still need to do and I want to get on with it. So in that sense, how have I succeeded in being different? I don't know. I'm myself. So I just keep a very strong focus on the people side, on teamwork, on trying to get the right people on the seats, so to say. And I strongly believe then that the result, which is also very important to me because we really want to deliver results on many different fronts – being successful in changing things, being successful in profitability, in growing, but also in better teamwork and creating that environment that people love to work in. All these things together, I think I really want to be a leader that is also what they talk about nowadays: courageous leadership, where you actually accept to be vulnerable and also show your weakness and admit your mistakes and openly discuss those. I have no problem with it. I also have many times that I fell out of the climbing route and then I fell down and I said, 'Okay, well, I need to try again.' And everywhere you can see that as well, that I fell. So in that sense, it doesn't really matter. I don't mind showing that because everybody that doesn't show that is not very genuine. Everybody will face those difficulties. It is not easy. There's no book that explains you how to become a CEO or how to be a CEO. Yeah, probably many books that claim that they explain that to you, but they haven't been your CEO. So anyway, every situation is different again. So I try to be myself and I'm pretty relaxed about it. But obviously being a CEO is a stressful job and you notice it as well. You sometimes wake up during the night and your mind is still working because you're thinking about A, B, or C. So it doesn't stop, it never stops. And that is I think the key thing. But I have a young family – I have two children – and I also said I want to be a father as well. I also say I need to find that balance in life. If I cannot, now and then obviously significantly less than it used to, climb a route and go to the mountains, or take a break and spend time with the family or with my friends, if I cannot do that then it's completely disbalanced and then I cannot be the Mark that I want to be, and then I will not be a successful CEO. So you also have to accept that sometimes, maybe egoistically, say 'I'm going to go and have a long weekend planning.' Yeah, so be it.

Yeah, I think you can do that together by basically obviously you need to plan very well. You need to like planning. So yeah, you have to sit down at least once a week and say, 'Okay, what's happening next week? Who's there? Who's not there? Where do you need to go?' And then obviously there are some people that might get a permanent support in the house. We didn't want to do that. We really wanted to raise our children ourselves. And my partner really strongly believes also that she wanted to be there. But you need to plan very well. So I think you need to discuss that extremely well and accept a lot from each other as well. Okay, yeah, we both have busy jobs. So sometimes she's late from work, sometimes I'm late from work. But then you don't start to complain, you accept that, you work along with it. But I've probably witnessed most of the soccer games from my son because during the weekend I try to be there because I have committed myself to be there. Okay, if I'm in a foreign country I cannot be there, but I can probably still count in all these years that I've missed some of these games because I want to be there. And I think that's also important. And again, then I find the balance in myself to be also the right person and the right CEO and the leader that people want to have in the company like Fugro. But it is not easy, but it can absolutely be done if you do that well together. And obviously the children also at some point in time need to take their responsibility and do their own thing. You need to be a little bit lucky as well. We have easy children that study well at school, so you need to be a little bit lucky, they're healthy. But yeah, you can be unlucky, you might have a disabled child or whatever, and then we had to make different choices as well. So again, it is a combination. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't work. But I think it's quite important that you both have your own thing to develop, and it doesn't always have to be a busy job, it can also be something else. So don't get me wrong, I think people that choose a different lifestyle and want to be more at home and maybe voluntary work or other things that they do is perfectly fine as well. But I think you need to find that passion and you need to say that it's not only the family or only the work. So you need to find a balance. My advice would always be to everybody is find that balance. These could be four pillars, it could be three pillars, and how do you divide your energy and your time between those? And if you ignore one of those pillars that are important to you, that can be done for a period of time, but after a while you need to pick up the energy on that side as well. If you don't do that, then you probably will be dissatisfied and a little bit, yeah, you might have a midlife crisis. I might still end up in that midlife crisis, who knows.

Yeah, I think it's extremely important to make conscious decisions how you want to approach this because this is not going to come by itself or automatically. Because if you think that you need to have more women or females in certain positions, you really actively need to change and help and also almost demand from your management teams that they take action, and put targets on it. Because that's obviously a big debate: should you have targets on these things, yes or no? I think probably the past history has proven that that will help and that will really drive people to go the extra mile to make it happen. So we also had significant roles available at certain point in time. I was very determined to actually get females in these positions at the right quality, obviously. And it's not easy to find them immediately, especially if it's in a role where they have a lot of people and revenue, P&L responsibility. Then I think you see that there is a limited amount of choice. The reason for that is very simple: because all the companies that have these people will hold on to them and protect them very well, so there's a lot less on the free market, so to say. And you see, I think during the career of our females, you see many making very logical choices during that phase growing in their career to say, 'Well, hey, it's maybe a phase in life where I build a family, where I say maybe it's better for me to have a different kind of role, maybe more on a functional side, maybe more on also important roles.' But it automatically means that you do not have the big teams to manage, they do not have the P&L responsibility. And that's I think where companies can come in and say, 'Hey, this is a phase in life, and that's not only for females, it's also for males. We recognize that and we are actually going to actively support this period where we say, okay, we want you to stay in this maybe hot seat where you're in your operations or where you're a Project Director or whatever. We want you to continue in that role, but we understand that you might need a little bit more flexibility, a bit more time or whatever, and we're going to support you because we put somebody next to you or we put some additional support in your team so that you can continue to be that leader in that operational seat, in that revenue P&L driven seat.' If we as companies are more successful in that aspect, then you will see also in the higher levels of the company more females where we say, 'Hey, these are many to choose from.' Where I think some companies have been obviously very successful doing that and have more choice, but the majority probably haven't done that at all and then need to really step up. So I think that's really one key thing that they can do to actually support the career of females in this particular case. But obviously for me it was very similar. So that's one thing. The other thing is you need to also accept that you want to take risk. So if you have a choice and maybe there are five males and two female candidates for a certain role, they say, 'Well, I really ideally want to have a female, but these males have actually more responsibility or we have proven that they have been in this position before and they have already two or three years experience.' Then it's easy to say, 'Well, let's go for the experience and let's go for the safe side.' So I think you need to consciously tell yourself to say, 'Well, no, I'm going to take this risk because nine out of ten times if you give people the opportunity to grow and to do something, they will deliver on it. So it's very rare that they don't deliver.' So I think you need to be bold and just make these decisions and sometimes take a little bit of risk because it's not proven. That doesn't mean that they cannot do it. It's not proven, okay, so be it. You give them the chance and they will run even faster and harder and do a better job for you. So I'm convinced that we as leaders and as companies can play an important role to make these changes, and we have to do that very actively, otherwise it won't happen.

Yeah, maybe I can add a few more things there because I'm also very passionate about this because I see it in practice on a day-to-day basis. And very often females also said to me, 'There's plenty of choice.' I said, 'Well, I have to be a little bit bold on that as well and say, no, that's not really true. In certain positions there is not a lot of choice, especially if you say you're in a P&L position, then you need to run and be responsible over two and a half thousand people or so. There is obviously choice, yes, there are good females, but there's not as much choice as you have with males.' So you need to be super determined to say, 'Okay, I make this happen.' And sometimes it will take you half a year to a year to find the right person. I've had a position actually in the US where we looked for a female role, the most important role there in America. You even have had her on your program. So she really came in after a search of close to a year. We were failing a few times, but we were so determined. And in some cases I said, 'I do not want to see any other things than female candidates because if I see also a list of male candidates, I might be distracted.' So I'm determined to actually make this happen. So what you need to be is obviously very determined, make it happen, and say, 'Well, we just go for it.' And then the other thing, if I can add one more thing, if you allow me to do that, because I think what is also very important there is that the culture changes in companies. Because for decades, obviously at the top of the company there are quite a few quite dominant male figures that actually almost determine the culture at the top of the company. And then you see females trying to adapt their behavior to that male culture. And actually we need to break through that because females need to be females and they need to actually behave as they would like to behave, and maybe also be much better in the modern leadership, being courageous and all these kind of things where they show vulnerability and have their feelers out and all these kind of things. So I think in that sense, females have a leg up to actually be much more successful in these new more modern times. But yeah, you need to stay yourself and don't try to adapt to the male rules and the male culture there. And that will take probably another two decades before we can say that you can actually really stay yourself. Yeah, but I think it's very important because that's what brings diversity. This doesn't bring diversity whenever you just go in and then you try to mold yourself to the team. You have to continuously be yourself in order to really benefit from that diverse culture. So thank you for sharing.

Yeah, and I got that question asked I think even earlier this week. And it's not so easy because I don't think anybody told me, 'Okay, you need to behave like this.' But I've learned a few things. And probably what I picked up over time is just grab everything that is being offered. So if somebody offers you an opportunity, I've learned and my belief is now that if you can actually take on a new opportunity, even if you didn't really envisage this being the right thing on your path or in your career development or whatever, just take it up and just go with it and go with the flow and just show what you're worth. And it could be something quite out of the ordinary that they say, 'Well, we want you to, I don't know, organize the movement of the building because you get new experience with project management and so on.' You just say, 'Okay, fine, if you think that that is what I should do now, then I get on with it and you show what you're worth.' So I would say grab every opportunity by both hands and don't say, 'Well, this is not really in the field that I really want to go more in this direction.' So don't be too critical there. Just grab it, be enthusiastic, be passionate, just go for it and show what you're worth in those situations as well.

Thank you very much, it was a pleasure. Thanks.