← Redefiners
Redefiners
Talking Transformational Leadership with RRA’s CEO Constantine Alexandrakis
00:37:47
In today’s fast-paced, competitive business landscape, hiring and developing future-ready, transformational C-suite leaders is critical to organizational success. Making the wrong hiring decision can often lead to higher costs, damage to workplace ...
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- [00:01]
Hoda Tahun
Call them change makers, Call them rule breakers. We call them Redefiners.
- [00:06]
Konstantin Alexandrakis
Join us in conversation with daring leaders who are creating extraordinary impact and driving change from around the globe.
- [00:13]
Hoda Tahun
Each episode gives you a fresh perspective on your leadership and career journey. I'm Hoda Tahun, a leadership advisor at Russell Reynolds.
- [00:21]
Simon Kingston
I'm Clark Murphy, the former Chief Executive.
- [00:23]
Konstantin Alexandrakis
Officer and a Leadership advisor and this is Redefiners.
- [00:29]
Simon Kingston
Hello everyone and welcome back to Redefiners. This is our first episode in 2025 and the kickoff for season five. I'm Simon Kingston. Hoda is unable to join me, sadly today, so I'll be flying solo on today's episode, which, for reasons that will become clear, is slightly terrifying. However you celebrated them, I hope you all had wonderful holidays and have had a fantastic start to the New Year so far. Before we get started today, just a quick reminder to our listeners that you can find all the episodes of Redefiners and the Leadership Lounge on YouTube. And if you're currently watching Redefiners on YouTube, just hit the subscribe button below so you don't miss an episode. For our audio listeners, don't forget to rate Redefiners wherever you get your podcasts. We really want to hear your feedback. Today we've got what is in many respects a unique conversation. We're going to talk to somebody who knows firsthand what it takes to hire and develop the best in class leaders, both CEOs and of the C suite across a whole range of industries. And someone who is himself a true redefiner. He's redefining the executive search industry because our guest today today is none other than our own Russell Reynolds Chief Executive Konstantin Alexandriakis. Konstantin also serves on the firm's Board of directors. Prior to taking on the CEO role, Konstantin held numerous leadership roles across the firm, latterly as head of the Americas region. Now, in addition to leading the firm, he continues to advise a host of boards and CEOs for both public and private companies on the most significant leadership issues they face. But he's also practiced what he's preaching at a corporate level in the provision of advice on leadership development and assessment to those leaders, too. And he has expertise in corporate governance, board effectiveness and succession planning, as we'll be discussing in the course of the next 30 minutes. Konstantin, welcome to Redefiners.
- [02:42]
Konstantin Alexandrakis
Thank you, Simon. Great to be here.
- [02:44]
Simon Kingston
Now people will understand as we enter bonus season just how unfair it is for me to be left on my own with the boss having this conversation. And Hoda owes me for abandoning me in this situation. But before we kick off and get into the serious meat of what we're going to talk about, can you tell us a little bit about your formation? Not so much as a leader, but as Constantine and as a clue to what might be interesting, perhaps as you unpack that and your early formative experiences, maybe you could explain to our listeners the philotimo concept.
- [03:22]
Konstantin Alexandrakis
Well, happy to, Simon. And, you know, I think you might be able to tell from my name that there's a Greek, heavy Greek influence there. And both my parents were raised in Greece. My mother was born in Egypt, but raised in Greece. My father was born on the island of Crete, and they lived very interesting early lives and kind of difficult lives at that time. The Greeks were kind of exiled from Egypt when she was a young child, and they were refugees in Greece, and my father lost his father and his grandfather in the Second World War. They were executed by the Nazis when their village was invaded. So I mentioned that. I think part of my formative elements, and literally DNA, has been around the importance of family and helping your neighbor and doing good for others, which my parents had to experience as they grew up in those environments and as they came to the United States for education and subsequently becoming university professors. So one of the things I was raised on was this concept of the Greek word philotimo, which, if you Google it, you'll see there's no real translation, but the meaning of it is around helping others, giving of yourself, generosity, kindness, and treating others with respect. And that's a key element of the Greek culture. It's a key element of the culture that I was kind of raised with. And it's a key element of how I like to. To work with colleagues and lead our organizations and our clients.
- [05:14]
Simon Kingston
And that idea of deep cultural formation is fascinating because it comes through that sense of solidarity that was clearly bred into you from a very early stage. We'll get into this a bit later perhaps. But to what extent can that be taught and replicated in a business context, or are you born and raised with it?
- [05:34]
Konstantin Alexandrakis
It's a good question. I mean, I think everyone, no matter what culture you're raised in, there are values associated with that, positive values and ways of interacting with fellow human beings that shape one as they go through school and life experiences. Right. I think that the way that's translated into organizations is through organizational culture. And every organization, most organizations have a culture. And it's a combination of the. The shared values of the people in that organization and the sort of the emotions and the way that community is formed in that organization, the way work gets done in that organization. And I don't think any of those things, Simon, if I'm answering your question correctly, are static. I think they're pretty dynamic and they can certainly evolve as organizations evolve. And they certainly evolve as the people within that organization change or as the, as, as different people come into that organization. But also as those individuals grow and evolve, their leadership styles evolve, their, their ways of working. So I, I think for anybody it's a pretty dynamic experience throughout their careers and for any organization it's a pretty dynamic activity.
- [06:54]
Simon Kingston
Well, I think we're going to loop back to that both as it relates to us here at Russell Reynolds and the wider industry. But reverting for a second to you from that really rich family background, how do you think your time in law school shaped you? What did it give you that you then took into your career?
- [07:12]
Konstantin Alexandrakis
Law school was interesting. Law school is academically, it's a very challenging experience. But it's also, it really helps you think. And I think in my career it's helped me cut through information or issues or topics. You learn that in law school. How do you figure out what the key pieces of information are in a cluttered set of data and information and how do you build results on those key pieces of information? So it's actually probably, it's probably both a benefit and a curse. The benefit is that training allowed me to really learn how to get to the bottom of things and to kind of slice away the noise and get to the heart of problem solving. The curse is probably that sometimes it can help me get to that in a way that may not look at all the noise in the system. And I've had this sort of, I've needed to learn how to balance that.
- [08:13]
Simon Kingston
And that was going to be a question I had because I think among colleagues your really respected for the clarity of your analytical capability. That almost forensic legal training coming through perhaps. Is that how you see yourself as a leader? As somebody who leads through persuasion and force of argument?
- [08:37]
Konstantin Alexandrakis
No. I could see that stereotyping out there, but no, I see myself more as somebody who kind of listens, considers and then tries to help the team get to the conclusion. Although I will say that that style has definitely evolved through many years of different jobs, different levels of responsibility and so on. I'm sure you've read Ty Wiggins book the New CEO. He talks a lot about the CEO transition and how does one sort of evolve their approach in a completely different job, which is what being a CEO is. So I think there are a lot of parallels in how he describes that with the journey that I've been on. And I know the journeys that many other peers have been on.
- [09:31]
Simon Kingston
And let's talk a bit about that. You became our CEO in 2022. Unlike some of the other people we've interviewed on Redefiners, it wasn't in the context of an emergency. It wasn't sudden, it was planned. And with that in mind, I mean, how did you think about the things that you chose to do and the things you chose not to do early on in your time as CEO?
- [09:55]
Konstantin Alexandrakis
Look, I was, as you sort of said, I was very lucky to come into a role where the firm was very successful, doing great work for its clients day in, day out around the world. And the situation was more of a build on the greatness versus do a turnaround or a transformation. But the complicating factor, which I think is true for many CEOs today, is the challenges. The macro challenges outside our doors were multiplying at a significant pace. Whether it was global geopolitical unrest, which had been not really been an issue for many, many years, social upheaval, rapidly advancing technological opportunities and challenges were and are moving very quickly and advancing. And any enterprise today needs to hit those head on. So to answer your question, what I did quickly was I felt like we needed to hit the ground running. And as a result, I had. Well, I had the benefit of having a six month transition period. But during that time, before I was even enrolled with the team, we kind of designed what the team structure, senior leadership team structure would be going forward and named it and put it in place. So that January 1st we were off and running. So that was a big thing of what I did when I came into the role. I wasn't going to wait for a year to kind of evaluate and decide. I'd been in leadership for a while and kind of had a good sense of where we should take things next from a leadership team structure perspective. I think what I didn't do, which was the other part of your question, was really want to upset the Apple card in terms of how we serve clients and how our clients saw us. I wanted any leadership change at Russell Reynolds to be really seamless to our clients. So that was super important.
- [12:01]
Simon Kingston
And knowing the organization as you did, were there any surprises when you became CEO? Were there things that you hadn't anticipated about the firm, about the task that awaited you as CEO?
- [12:15]
Konstantin Alexandrakis
The surprises were the number of surprises that there were and it wasn't really surprises so much about the organization, but it was surprises about the job, which is especially surprising when you've been a consultant to CEOs and boards about CEO topics for many years. But one of the CEOs quoted in Tai's book says it perfectly. I think many of us, and I've heard this from other CEOs, I'll mention that in a second, but many of us thought of the CEO role as a bigger job than our previous role. But the reality is that it's not a bigger job, it's a completely different job. The way you think about things, the way you get things done, the things that you get done, those are all very different. And you know, perhaps naively, that was a surprise for me, but it's also something I've heard from many, many other CEOs across industries who came into the role from not having been a CEO before. So that was a big surprise. And that led to many other surprises in terms of the types of things I chose to spend my time on, how I did that, the ways of getting things done. We also had the benefit of being a brand new leadership team, but also there were difficulties with that and that many of those people hadn't led before at that level. So we were all sort of learning on the job.
- [13:34]
Simon Kingston
And if you were to pick out a couple of those, the differences in the way you are a CEO now, from how you began and how you expected, what are some of those things in terms of how you do what you do?
- [13:46]
Konstantin Alexandrakis
Well, I think the biggest thing was, and you know, there's a, there's quite a bit of literature about this, but I, I think it's mostly false, which is that, which is that there's a, there's a lot of thinking out there that says that the, the most successful CEOs are the ones that drive execution of the strategy. And I think the concept may be accurate, but those CEOs aren't really driving execution. What I've learned is that those CEOs are sort of inspiring others to drive execution or to inspire others to drive execution. That was a big learning for me. And I think it's especially hard for, and I've heard this from CEOs who came through operational roles into the CEO role or similar capabilities. You have to completely shift your thinking, your communication toolkit, and the way you interact with your leadership team to kind of enact that and coming to the.
- [14:48]
Simon Kingston
Kind of business that we are, I mean, ultimately our product is the advice, the expertise that we offer to our clients. So we are the quintessential people business. What in your experience is distinctive about leading that kind of business as distinct from a manufacturing business or another sector?
- [15:09]
Konstantin Alexandrakis
I don't, I may. Simon, I may just disagree with this question. I think, you know, 10 years ago, our business, which is most of its assets are, are people, people and proprietary information, but people at the heart of it certainly is a people business. But I think in the last decade or so, manufacturing businesses, other sort of hard asset businesses, though, the importance of people and the importance of human capital in those organizations to actually differentiate them and drive growth, I think is increased. So I think to a large degree, all of us have become people businesses in the last decade. But certainly a professional services firm like ours has people at its core, more so than other organizations that have other assets that they, that they work with. But I think the tenets of that are the same as in other businesses where people may not be the only key to it, which is we are nothing without our people. Our people are what drive our culture, which is one of our greatest assets. And the reality is that those people need to be nurtured every day by me, by the leadership team, by their peers every day. The issues are different, but the level of nurturing, the level of support, the level of trust building, the level of community, the level of fun, all those things needs daily nurturing. But I would say again, I don't think that's necessarily unique to a business like ours. I think it's unique across all types of organizations.
- [16:49]
Simon Kingston
You've been at Russell Reynolds now for nearly 20 years.
- [16:53]
Konstantin Alexandrakis
It's not nearly. You said nearly at first. It's exactly 20.
- [16:57]
Simon Kingston
Exactly 20 years. What I was going on to say, because I have to bear in mind you are my boss. You joined in your early teens and of course in that time, as we mentioned right at the beginning, you've led searchers for some of our most prestigious clients and at the most senior levels. But you've also pioneered some of the other things that we do as leadership advisors. And assessment in Russell Reynolds was something that you helped create. Can you talk a bit about why that was important to you then and why it's so central to the firm strategy now?
- [17:27]
Konstantin Alexandrakis
Well, I'd say assessment is a piece of it. But our industry, which for many, many years, we're a 55 year old business, was characterized by executive recruiting, executive search, headhunting in some societies is evolving. And it's evolving because our clients want more things from us and different things from us than they've wanted in the past. They don't just want the person to be found and put into the seat. They want us to help retain their people. They want us to help improve the effectiveness of their leadership teams, of their boards of directors. They want us to help them develop their succession pipeline. And as a result, we're having to redefine our industry. And we're actually kind of defining a new category which includes the search pieces of what we do, which will always be important, and these other things around search that are also increasingly important to our clients. And that that category is the leadership advisory category, which has sort of been nascent or dormant or whatever you want to call for for many years. But our legacy search category is moving into that new category of leadership advisory. And our objective, as Russell Reynolds, is to, to define that category and to be viewed as the. The best firm in that category.
- [18:52]
Simon Kingston
And as part of that, there must be a shift in some ways from a focus on individual leaders to teams of leaders. Clearly, we are never going to abandon that focus on the most senior leaders, but groups of people that we help to identify, to develop, to plan succession for. Can you talk a little bit about that about best in class groups of leaders?
- [19:16]
Konstantin Alexandrakis
Yeah, I wouldn't say there's a shift in focus, but it's an add on focus. Yeah. And our business for many years has been focused on the individual and still is and will be. But the additional focus of how those individuals interact within an organization, on a leadership team, on a board of directors, is certainly something that our clients are asking us about increasingly and just realistically, the way a leadership team works together has always been important. But when you think about some of the technology that is starting to appear as an opportunity for companies to really advance their businesses. Generative AI is not technology that sits in a particular part of the company. It's a tool across the entire organization that can really enable teams and especially leadership teams to think about the business in new ways and how work gets done within that business, what the opportunities are, how quickly you get to those opportunities. We've worked through our CEO AI labs with CEOs around the world on this topic, and all of them say that leadership teams need to kind of transform how they work from a collection of vertical silos to truly working together horizontally across the enterprise in order to really take advantage of the new opportunities that technology presents today.
- [20:45]
Simon Kingston
We'll be right back with Konstantin Alexandrakis. But first we'll hear from Aaron Zollner, a managing director in our New York office. Erin will Outline our latest research on the skills that leaders need in a fast changing world.
- [20:57]
Hoda Tahun
We all know the world is changing, but what does that mean for leadership? It's clear many executives are struggling to keep pace with growing complexity across the world. Turnover is at an all time high and tenure is at an all time low. Clearly, the skills that have traditionally helped leaders ascend to the C suite are no longer enough to help them stay there. So how does leadership need to evolve? In our research, we reveal the seven capabilities that leaders will need to navigate an ever more uncertain world and unlock their full potential. Find out what these skills are and more importantly, how to develop them in our paper via the link in the show notes or visit russellreynolds.com and now.
- [21:39]
Simon Kingston
Back to our conversation with Konstantin. We had the opportunity to participate in one of those AI labs for the social impact sector and it was fascinating. Both the potential for transformation, but also to be with a group of leaders who were humble enough to be learning together at once, confessing in a way what they didn't know to each other and discovering the potential of that technology amongst other things together was a really fascinating part, I think, of the the access that we have providing those sorts of advisory services to to people who are shaping the way the world is led.
- [22:19]
Konstantin Alexandrakis
It's always fascinating to get into a group of peers and hear the frustration, the vulnerability, especially on a topic like AI, which for the past couple of years has been everywhere, has almost become a cliche. But now we're in a period of really entering what does it actually mean, how can organizations really thoughtfully leverage it and where is it going to take organizations, companies and industries going forward? And there are no easy answers to any of that. And CEOs and other leaders really appreciate being able to to get together and brainstorm that in a way that helps them move the ball just a little bit forward each time.
- [23:04]
Simon Kingston
And you talked compellingly about that evolution of our firm into a leadership advisory business. When we think about the other parts of the the body. Russell Reynolds, what else have we added? You talked about Ty Wiggins book and the CEO transition insights that he's helping us bring to clients. What are the other the other tools that we've added as we make that move ourselves to being truly the leadership advisory firm that we want to be.
- [23:37]
Konstantin Alexandrakis
So RA Mentor is one where we've partnered with esteemed and storied retired CEOs and CFOs in many parts of the world to bring them together with newer CEOs or CFOs who might need a mentor who's walked in their shoes and can serve as a sounding board for them. RRA Artemis is another effort where CEOs have nominated female leaders from their organization who are potential future CEO successors, have nominated them to be part of a one year program that's a development program for future CEOs, designed by women for women, and has really brought to the market something that has not existed before. Our top team effectiveness consulting work is helping leadership teams large and small really improve the way they work together and how they support their organizational needs. There are many other examples like that, but those are just those are three of them.
- [24:41]
Simon Kingston
Next week, the leaders of the world, or many of them, are going to be meeting in Davos and amidst a cacophony of challenges and disruption and volatility in the world. This question is it's not so much cheeky as unfair, because if you knew the answer to it, you wouldn't need to go. But what do you think is going to be on the agenda? What do you think is going to be foremost in the minds of that group of leaders?
- [25:10]
Konstantin Alexandrakis
I don't think the topics are going to be too surprising. If I had to kind of predict what the informal conversations are going to be, I think geopolitics and alliances, tariff regimes, the impact of new leaders in various countries around the world. I also think what's been true the last couple years will probably be true again in terms of technology innovation, the opportunities that come with it, and the both the opportunity and challenge related to generative AI integration and digital transformation will be important. And this one might be the most important one of all. This sort of notion of trust across organizations, across entities, trust in one's government, trust across societies, cross border trust, that's probably one that is also going to be talked about a lot, not only from a societal and government perspective, but also as organizations come together with their customers. How do we reinforce trust in a time of geopolitical uncertainty and diplomatic roadblocks in certain parts of the world?
- [26:19]
Simon Kingston
And on that, because that links in a way to this idea that we live in an era not just of misinformation, but also active disinformation in some places. What's your advice to senior leaders about how far they can go to a gender trust that is beyond their immediate business? Because on redefine, if you've heard kind of two very distinct views when we've talked to senior leaders about social issues and whether they should be engaged with them, some say yes, we have to be because it's a basic principle of doing business. Others say, no, stick to your swim lane. Given that, as you say, trust may be the rarest and most valuable of assets in the current environment, what would your advice be to leaders about how far they should go to try and engender it?
- [27:07]
Konstantin Alexandrakis
I don't necessarily have the answer to that, but I do have a sense from having talked about it with many leaders around the world. So there's trust inside your organization, then there's trust, as you say, outside in your communities, in the customers you serve, and beyond. I think at the end of the day, each of us, through our actions, build trust indirectly. And yes, there's this debate all the time about how vocal should leaders be about social issues and issues outside the walls of their organizations. At the end of the day, if you're demonstrating your values within your organization, you're demonstrating your values to your customers and to your communities. That says almost as much as any specific proclamations you might make. And that's an important element, I think, of how socially responsible organizations function.
- [28:03]
Simon Kingston
One of the other things you mentioned is the geopolitical one and the sense that we live in a slightly fracturing world at the moment. One of the things that leads to is kind of hyper regionalization, a move away from global norms and global assumptions about how businesses and governments interact with each other. Does it seem like that to you at Russell Reynolds? I mean, how do you think about our business, which is a global one, but where we operate in markets that can sometimes seem to be moving apart quite dramatically politically? What's been the approach that you've taken to thinking about that and what it means for our strategy and how we empower leaders in the regions of the business?
- [28:45]
Konstantin Alexandrakis
Look, I think we're lucky. I think I just get a warm and fuzzy feeling every time I walk into a Russell Reynolds office around the world, whether it's in Melbourne, Australia, or Warsaw, Poland, or Dallas, Texas? We're lucky because we have a very strong culture and a very strong common sense of purpose in terms of improving the way the world is led and dedication to our clients. And we're lucky in that that is something that is replicated around the world consistently. And as I said, I love getting that feeling every time I go to one of our distant locations and meet with colleagues there and meet with clients there. But I think what you're asking is, how does that get impacted by the. The world and countries perhaps drifting apart in geopolitical ways. The reality is, I don't think we've been impacted because our culture binds us. We do always have to drive good communication across borders, across continents in order to make sure that we're sharing information, we're sharing stories about our clients, we're sharing ways to help our clients, we're sharing successes of our teams and new ideas that our teams have generated so that we can apply those to other clients in other places. But I think when you have a strong culture, you can stand together regardless of some of the geopolitical nuance that is floating around you now. Is that something that becomes particularly difficult as those geopolitical pressures grow and get into something that we may not have encountered yet? Possibly. Which is why as a leadership team, we have to be nimble and we have to be always be ready to to react and support our teams through anything unexpected that happens.
- [30:42]
Simon Kingston
Konstantin as our regular listeners will know, we ask every guest on the podcast to tell us about their redefine our moment, an experience or a decision that shaped them critically. What was yours?
- [30:58]
Konstantin Alexandrakis
Before I came to Russell Reynolds Simon, I was a management consultant and was pretty young and inexperienced, but was trained by some great senior consultants and was given a lot of responsibility early on to contribute to significant efforts at clients. And there was this one project we were working on helping the CEO of a business reorganize his team and his organization and kind of plot a new strategy for the group together with the leadership team. And I remember vividly sitting in his office down in Oklahoma late one evening and he was kind of laying out some of his plans and I took the leap of faith and told him that I thought he was completely wrong and that he needed to be thinking about things in a different way and sort of describe that. And he was pretty taken aback for a moment and then sort of quickly pivoted in the direction that I had suggested. It's a redefiner moment for me because until then I had kind of felt like I was a cog in a wheel and a helper. At that moment, I think I really started to become a true advisor and kind of shift shed any inhibitions I had about speaking my mind to clients if I truly believed and had the data for believing that the direction they were taking could use another perspective. So I think for me that kind of had a lot to do with the course I took. Since then.
- [32:46]
Simon Kingston
We like to end these podcasts with a series of rapid fire questions. I'm going to ask these and ask you to answer as quickly as you can. Are you ready?
- [32:56]
Konstantin Alexandrakis
These are optional, right?
- [32:58]
Simon Kingston
You can, you can refuse to answer.
- [33:00]
Konstantin Alexandrakis
I'm ready I'm ready, Simon. Let's do it. Come on.
- [33:02]
Simon Kingston
Since this is the first episode of the new year, what are you most looking forward to in 2025? Constantine?
- [33:09]
Konstantin Alexandrakis
I am looking forward to. You said rapid fire, right? I'm looking forward to spending time with our people and with our clients.
- [33:20]
Simon Kingston
And I think you've answered this one already. But to remind everyone, what was your first job?
- [33:24]
Konstantin Alexandrakis
My first job, I was a cashier at the Winn Dixie in South Miami. Do you know what a Winn Dixie is? Simon?
- [33:34]
Simon Kingston
I have no idea what a Winn Dixie is.
- [33:36]
Konstantin Alexandrakis
Oh, my God. Winn Dixie is amazing. It's a supermarket chain, mostly in the south, and I was a cashier, and it was just when scanning items at the cash register had come up, so I didn't have to learn how to key in everything. But it was great customer service job.
- [33:54]
Simon Kingston
Looking back on your leadership path, possibly including Winn Dixie, what do you wish you'd learned sooner, apart from scanning everything?
- [34:04]
Konstantin Alexandrakis
I wish I'd learned everything sooner. I mean, I'm still learning. I think that's a key part of, I think, all of our journeys. What do I wish I had learned sooner? I think communication is so key to leadership. And I think, as I said, I think I'm still learning how to be a good communicator, but I wish I see some great communicators and wish I had been able to learn how to communicate effectively earlier in my career, for sure.
- [34:33]
Simon Kingston
What's one question you often ask when hiring people?
- [34:36]
Konstantin Alexandrakis
You ask me for my secrets. Well, I love the misperception question. What's a misperception about you?
- [34:45]
Simon Kingston
What is one subject you'd like to learn more about?
- [34:47]
Konstantin Alexandrakis
Maybe because of my upbringing, I'm a sort of archaeology history buff. So I'd love to spend more time really learning more about ancient civilizations and ancient history. I've never formally been on a dig, but I'd love to do that. At some point.
- [35:06]
Simon Kingston
I can recommend a very good history festival. Final question. What advice would you give to someone with C suite aspirations?
- [35:14]
Konstantin Alexandrakis
I would say, don't worry about your aspirations. Focus on doing great work, living by your values, delivering innovative ways of doing things for your customers and your colleagues, and always bring a little in everything you do.
- [35:35]
Simon Kingston
Konstantin, thank you for those responses. And as I think back over the last 30 minutes, there are a few themes that emerge. The first one that runs as a golden thread through a lot of this is that sense of solidarity, that sense of philotimo, as you described it right at the beginning. The culture that's so important to you in your family background and that you bring to the way in which you think about leadership for yourself and for others. The communication of that was also something you talked about consistently as well as the evolution of our business. A move away from a focus on a transactional approach to executive search to something that is a much more holistic support for leadership decision making development, both for individuals who lead businesses and other organizations and for teams of leaders. And that was fascinating to hear how that evolution is continuing. But I was also really struck by your rejection of my question about whether leading a people business is somehow different in type from leading other kinds of businesses, in your view. To paraphrase, we're all leadership businesses now, and a really important insight into the way you lead and the way some of the most significant leaders we advise lead. So thank you. I think you have lived up to the advisory standard that we set ourselves in the advice that you've given to our listeners today. Thank you for finding the time and joining us on Redefiners.
- [37:14]
Konstantin Alexandrakis
Thank you, Simon. It's a privilege to be here.
- [37:20]
Hoda Tahun
Thanks for joining us on this episode of Redefiners. For more compelling insights from leaders across industries and around the world, listen to Redefiners wherever you get your podcasts.
- [37:30]
Konstantin Alexandrakis
And to learn more or to get in contact with us, visit our website@russellreynolds.com, find us on LinkedIn and follow us on X, formerly known as Twitter raonLeadership.