René Villiger

I serve as Global HR Business Partner Lead at COFRA Holding AG, where I align people strategies with business objectives to support sustainable growth. With extensive experience in human resources and organizational development, I focus on leadership development, organizational transformation, and fostering a culture of performance and inclusion. I work closely with diverse stakeholders and senior leaders to deliver strategic HR solutions that empower teams and drive meaningful impact.

Steered the end-to-end management of competing change and transition initiatives in collaboration with key stakeholders, such as employee experience and inclusion / employee well-being. Improved satisfaction rates by leading transformation of team mind-sets along with leaders to combine appropriate talent management and development opportunities.

Provided strategic people and organization solutions to solve enterprise portfolio challenges through organizational design, talent management, culture transformation and restructuring. Steered and facilitated regional merger and spin activities with DuPont and Corteva to be landed successfully in April 2019 having exchanged 3’000 employees across the new legal units.

Developed and implemented strategic HR plans to support the double digit growth for the 26 countries of responsibility in economic and political challenging environment. Designed and steered implementation of functional, business and regional specific long term culture and talent initiatives incl. e.g. safety behaviour (EMEAI) or succession planning (CEE). Established and executed change and transformation plan for major M&A activities.

Building and sustaining Microsoft‘s competitive advantage through the development and implementation of a people strategy across the Multi-country region in total around 25 smaller subs in strong alignment and collaboration with senior business leadership team. Implement according strategic human resources and actively contributing to the development and implementation of the region's objectives and strategies as well as cross-group initiatives together with 14 HR colleagues in my team.

Influencing business strategies and decisions due to expertise in people and organizational challenges. Translating business strategies and objectives into HR initiatives and actions and land with 8 HR colleagues in my team in Swiss organization. Partnering with and coaching leadership team to facilitate organization and culture change. Building management capability to facilitate an open, inclusive, Microsoft values based environment which enables effective employee advocacy.

Creating and executing of HR strategy of HR Switzerland by leading and orchestrating Line HR team incl. HRBPs/HR Generalists/HR Assistants/HR Project Manager (22 directs) to serve 3’300 employees in IBM Switzerland with end to end HR services. Managing transformation towards COE structure for talent acquisition and HR operations. Leading key HR projects and activities for IBM Switzerland like e.g. implementation of new performance management system or driving development centers for management potentials.

Designing and executing development centers according to competency framework. Establishing and supporting potential analysis through various instruments and creating development plans for future management potentials incl. specific career coaching. Driving transparency of management career path through intranet and employee magazine.

Hiring of 18 trainees through interviews, personality tests and assessment centers. Creating setup within business to land trainees within the organization establishing fitting roles for graduates. Driving employer branding at universities and set up relationships to Swiss education institutions.

Aligning development needs for specific segment with overall readiness offerings. Supporting and coaching various individuals with development and career planning needs. Leading setup, organization, and execution of leadership seminars for assigned business segment.

Supporting change consulting team with transformation of Zurich Switzerland to new business and market segmentation through workshop preparation, analytics of data and statistics.

The program prepares senior professionals for leading change initiatives directly, or advising senior executives and board directors to develop a sustainable, high-performing organizational culture.