Earlier this year, Stolt-Nielsen set out to solve a critical challenge: how to translate its business strategy into a people agenda that truly enables execution. With operations spread across tankers, terminals, tank containers, land-based sea farms and teams working across countries and sites, Stolt-Nielsen had to build a People Strategy that travels well across very different realities–which made getting it right uniquely complex.
Together, we co-created a multi-year People Strategy that connects Stolt-Nielsen’s purpose and business direction to what it means for people day to day across capabilities, culture, leadership, and the broader workforce agenda.
We sat down with Anne van Dassen Müller, Chief People Officer at Stolt-Nielsen, to capture the story behind it: why it mattered now, how we built it together, and what advice she would share with other CPOs/CHROs starting a similar journey.
Why Stolt-Nielsen moved now
Stolt-Nielsen already had a corporate strategy and is in the middle of executing it. While doing that, Anne felt “a sense of urgency in the organisation”, as it became clear that the strategy could only be realised with a strong people agenda behind it.
At the same time, significant shifts are taking place in the world of work, from increasing competition for skilled talent to the impact of data, digitisation, and AI. This called for a strategy that clearly explains what executing the business strategy requires from people on a day-to-day basis.
The goal was to make that link explicit and to focus efforts on the few people priorities that would help the business deliver. It should not be another corporate document but a long-term plan that actually lives in the organisation.
This meant that leaders needed to take real accountability and ownership for the People Strategy, and that employees should feel, as Anne puts it, “that we see them, we invest in them”.
She emphasised the importance of addressing employees across the full operating reality, ensuring they “feel that we are serious about their development, that the organisation is creating the right conditions for them to do a good job, and building on a culture that the organisation is already very proud of”.
How we achieved our goal
We began by engaging all stakeholders at all levels of the organisation to translate Stolt-Nielsen’s business strategy of being ‘Simply the Best’ for their people, customers, and shareholders into clear implications for what that means for people. This provided us a clear starting point for where to focus our efforts, grounded in business reality.
From there, we built the internal picture, using the information already available within Stolt-Nielsen, including workforce data and engagement insights. Simultaneously, we did extensive research and provided an outside view of what is changing in the world of work.
Bringing these perspectives together allowed us to identify the key building blocks, making the most important themes visible in one place and creating a clear foundation from where five focus areas were determined as the core of the People Strategy:
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- Growth by Design: digitising and simplifying people processes
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- Future Ready Teams: building skills and internal mobility
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- Connected Culture: defining and strengthening what makes Stolt-Nielsen a great place to work
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- Elevating Our Leaders: raising the bar on leadership capability
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- People Team Capability: building the People team’s ability to deliver it all
Those strategic focus areas were co-created with the People team through a series of working sessions and workshops. The team was actively involved at every step, which made a clear difference. And that also highlights what we find important in our approach: We bring structure, ask the hard questions, and shape the strategy around Stolt-Nielsen’s direction and pain points.
Anne captured that difference clearly: “They were not just sessions where you as consultants presented something to us, you never came with a template, and instead you listened to the voice of your customer to understand our pain points, what direction we were taking, and connect that. We were really co creating in all these moments”, so “the strategy came out of our own thinking”.
When something didn’t work, Anne valued the “honest feedback when something was not working, combined with the ability to connect HR knowledge with business insight” made sure the strategy spoke the language leaders recognise. That balance and co creation really made the output feel relevant and, equally as important, owned by the business.
Anne really appreciated “the rigor and the inclusivity of the whole process”. That was also reflected in the People Strategy document itself: “It was structured to show this journey, so stakeholders could see ‘the whole chain of thoughts behind it, not just the end result of the process.”
That also aligns with the advice she has for other CHROs embarking on a similar journey: “Go slow to go fast.”
And that is a great takeaway: if the front end gets rushed, the organisation pays later through time spent trying to get alignment and fixing misunderstandings. This journey really reinforced the opposite. Taking the time upfront for listening, diagnosis, and pressure testing not only strengthened the quality of the outcome, it also accelerated alignment and readiness to own the outcome across stakeholders.
What is next for Stolt-Nielsen?
Stolt-Nielsen is now focused on taking leaders along in the strategy. Anne and the team started by engaging leadership across the business to make sure the strategy reflects the challenges and opportunities they are seeing in their areas.
From there, Anne and members of the People team travelled to see the colleagues in person, looking them in the eye and presenting this new, exciting vision for people at Stolt-Nielsen directly. By engaging in this way, they made sure this was not a tick box exercise, but a real reset of how the company thinks about People Strategy moving forward, with a shared view that everyone can buy into.
The level of engagement so far has been very encouraging. The questions coming in are a clear sign that the strategy is addressing topics people care about, and that they want to understand what it means for them.
Leaders are already starting to take ownership of the People Strategy alongside the corporate strategy. This is helping to connect business units more closely, with silos starting to break down and collaboration increasing.
With a clear, integrated Corporate and People Strategy in place, Stolt-Nielsen is building a stronger foundation to align the organisation and empower today’s people to create tomorrow’s opportunities.
“A People Strategy is not to be a corporate document, but a long-term plan that actually lives.”
Anne van Dassen Müller, Chief People Officer at Stolt-Nielsen
At AllChiefs, we are thrilled to see the impact this People Strategy is having within the organisation, representing a big success for the client, thus a big success for us. Our goal is simple: empower your workforce for sustainable growth: performance driven, people powered, and resilient by design.
Your workforce is your superpower and the key to the success of your organisation. If you are looking to unlock its full capabilities, discover more about how our Sustainable Workforce can support you, and reach out to our Chiefs and let’s start today.
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