Every Friday, a person from the business world reveals themselves in our section. This week, Hélène Kyriakakis, CEO of Talan Americas, answers our questions.
Posted at 3:09 a.m.
Updated at 6:00 a.m.
What are your best and worst habits?
The best habit is the ability to take a step back when a problem arises, to find out if it really is a problem. This helps to put problems into perspective and choose where there are real issues and where we need to put ourselves into action and solution mode. The worst: too many screens. All day long, especially since the pandemic, we have continued to work remotely, so I am regularly in front of a screen.
What do you do when you need to come up with an idea?
I listen to music. It’s something that nourishes me a lot. Ideally while walking. I have pretty much everything in my playlist, from Deep Purple to Cowboys Fringants to Alain Bashung. It brings out ideas.
What advice are you glad you ignored?
It’s, “You shouldn’t have three kids, you’re not going to be able to have a demanding career if you do that.” » And I have three today (24, 20 and 15 years old). It was still a challenge. But I was very happy to ignore this advice, several times. Many people told me it was too demanding.
What advice would you give to the younger version of you?
Have confidence in yourself. Self-confidence is something I developed in my forties, it took a long time. It gave me a lot of unnecessary worry, I think, but at the same time, I put a lot of effort into learning and mastering my subjects earlier in my career to compensate for that kind of lack of confidence that I had.
What do you do to thank someone?
I use personalized written messages a lot. I’m not someone who is very comfortable giving big speeches, so sometimes, face to face, I’m less comfortable. When I take the time to write, it’s personalized and I can really go with what I think is sincere.
How do you unplug?
It’s the culture that disconnects me a lot, that brings me to another world. Theater, dance, museums. There are people who jog, I go to the theater. It is certain that the most accessible remains reading. I really like detective novels.
What do you always carry in your pockets or bag?
I’ve never used a handbag and I’m very happy with that. Now my phone can hold pretty much everything. So I can’t move around without my phone. Even if I’m going to walk the dog, I’m going to take my phone with me.
Your best investment?
My swimming pool. When our third daughter was born, we had a swimming pool dug. It’s incredible, the amount of beautiful family memories attached to this. The girls brought their friends. There is definitely something going on in our backyard with all of this. It gives me wonderful family memories today.
A good boss is someone who…
…is capable of being constantly unbalanced and being comfortable in these situations. When we run a business, our goal is to ensure the collective good. But between investors, customers, employees and risk-taking, the perfect equation does not exist. We are always out of balance. So there are always people who are more or less satisfied and others who are satisfied. You have to learn to be okay with that.
What book or movie do you usually recommend?
The Beast: Complete by David Goudreault. I read this a few years ago and my God, this guy is really not wired like me, and I find this super interesting. I like different people, we are enriched as a society with people of different profiles. You enter this book, it’s magnificent and destabilizing. This is something I often recommend.
Who is Hélène Kyriakakis?
She joined the Createch Group, specializing in optimizing business processes and improving business performance, in 2011. She was named president in 2019. Mme Kyriakakis now heads the branch of the French company Talan – which acquired Createch in 2022 – for the Americas (Canada, United States and Mexico). Graduate of HEC Montréal in finance, Mme Kyriakakis has held several senior positions at companies including PwC and IBM during his career.
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