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Dr Gary Hays
International HR Consultant

Experienced international HR professional with extensive line management/business and supervisory board experience.

Gary was born in London, England but has lived for much of his life in The Netherlands (he has both British & Dutch nationality), although has also lived and worked in Russia and Kazakhstan. He has a technical background having a BSc in Chemistry and a PhD in Physics.

He joined Shell at the Research Centre in Amsterdam and after a first couple of years in a technical role, managed different research & development groups.

International HR roles include: Global HR Manager in Shell Chemicals for 6 years and Graduate Recruitment Manager throughout Europe. His business/line roles include General Director of Shell Technology Centres in the Netherlands and Belgium. He has also led a number of large organizational change projects. In his last role at Shell as VP Strategy & VP HR for the Shell shared service network, Gary combined both HR and business, growing the number of jobs from 1500 to 9000 and leading 100 HR staff in 10 countries

For the last 10 years Gary has consulted (and sometimes worked) for a number of companies.

He was HR Director for Fonterra, New Zealand’s biggest company, a dairy farmer’s co-operative (closing the European HQ in Hamburg and re-opening with almost all new staff in Amsterdam) and Deputy VP HR & OD for one of Russia’s largest oil & gas companies in Moscow. Gary also worked in Kazakhstan, as General Director of the Sovereign Wealth Fund Corporate University for 3 years. supporting all of the major national companies (including the oil & gas company, the railways, telecoms and post, the power grid & generation, engineering, mining, chemicals, airlines, finance).

Consultancy work has included introducing a full talent management system into the European Space Agency (and assessment of theirproject management capabilities) and four years with Sibur, Russia’s largest and most successful chemicals company, including executive coaching, setting up a new international-level, technical training centre in Siberia, refreshment of the Young Specialist programme; reviewing the organisational design of Sibur R&D to stimulate innovation and crisis management.

Other projects have ranged from organisational design for a large petrochemical company in the Middle East to talent and leadership development, executive coaching and setting up corporate universities, in different companies and countries.

Specialities: talent management; leadership assessment/development; coaching/mentoring; building organisations; change processes; globalisation; global & virtual organisations; People/HR strategy; consultancy & facilitation; international workforces, organisations & culture; technological organisations; shared service centres; service organisations; corporate universities.