Leadership in today’s volatile business environment requires more than just strategic thinking – it demands a fundamental shift in how we view and interact with our teams.

For Stefan Vermeulen, Managing Director of Nespresso Oceania – who has spent nearly 15 years with the global coffee brand – this shift centers around one core principle that has transformed his approach to leadership.

During his interview on CEO: Behind the Scenes, Vermeulen outlines his comprehensive leadership framework built around what he calls the “five Cs.”

“I like frameworks, and I try to find the balance between what I call the ‘five Cs,’ of which the first is clarity,” he explains.

This clarity extends beyond mere goal-setting to establishing a north star that teams can rally behind. The framework also encompasses connection, collaboration, care and courage.

“Care is an extremely important one to me. As leaders, we’re just one of the leaders in the long chain of people that are custodians of the brand customer experience in the business,” Vermeulen notes, emphasizing the responsibility leaders have to leave their organizations better than they found them.

But perhaps most importantly, Vermeulen advocates for assuming the best of people in every interaction.

“Really assume good intentions. Everyone’s different. People can show up from the day at work where they really had a bad morning or something’s going on in their lives, and it is very easy to be judgmental and judge people on those behaviors,” he points out.

“So it’s human first, employee second.”

Considered choices

Vermeulen also emphasizes the importance of building what he calls a personal board of advisors.

“The main criteria is trust. You need to be able to have a very strong relationship based on trust so that you can basically put everything on the table, be extremely vulnerable,” he says. “And diversity of thought is extremely important. I always focus on intentionally bringing people together with different views and different angles.”

He connects this approach with Nespresso’s purpose-driven business practices, working directly with small farming communities, rather than major corporations.

“We don’t buy coffee on the New York Stock Exchange, for example. We work together with about 170,000 small farming communities,” he explains.

This commitment to sustainability and shared value creation has become integral to the company’s identity.

“I think the fact that it’s inherently part of our DNA makes it an organization where everyone – about 1,000 people in Australia and New Zealand, but globally about 14,000 people – really rally behind that purpose of being a force for good,” he affirms.

Listen to the latest episode of our CEO: Behind the Scenes podcast with Stefan Vermeulen on Amazon, Apple or Spotify.