The CHRO’s enterprise-wide lens
The traditional logic for board selection often treats CHROs as “functional experts,” useful in certain talent-focused moments like succession planning and compensation, but limited in scope. Baert’s board experience, however, shows just how much value an HR leader can bring to boards.
In a time of complicated geopolitics and market volatility, Baert has brought a global, multisystem perspective to his boards, particularly in terms of compliance requirements, cross-border culture challenges and multi-jurisdictional talent strategy.
While boards excel at taking an aspirational view of strategy and at governance oversight, it’s the uncomfortable middle where they often fall short — in organizational design, leadership requirements, cultural shifts and behavior change. What are the organization’s goals in the next three to five years? What do leaders need to do to make those goals a reality? What needs to change? And how are we measuring progress toward our goals?
“Steven has a panoramic view that allows conversations to move across topics — and not just the ones people expect a CHRO to cover,” said Dr. Richard Peters, chairman of the board for Pharming.
Helping turn strategy into reality
Baert’s primary job as a CHRO and his participation on two boards offer him unique learnings that he is able to bring to both positions. As an operating executive, you live in the details. As a board director, you must rise above them.
“You can finally see what is really at stake,” Baert noted. “Not yesterday’s problems, but the structural truths that determine whether the strategy has a chance of landing.”
But that elevation doesn't come easily. Unlike executives who spend thousands of hours in company, board members interact episodically. Baert said it took nearly a full year of deliberate effort to deeply understand the companies he served: visiting operations, observing culture firsthand, and giving deep reviews of polished board decks that too often obscure real nuance.
This commitment is part of what made his board contributions substantive rather than symbolic.
“We often talk about the role of the board being to set strategy, but the board’s role is also to help management to think through what it will take for that strategy to become a reality,” Baert said. “That very quickly brings you to discussions about leadership, about organizational design, about governance and incentives. That brings you to the culture of the organization, and what behaviors you want to encourage. All of that is ultimately what makes your strategy a reality.”
The virtuous cycle of board service
Transitioning from a career as an operating executive into a directorship is perhaps the standard career pathway, but Baert’s experience highlights how sitting on a board while actively serving as a CHRO can bring immense career value. He cherished what he called the “balcony view” of the business, which he described as “cutting through all the noise and seeing what is really at stake.”
The balcony view, Baert told us, has in turn transformed how he sees his own role as GE Vernova’s CHRO, both with how best to communicate with the board and with how he sees his job in the larger context of the business.
“You will often have that moment where you learn something as a board member that you wish you had known 10 years ago,” Baert said. “But when you’re still an operating executive, you get that payback where you can bring what you learn to your job.”