CPO Behind Your Airline Meal on Curiosity, AI and Learning at Scale | Dr Jeanette Hron (gategroup)

Every time you eat on a plane, you are at the end of one of the most complex supply chains in the world. Dr Jeanette Hron runs people strategy for the company behind a huge share of it. As Chief People Officer at gategroup — airline and rail catering across more than 60 countries — Jeanette joins Simon Brown and Garrick Jones to talk about what it takes to keep an organisation of that scale learning. She makes the case that curiosity is not a soft value but a competitive advantage: innovation, she argues, is rarely the leader's best idea, it is what the leader is curious enough to hear from the team. The conversation centres on the Gate Academy, gategroup's new learning platform, built by bringing scattered expertise under one roof rather than inventing something new. Jeanette explains why she stopped believing in top-down training assignments, how the Academy reaches people on the shop floor as well as in the office, and what she tells leaders who want to build something similar. Along the way: why the German word for curiosity — Neugier, a craving for novelty — captures it better than the English; why AI is enhancing work rather than replacing it; why a business this complex should feel calm rather than frenetic; and the question Jeanette thinks everyone should be asking. "Curious leaders create curious organisations." Our new book, The Curious Imperative: Why Questions Beat Answers in the Age of AI, is available for pre order now. Subscribe, and stay curious. #podcast #podcastepisode #cpo #chieflpeopleofficer #gategroup #aviation #travel #curiosity #curiousadvantage #curiousimperative #podcasts #plane #meal #planefood