“I am proud of the position of the first female director in the Netherlands and that I have done this in a way in which I have remained fairly close to myself”

Diana van Roest has been Director Retail Google Ads for 10 years and is also a board member of the ANWB.

Diana operates slightly differently from other leaders in the Google organization. Within this type of company, the dominant leadership type is mainly goal- and results-oriented. Diana is people-oriented first. When dealing with strategic issues, she first focuses on building up the team, the required qualities, and thus fills a strongly complementary position in the boardroom.

Within google, Diana got to know herself better and better, as a person and as a leader. Not only her strength but also her less strong sides. Google’s philosophy is nurturing and expanding your strengths. Get to know your ‘weaknesses’ and make sure you build a team around you that complement each other on all counts. Diversity and inclusion is an important theme for Diana. When putting together a new team, she consciously focused on diversity in terms of gender, background, culture and leadership style. She then first focused on really getting to know each other so that the collaboration based on this focus would also yield excellent results. And it did.

For Diana, authenticity is more important than focus on a career path. “I am proud of the position of the first female director in the Netherlands and that I have done this in a way in which I have remained fairly close to myself”. Balance between the family and a challenging job is essential. Keep stretching and developing yourself.

Listen to the podcast via the link below!
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3tyveq6qr7d38BmsiqQPhK?si=5b87bc57a89c4300

Have fun listening.