Carola
Herrmann
I know how Chinese groups decide, and what your organisation can learn from it.
2023 to 2026 Chief People Officer of BYD in Germany · today HR Director in a listed US technology group
China Speed comes down to how an organisation thinks, decides and works together. Many know this and stay slow anyway.
I was Chief People Officer of BYD in Germany when the group came to Europe. I experienced how decisions are made there in days, with all the unwritten rules behind them. To keep up, the West has to understand China. That understanding becomes effective once an organisation changes the way it decides and works together. How that succeeds, through mindset and organisational behaviour, is my craft. As an HR leader and sparring partner I start where speed is created: in leadership, decisions and collaboration. Because transformation is decided by the people who carry it.
HR Director.
25 years of people leadership.
HR leadership in international technology and trading groups, from the large corporation to the greenfield build. Leading across many cultures is part of my everyday work, in highly diverse international teams. Europe, the USA and China shape it most, each with its own logic of decision-making.
Currently HR responsibility for DACH and EMEA in a listed, AI-driven US technology group with a scientific and technical workforce and a transatlantic leadership structure. Before that, from 2023 to 2026, as Chief People Officer, the build-up of BYD's German organisation, including the HR side of the M&A integration. The BYD organisation received the 2025 Automotive TopCareer Award from the Institut für Automobilwirtschaft (IfA) and Automobilwoche as the most attractive employer among Chinese car manufacturers in Germany.
What fascinates me is where people and machines meet. That is where my whole career runs: HR for engineers, developers and researchers, People and Enterprise Technology under one lead, rooted in IT and digital transformation. My current focus is the AI transformation of HR and the skills people need for it. Plus the full employee lifecycle: recruiting, comp & benefits and HR operations, as well as works councils, collective agreements and German labour law, leadership development, people experience and executive coaching.
Certified Master Business Coach, systemic and hypnosystemic, grounded in current science.
Master Business Coach & InnerChange Coach (Dr. Petra Bock Academy) · Hypnosystemic competence & decision-making under uncertainty (Gunther Schmidt, Milton Erickson Institute Heidelberg) · Certified Team Coach (INHESA) · Neuroscience · Behavioural economics · Cognitive science · Sports science · Organisational psychology · Chronobiology
Developing people is what drives me. The theme behind it is energy, my own and that of a whole organisation. I read research across disciplines, from neuroscience to behavioural economics, and as a nonfiction nerd I can recommend a book on almost any topic. I love travelling far, Hong Kong, Polynesia, to get to know people and cultures. I have lived longevity for five years and test on myself what is doable in everyday business life and what gives energy. I lift weights, ride gravel and want to take it to the really big mountains, my dog usually along. I listen to metalcore and punk rock, music with energy, and I find my calm in Zen meditation, I have been to a Zen monastery for it.
Executive advisory for leadership teams
I move leadership teams forward, with more pace, braver decisions and the changes that keep getting left undone.
Four themes for the stage
Keynote, impulse talk, panel or podium, on site, hybrid or digital. German and English, national and international.
Fit for Disruption
Whether a company makes it through disruption is decided by the state of the people who carry it. What has long been standard in elite sport is only now reaching the boardroom: consciously managing your own state.
Transformation · Leadership · ResilienceFor: leadership teams in change, restructuring and high pace.
Leading Transformation at China Speed
What is behind China Speed, why Western organisations systematically underestimate what they are up against, and what can be learned from it. From hands-on leadership experience.
China · Cross-cultural · OrganisationFor: companies with Chinese investors, partners or customers: greentech, mobility, engineering.
The Human Infrastructure of Performance
Leaders optimise their strategy and leave the system that carries it to chance. Longevity research is precise about what to do instead, translated from current science into everyday leadership.
Longevity · Cognition · PerformanceFor: boards, managing directors and senior leadership teams.
AI & the Future of Leadership
Which leadership skills AI makes more important, and how HR functions must be rethought for an AI-shaped organisation.
AI · HR Leadership · StrategyFor: boards and HR leaders in technology-driven organisations.
For editors and podcasts
Short bio, viewpoints and press photo for fast preparation.
Featured in
Business Insider · Handelsblatt
Short bio. Carola Herrmann was Chief People Officer of BYD during its market entry in Germany and built the German organisation from scratch. As a C-level leader inside a Chinese group she knows how it thinks, decides and works. Today she leads HR in a listed US technology group and shows leadership teams how transformation succeeds through mindset and organisational behaviour.
Viewpoints. “Anyone competing with China needs to know how decisions are made there.” · “China Speed is an organisational achievement. Western companies can learn it.” · “Transformation succeeds through mindset and organisational behaviour. Both can be changed deliberately.” · “China Speed comes at a price. Knowing it lets you decide what to adopt.”
Topics. China and China Speed, including the geopolitical situation, transformation and organisational behaviour, AI and the future of leadership. In English and German.