Julia Hedley is a business leader with an impressive career across global roles in finance. She joined Superbet more than two years ago, starting as Group Financial Controller, and currently she is the Finance Director for both the Group and Superbet's largest market, Romania.
Having more than 20 years of experience in a variety of industries, such as energy, equity capital markets, and international trade and development, Julia understands the importance of creating strong and inclusive teams where every individual has a voice and feels empowered to make a direct impact on the business.
We sat down with Julia to discover her vision on leadership while also exploring her passions and motivations.
Julia, you have been with Superbet for almost two years. What are your impressions about this period and what moment stands out from this ongoing journey?
For me, a striking difference between Superbet and other companies that I have either worked with or for is the pace. It has been an incredibly busy two years at Superbet, full of transformation with my role expanding and evolving considerably over this time as well. You have to be able to both enjoy that pace and be able to adapt to any related changes, which luckily I do!
A standout moment is probably just before I joined, I was invited to the management offsite ahead starting my new role and got to meet many of my colleagues for the first time. Everyone was overwhelmingly welcoming, passionate about their work and genuinely interested in you as a person. Then, it was great to realize I had made the right decision to join the Superbet family.
Diversity is a firm commitment for us and your team stands out, having a strong line-up of female leaders across several roles. Do you feel that the Superbet behaviors and culture have encouraged female professionals to thrive in our company?
Overall, I feel very lucky to have amazing teams spread across several countries, full of talented multi-national individuals including some strong female leaders who drive the high standards needed across my finance teams.
For me diversity is broader than gender, it is fundamentally about diversity of thought and perspective. Through the different cultures, personalities and gender-mix of my teams we ensure that we create an environment of challenge and innovation. Our five behaviors create a strong foundation for encouraging female success within our company, in particular through taking ownership and lifting each other up we can ensure that all of our people are given responsibilities and receive recognition.
I believe that, like many organizations, we remain on a journey to improve diversity across the company, which will ensure our culture is one that permits everyone to thrive, regardless of gender or background. Therefore, with both DEI as a personal passion and as a leader in Superbet I look forward to continuing to drive DEI in my teams and more widely.
We talked about building diverse teams and we would like to focus a bit on your style of leadership. What is your approach to leading teams and empowering people to reach their full potential?
For me, kindness and empathy are two qualities that I have valued above all others in leaders I have met throughout my career, so I try to ensure these are central to my leadership style. I would say my style is quite consultative in terms of leading teams, I like to hear different perspectives, to be challenged in my thought process and to ensure that everyone feels like they can contribute to the matter at hand.
To ensure people feel supported, I always tell my teams that mistakes will happen, and it is more important that we learn from them and work to make sure that the same mistake is not repeated.
Empowering people means trusting them and I put a lot of trust in my teams to deliver. To do this, you must clearly set out the vision and everyone is aligned to be able to deliver that vision.
Our commercial brands are present in several markets across CEE and in Latin America. At the same time, we have tech and operational hubs in the UK, Romania and Croatia, just to name a few locations. How do you see the future of work manifested in Superbet, working with teams across multiple regions?
The pandemic set a platform for individuals to be able to work in an agile and flexible way that benefits more an organization spread over multiple geographies, and Superbet has benefited from being able to hire the right talent regardless of location.
As we grow more internationally, I think we will start to see more regional ‘hubs’ created around commercial operations to ensure we achieve the right balance of localized knowledge and efficient decision making, alongside the strategic direction from centers of excellence for marketing, HR and finance.
Personally, I remain a proponent of a hybrid approach to work, I believe that you need to create a culture where people are trusted to deliver in their roles but also a culture where people enjoy and find value in working together, in person.
Superbet partners with a variety of sports clubs across our markets, from football teams to handball, volleyball, basketball or even athletics and ski jumping. Do you have any favorite club, competition or event from the Superbet sports ecosystem?
I both love watching and playing tennis and will happily admit that I am fairly average player and an even worse player at Padel.
Outside of the Superbet ecosystem, having grown up beside the sea, I love sailing, diving and swimming, maybe we can investigate sponsoring the America’s Cup or Daniel Wiffen as part of our global expansion plans. 😊
Finally, I am a big fan of watching rugby particularly when Ireland wins which unfortunately is not always a guarantee despite being the #3 team in the world, as evidenced by recent performances.
