Roman Baran
Head of Operations Planning, Managing Director Romania
As both a board member and the managing director, how do you translate the group strategy into decisions that make sense for the Romanian organization?
In a matrix organization like ours, global directions, financial targets, and long-term positioning cannot remain abstract strategic actions – they must be reflected in the way we shape and live our local culture. The challenge is not simply alignment on paper, but ensuring that these global objectives are embedded meaningfully in the Romanian context – within our talent landscape, market dynamics, and cultural specificities.
My responsibility is to translate the group’s strategic intent into local action in a way that preserves its integrity while making it relevant and authentic for our people. Sometimes this alignment is seamless. Other times, it requires thoughtful recalibration – reprioritizing, reallocating resources, or adapting execution models, so that we remain fully aligned with the global direction while designing plans that genuinely resonate locally.
I see my role as a bridge between global vision and local reality, ensuring that our culture becomes the vehicle through which strategy is implemented, not an isolated layer beside it. Adaptability, in this sense, is what makes the difference in how we internalize objectives, project them into concrete initiatives, and turn them into shared commitments within the organization.
With more than 100 people across different functions, what have you learned about leading and developing an organization as it grows?
The most important lesson I have learned while leading an organization of over 100 people across diverse functions is this: growth does not amplify uniformity – it amplifies the need for intentional orchestration of diversity.
As an organization expands, complexity increases. Different skills, perspectives, and working styles are not just inevitable; they are essential. The real value lies in their complementarity. I often compare this to an orchestra: pianists, violinists, percussionists – each with distinct expertise come together to perform a shared score. The conductor aligns everyone around the direction, but the music itself belongs to the orchestra. That is where trust becomes visible.
For me, leadership in a growing organization means ensuring that diversity does not create fragmentation, but harmony. It requires clarity of direction, mutual respect between functions, and the discipline to align everyone around a common ambition while allowing each expert to contribute fully from their strengths.
If I had to distill this into one key lesson, it would be this: sustainable growth depends on our ability to transform diversity into coordinated impact – through trust, clarity, and shared purpose.
If you could give yourself advice at the beginning of your leadership journey, what would you do differently today?
If I could give myself advice at the beginning of my leadership journey, I would not change the direction of the journey itself. Every stage, especially the uncertain or uncomfortable ones, has shaped my perspective and strengthened my judgment. Leadership does not develop in ideal circumstances; it develops through lived experience.
No child has ever learned to walk without falling and trying again. The same principle applies to leadership. Progress is built on a natural rhythm of trial, reflection, adjustment, and growth. Mistakes are not interruptions in the journey; they are integral to it. Each difficult decision refines discernment. Each misjudgment builds perspective. Each challenge expands resilience.
Early in one’s career, there is often a desire to get everything right, to avoid errors, to prove capability quickly. Over time, you understand that maturity comes not from avoiding mistakes, but from learning from them with intention. What truly accelerates growth is the ability to pause, reflect, extract the lesson, and move forward wiser than before.
If I could offer myself one piece of guidance, it would be to embrace this learning process with even greater awareness and patience.
In a role that combines board responsibility with daily operational pressure, how do you personally know that you have made the right decisions?
In a role that combines board responsibility with daily operational pressure, important decisions should never feel isolated. Even when final accountability sits with one person, the thinking behind a decision is collective. Different perspectives are invited, assumptions are challenged, and alignment is sought before moving forward. Among stakeholders, there is always an agreement on direction, a shared understanding of purpose and consequences.
At the same time, responsibility remains essential. Whoever takes the final decision must fully assume it. Not every choice will prove perfect in a complex environment, but integrity means standing behind it, learning from outcomes, admitting when you’re wrong, and adjusting when necessary. Accountability is not optional, it is part of the culture.
The real indicator that a decision is right becomes visible in how it is received and carried forward. When colleagues understand the rationale, feel part of the process, and take ownership, it shows that the decision is grounded and meaningful. Today, the culture feels much more conscious of what integrity represents – the courage to speak up, to express ideas openly, and to stand confidently behind proposals and decisions.
In your area of expertise, what capabilities do you think we must build today to remain competitive?
To remain competitive, the most important capability we must build is the ability to continuously learn and reinvent the way we respond to business requirements. The environment is evolving too quickly for static expertise to remain sufficient. What makes the difference is how fast we adapt, reinterpret, and act.
I’ll highlight here three essential capabilities: critical thinking – with an overwhelming volume of information, the real skill is not access to data, but discernment. We must be able to separate signal from noise, reflect before reacting, identify real opportunities, and clearly understand how we differentiate through our products.
The second capability is adaptive leadership. This goes beyond leadership style or basic principles. It is about leading effectively through new structures, evolving processes, and new generations of colleagues, while preserving the AstorMueller culture and values
The third capability is the ability to plan dynamically. Planning today cannot be rigid. It requires adaptability – the capacity to pivot, to rearrange priorities when context changes, and to make timely adjustments. At the same time, direction must remain clear.