On Personal Development and Moral Leadership with Wagner Denuzzo: One Executive Changing the Modern Landscape of Human Resources

Human resources notoriously gets a bad reputation. This essential aspect of any business is commonly seen as an inhibitor to progress that requires unnecessary setbacks and procedures.

This is not a sentiment shared by Wagner Denuzzo, the Expert-in-Residence of HR from Silicon Valley executive talent agency The A.Team and former executive at global technology giant IBM. In fact, he thinks the opposite. Mr. Denuzzo has dedicated his life to establishing safe, productive workplaces with moral leaders. And now, he is working to usher in a generation of business leaders who can adapt the modern workplace for the better. Mr. Denuzzo describes himself as a “champion of the Gen Z workforce” because, in his view, “our future depends on our ability to embrace this new generation coming to this generational workforce because you’re going to see a diversity that we haven’t seen before in leadership.” It is this open minded mentality and adaptability that has set Denuzzo apart from his contemporaries as one of the most high-profile human resources executives driving the business landscape forward.

I had the opportunity to sit down with Mr. Denuzzo for an interview during Business Today’s 49th annual International Conference in New York City this past November, in which the organization brings together the world’s top executives and most promising future leaders. He had just finished a seminar on personal leadership development with PepsiCola executive and longtime friend Angelique Krembs. I strove to use this opportunity to better understand Denuzzo’s beginnings in HR, career trajectory, and take on the modern business landscape in hopes that his advice could inspire our next generation of leaders. Luckily, Denuzzo came with plenty of advice to share.

Having grown up in São Paulo, Brazil, Mr. Denuzzo had a remarkable path to human resources unlike many others. About his path, he remarked, “I came to this country to be a busboy after I graduated from college…in a restaurant cleaning tables, which gave me a different appreciation about how people view others in the empathy towards people who are not where they want to be, but they have the potential.” It is experiences like these that encouraged Mr. Denuzzo to initially pursue a career in psychotherapy, an industry not too far from the people-based work of HR. His time working in psychotherapy has certainly impacted his work in HR; he described to me how, in psychotherapy, “We need to continuously hope that people are going to access resources when they need some help with emotional well being…Now we are in a moment where a holistic approach to the employee experience is where we are today.” In this way, Mr. Denuzzo’s unique background has given him a fresh, open-minded perspective on HR.

He ultimately transitioned into HR by a chance interview with and job offer from a recruiter at IBM, who actually carved out a new position so that the company could hire him. However, the transition from psychotherapy to HR was not a perfect one; Mr. Denuzzo struggled badly with underlying imposter syndrome, something he believes many young businessmen and women face today. “I had several doubts because I didn't have the business school background,” Mr. Denuzzo shared about this tumultuous time. “I didn't come from the educational background that others did. So to me that was a huge challenge to feel a sense of self efficacy.” It is ultimately overcoming this challenge that he says was hugely influential in his path to success.

Having amicably parted with IBM and joined The A.Team, Mr. Denuzzo is now working to coach executives on how to be moral and effective leaders. The key to this virtue, he argues, is a wholehearted embrace of the modern workplace. On the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic in the business field, he stated, “If you think about transformations, there's always a sense of uncertainty and uncertainty might lead to negative judgments about the conditions that are creating this transformation. What I'm trying to say is, it was very positive for us to go through such a difficult time, because now, the other side of the coin is, hey, we have opportunities to think differently about business.” One of these opportunities, he believes, is the chance for a global, distributed workforce due to corporations’ embrace of the hybrid work style. Paradigm changes like these will reorient the modern workplace for the better.

As my time with Mr. Denuzzo drew to a close, I asked him if he could share his musings on what the Gen Z generation needs to know about how to successfully enter the business field. His largest piece of advice: “Reciprocity. Think about reciprocity as your greatest leadership skill. Now, reciprocity that you gave me a gift so that I need to give you another one is the idea that I don't encounter somebody without giving them something. Because if you're giving me the time of your presence, I owe you to add some value to you. So when you think about reciprocity, you create a team atmosphere, because everyone is a leader in our team.” It is this forward thinking focus on inclusion and adaptability that has set Mr. Denuzzo apart in the HR executive atmosphere. He believes in Gen Z in a time in which so many of his contemporaries pass off the generation as unmotivated.

Simply put, Mr. Denuzzo is on the forefront of the HR evolutionary movement. Through his diligence and the hard work of so many HR executives around the world, much is being done to establish safe, inclusion, productive, and adaptable workplaces today.