Story-pod with Nischala: The Shero Diaries with Irene Veldstra - a podcast by HFS

Welcome to the podcast – “Story-Pod with Nischala”. As part of this exclusive podcast, you can tune into stories with amazing people across the world. Through these stories, you will listen to ideas that matter, real-world insights and positive inspiration.

As part of the series “The Shero Diaries”, our Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Nischala Murthy Kaushik talks with influential and powerful women leaders from across the world.  In each episode, we profile a corporate shero and you will hear about their personal life and career journey, choices and decisions which influenced them and reflections from these experiences.

This podcast has 3 sections

1. Know your shero – in which we talk about backstories around the influence of family, upbringing, education and your career journey.


2. Leadership, Diversity and Inclusion, Skills - in which we talk unfiltered on how to build diverse and inclusive organizations.


3. Rapid Fire – in which we hear quick and quirky responses from our featured shero.

Our featured shero in this podcast Irene Veldstra

She is an international commercial executive with 25 years of ICT outsourcing and engagement experience. She is currently VP Head of Large Deals at Atos supporting deal teams to win with strong focus on customer centricity and value of technology. She is passionate about bringing out the best in others and coaching of young talents to step out of their comfort zones. She is a culture change ambassador, a promotor for women in tech and a part of Atos “Being Connected” and Atos “LEAP” initiatives. Leading the way, vocal and on the front line, one of her goals is to motivate others to embody the Atos of the future.

Prior re-joining Atos in 2021, she was Chief Commercial Officer for an M&A brokerage firm and Chief Executive Officer responsible for Benelux at a global tech company. She has held various other commercial and consulting positions in seven different countries. With a focus on people, on profitable business growth as well as on her customers, she leads with relentless energy and optimism, focus, transparency, and efficiency. She is recognized for her strategic abilities in complex ecosystems and obtaining results.

Irene is at her best as a frontline dealmaker taking control and resolving challenges at all levels, driving engagements and deals towards closure with a great flair for relationships and reducing complexities, while empowering her hierarchical and functional teams.

Living by the motto “Never a dull moment”, she is driven by transformation and innovation, and by the opportunity to push boundaries to create a strong entrepreneurial company culture. As an advocate for women in the technology sector, she actively coaches young women.

Listen to this episode of the HFS Shero Diaries podcast with Irene to

• Understand how building a diverse and inclusive organization starts from being aware of the nuances of diversity and inclusion. Then comes having a concrete and actionable plan.


• Importance of having a sponsor at the workplace


• Why we should think big to create impact and meaningful change

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