Hilti North America

Evgeniya Tikhonova

Through this article, Evgeniya Tikhonova, Head of Talent Management at Hilti North America, shares how building strong succession pipelines, engaging high-potential talent and empowering middle managers can drive performance, retention, and organizational resilience. She outlines practical strategies that turn leadership development into a business imperative rather than just an HR initiative.

Addressing Key-Person Dependency: Depth and Flexibility in Talent

Key-person dependency is a common organizational risk that becomes apparent only when it’s too late. The business is disrupted when too much knowledge or decision-making rests with one individual. We address this through a proactive, structured approach to succession planning that builds depth and flexibility into our talent pipeline.

We limit the number of succession plans any individual can appear on, typically no more than three, to ensure we don’t rely on the same familiar names. We also apply the “rule of three,” aiming for at least three potential successors for every critical role, varying in readiness from immediate to one to three years. This creates genuine options and drives targeted development to close readiness gaps.

To strengthen the pipeline further, we’ve introduced “feeder roles” in each function. These developmental positions act as stepping stones to more strategic roles, allowing us to assess leadership potential and accelerate growth in a lower-risk environment.

Process alone isn’t enough; culture matters. Leaders are encouraged to view succession planning as a responsibility, engaging in talent calibration, honest discussions, and clear readiness decisions. We’re transparent with high-potential talent about the roles they’re being considered for and how they can prepare themselves.

Succession planning isn’t about predicting the future; it’s about being ready for it. By intentionally developing our people, we build resilience across the organization.

Managing High Potentials: Clarity, Opportunity, and Sustained Engagement

Managing high-potential talent or “UP potentials,” as we call them, requires balancing clarity, opportunity, and ongoing engagement. These individuals can step up to more complex or senior roles, but keeping them engaged demands more than CXO Insights recognition; it requires structure, transparency, and meaningful development.

We start by defining “UP potential” as the capacity to grow into a higher role, dependent on sustained performance, learning agility, leadership skills, and other factors. Timing, mobility, and organizational needs also come into play. In a global company, mobility often becomes a key growth driver, with those seeking advancement encouraged to embrace relocation and cross-cultural challenges.

“Middle managers lead the largest population in the organization, making them the most powerful lever for driving performance, improving retention and turning strategy into tangible results.”

Next, we provide structured development through stretch assignments, expanded roles, project leadership, and executive mentorship and sponsorship programs. We match opportunities carefully to fuel growth without overwhelming capacity, recognizing that too many stretch projects can be counterproductive.

We also embed continuous development discussions between leaders and talent. These forward-looking conversations align expectations, uncover aspirations, and adjust plans as needed. Potential is never static, being marked as “UP potential” is not a guaranteed promotion but a shared commitment to develop over time.

This approach produces confident, resilient, and committed future leaders when done well.

The Role of Middle Managers: Turning Strategy Into Performance and Retention

Middle managers are the backbone of any organization. They translate strategy into action, bridge executive vision with dayto-day execution, and shape the employee experience at scale. While senior leaders set the direction, middle managers make it real.

At SHRM 2025, an engagement session revealed a striking truth: despite 80 percent of U.S. companies running engagement surveys and spending nearly $550 billion annually on engagement programs, overall engagement hasn’t improved in 25 years and is now declining. Gallup data shows that the manager determines 70 percent of team engagement. Yet, too many organizations treat engagement as solely HR’s responsibility. The fundamental shift happens when accountability is placed on those leading teams and they are equipped to succeed.

Middle managers oversee the largest employee population and are closest to the work, the customers, and the people, making them the most powerful lever for performance, retention, and change. They face constant pressure, balancing top-down Push (strategy, KPIs, change) with bottom-up Pull (employee needs, expectations, and lived experience). Supporting them isn’t an HR initiative; it’s a business imperative.

We offer leadership programs tailored to different stages of the management journey. First-time leaders focus on transitioning from individual contributor to people leader, while experienced managers receive development for broader roles, often through cross-functional projects. Mentorship builds confidence, expands networks, and accelerates growth through shared experience.

We also prioritize ongoing development discussions, not just annual reviews, to align aspirations and sustain momentum.

When middle managers thrive, people stay, performance rises, and strategy becomes reality. They’re not just the “middle,” they’re the multiplier.