I realised when I came out of INSEAD, I have one job and this is to successfully change this organisation.
Long before she joined Swiss Post, Katrin Nussbaumer was fascinated by a question that would shape her entire career: how do societies organise and regulate the essential services people rely on every day?
This particular interest in network industries such as public transport, aviation, postal services and telecommunications first led her into the Swiss administration, where she worked on regulatory projects across the transportation, telecoms and postal sectors, and later into the Parliament, where she continued to focus on communications and transport policy.
When Katrin joined Swiss Post in 2015 as Head of Regulatory Affairs, she found herself at the heart of an organisation shaped by 175 years of history and culture that brought many of her interests together. Beyond its postal operations, Swiss Post spans financial services, public transport, digital services and logistics, presenting a uniquely complex operating environment. Over time, her responsibilities expanded beyond regulation into broader leadership roles, including Chief of Staff and executive board member.
At Swiss Post, she witnessed first-hand how essential service providers must adapt to changing societal and market demands. Traditional letter services, once the company's backbone, were facing structural decline, while parcels, logistics and digital services were becoming increasingly important. As the organisation adapted under new leadership, Katrin was tasked with leading the company's national letters and parcels business, one of Switzerland's most visible and complex operations.
One of my key challenges was: how do I get the organisation from the traditional letter world to the next?
At this pivotal moment in her career, Katrin first learned about the Leading Successful Change programme through Swiss Post's CHRO, who recommended it highly. It was not a difficult decision - “I’ve always dreamt about going to INSEAD.” she recalled fondly.
Looking back on the programme, Katrin realised that while she had already begun thinking about the transformation needed ahead, she did not yet fully understand what the real change agenda would be. “I was already trying to describe my change initiative looking ahead to my new role. But when I look back now, INSEAD was really a reflection room to be prepared for the future.” she shared candidly.
Arriving at INSEAD amid a period of geopolitical uncertainty and constant headlines, she found the atmosphere unexpectedly refreshing. Participants from across industries and continents came together with a shared openness to learn, exchange experiences and challenge their assumptions. Despite their seniority, there was little sense of competition or posturing. Instead, discussions were marked by curiosity, honesty and a genuine desire to learn from one another.
I was thrilled by the spirit. There were people from all over the world, from completely different businesses, and everyone just wanted to learn from one another.
Before attending the programme, Katrin had often viewed Swiss Post's challenges through the lens of a uniquely Swiss organisation operating in a highly specialised sector. The programme challenged that assumption: “It doesn't matter where you come from, which culture, company or industry you're in. At the end, we all have the same problems. It's all about human issues.”
Far from presenting change as a set of abstract models, the programme consistently brought discussions back to a simple but powerful principle: organisations change through people. “It's about humans, it's about humans, it's about humans,” Katrin recalled. The insight resonated deeply as she prepared to lead Swiss Post's letters and parcels business through a changing market landscape. More importantly, it prompted her to rethink her own role as a leader. Prior to joining the programme, Katrin often found herself immersed in day-to-day operations, developing concepts, solving problems and driving execution.
Through discussions with faculty and coaches, she began to see that her responsibility was not to manage every detail, but to provide clarity and direction during periods of change. “I have to give my people a picture of where we need to go. I have to show them what's in it for them. That's my priority.”
Change management is about managing people. On the top, your peers and your direct reports. You really have to take people with you.
Returning to Swiss Post, Katrin recognised a need to prepare for a future in which market dynamics could shift far more rapidly than in the past. “We have excellent people and a strong sense of quality, but sometimes there is less awareness that everything can change very fast," she reflected on the organisation’s highly organised and customer-centric teams.
One of her first priorities was to bring greater clarity to the organisation's strategic direction. Rather than managing against a long list of objectives, she simplified the strategy around two clear ambitions: (1) managing the decline in letter volumes while (2) becoming Switzerland's preferred parcel partner. The response from the organisation was overwhelmingly positive.
"I realised when I came out of INSEAD, I have one job and this is to successfully change this organisation." Recognising that successful change depends on influence beyond formal authority, Katrin and her team invested significantly in engagement across the wider organisation, including senior leadership and the board to ensure that everyone clearly understood the business, their market, and the organisational challenges.
Working through her change agenda, Katrin acknowledges the importance of recognising change fatigue and persisting through the resistance. While organisations often focus on launching change initiatives, sustaining momentum can be far more difficult, particularly when results take time to emerge. "Sometimes you're exactly at the point where you have to keep going, even when you don't yet see the financial success of your initiatives."
For Katrin, leading successful change does not mean having all the answers. Rather, it is having greater clarity about what change management is, what it is not, and the discipline required to put those lessons into practice every day.
You come out as a little bit better version of yourself.
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