Kate Lebedeff

Head of HR at Zertificon Solutions GmbH (51-200 employees)

Kate Lebedeff, Head of HR L&D and Recruiting at Zertificon Solutions GmbH Kate comes from investigative journalism, after which she moved to the business side of media and was leading start-ups. She has gained over 13 years of experience in IT, including being a co-founder of a Linux community and having 8 years in roles of overall management of companies (Geschäftsführerin /Country Manager). As part of her role as the Country Manager for Germany for VFS Global, she led the company to achieve PCMM Level 5 certification by KPMG for Western Europe. This was the turning point for her to channel all her leadership and people development experience and passion into an HR path. She has launched and leads the L&D unit in the IT software development company where she is currently working. To that came extra education as a psychologist, and now Kate is also a certified and practicing ICF ACC coach.

3:00 - 3:30 pm

Tuesday 14 October 2025

Trust as a Growth Multiplier

How can HR deliver up to 8.5x higher RPE (revenue per employee) for the company? The world has changed, and old leadership models no longer work. Companies with a high culture of trust and empowerment achieve up to 8.5x higher RPE. In this session, you’ll discover why empowering leadership is emerging as a must-have skill for any company that wants to retain talent and grow. What is this skill? How leaders can turn empowerment into measurable business outcomes: from growth and innovation to agility and speed – directly into RPE growth? How exactly do you create that culture, especially when budgets are tight? Must be a massive and expensive exercise? No! In the session, I’ll share what this looks like in practice and how a moderate but focused effort investment creates a direct and lasting boost in growth and revenue.