Remko Verheul, Head of People at Wrike

Show Notes

Leading a Global, Remote Workforce: Wrike’s Head of People on AI, Alignment, and Skills-Based Talent

Summary

How do you keep 1,000+ people across 30 countries aligned, connected, and moving fast—while AI reshapes how work gets done?

Remko Verheul, SVP and Head of People at Wrike, shares the operating system behind a truly global, distributed company. Wrike is a collaborative work management platform used worldwide, and Remko explains how the team “eats its own dog food” to create a single source of truth, drive cross-time-zone alignment, and feed product innovation.

He breaks down the rituals that matter—company-wide AMAs, leader travel, and function kickoffs—and why bringing humanity back to remote work is nonnegotiable.

Remko also details Wrike’s dual-track AI strategy: top-down workstreams with clear outcomes and bottom-up experimentation via bootcamps and internal pitches, including new workforce optimizer and performance coach agents.

Finally, he explains why HR must shift from jobs to skills to meet a gig-like labor market and dissolve silos. Expect practical frameworks you can apply this quarter.

Timestamps

[00:45] – Wrike overview: platform, org footprint, and distributed team structure

[02:18] – The big four challenges: AI acceleration, remote/distributed work, global time zones, and the gig economy

[03:55] – Building alignment: single system of record, comms cadence, AMAs, and clear handoffs

[06:35] – Remote with humanity: intentional check-ins and knowing when to switch from async to live

[08:41] – In-person rituals: executive travel cadence and team kickoffs that reinforce culture

[10:55] – AI in the product: customer-built agents and early time savings

[12:12] – AI inside HR: Human + AI = Organizational Intelligence; top-down workstreams and bottom-up experiments

[15:27] – From jobs to skills: adapting to a gig-style market and breaking down silos

Takeaways

- Operationalize alignment with a single source of truth and explicit touchpoints/handoffs across time zones.

- Make communication a ritual: all-hands, AMAs, and purposeful in-person moments; expect leaders to travel.

- Bring humanity to remote work: start 1:1s with check-ins and escalate from async to live when nuance matters.

- Drive AI adoption with a dual strategy—fund a few top-down workstreams and foster bottom-up experimentation (bootcamps, internal pitches).

- Build practical AI agents for people ops (e.g., resource allocation, performance coaching) to unlock measurable productivity.

- Shift talent practices from roles to skills to support cross-functional growth and a gig-like career reality.

- Practice “zoom in, zoom out” leadership to balance detail work with big-picture direction.

Sponsor

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What is HR Voices?

HR Voices is a scenario-based podcast for People Leaders who’ve actually had to make the call.

Each episode brings experienced HR and People leaders into realistic, anonymized workplace scenarios—the kind you recognize immediately. Performance issues. Messy conflicts. Investigations that don’t fit neatly into a policy box. Instead of talking about their own companies, guests react to outside cases and walk through how they’d think it through in real time.

There are no right answers here. What you’ll hear is judgment: how seasoned leaders balance risk, fairness, legal reality, and humanity when the stakes are high and the path isn’t obvious.

HR Voices is for HR, People Ops, legal, and leaders who want to hear how other smart humans actually handle employee relations—without confidentiality breaches, hypotheticals that feel fake, or a lecture on “best practices.”

Emily Fenech (00:34)
Welcome to HR Voices. I'm your host, Emily Fenech and today I get to chat with Remko Verheul He's the SVP and head of people at Wrike. Welcome, Remko.

Remko Verheul (00:45)
Yeah, thanks for inviting Emily. Looking forward to this conversation.

Emily Fenech (00:48)
Absolutely. So, Wrike is one of the most well-known project management platforms out there. I'm very familiar with it, worked with it. But for those who may not be familiar, could you tell us a little bit more about Wrike, about the people that work at Wrike, and about your role of people?

Remko Verheul (01:05)
Yeah, sure. So, Wrike is a collaborative work management platform. Basically, we allow able to do their best of work through the platform, connecting with ⁓ internal, external clients and with that streamlining processes and tasks and project management, often applied in kind of, let's say, customer client environments, marketing environments, but also manufacturing. we serve a lot of customers all over the globe. We're from a company... ⁓

a size point if you a bit more than thousand people approximately 200 in the Americas mainly in the US obviously but also a few in Costa Rica 700 in Europe spread over multiple countries and about 120 in APEC and roughly one third is in the kind of the GTM marketing kind of the commercial environment one third in product and engineering where the heart of the product that we develop and deliver and people work with and one third is like with

RevOps, GNA, HR, customer support type. So that's a little bit of an intro. We are a very diverse organization with more than 40 nationalities and spread over with, let's say presence in terms of offices in more than 12 or 13 countries and probably in around 30 countries, people working for us.

Emily Fenech (02:22)
Yeah, that's wonderful. love, All Voices is a globally distributed company as well. And I just, love the opportunity to work with people all over the world. think it, it makes me just feel more connected to like what's going on in the world. Not just working with people who are exactly like yourself. It's wonderful. But with that, I'm sure there's some challenges as well of such a distributed workforce. So could you talk to me a little bit more about what some of the challenges are at Rep?

at Reich in terms of collaborating across that many locations with that many people.

Remko Verheul (02:54)
Yeah, and obviously you hear me talking a bit more about the challenges from a people point of view, which is also kind of the theme today. But I'd say if I zoom out, are three to four major challenges. One is AI acceleration. So that's the acceleration we do with the product, but also internally. Secondly, remote and distributed work, which is kind of, let's say, our bread and butter in our entire organization. And global, and global means also from a time zone.

Emily Fenech (02:58)
Okay.

Remko Verheul (03:22)
time span point of view. So we have a global organization that means that managers like myself, but many others in the organization as well, have typically direct reports or teams in the US, in Europe, in Asia. And that means that, you know, making sure to collaborate and get that aligned across the org is obviously a challenge and an opportunity. And lastly, I would say,

But that's more from outside. I think the entire world is moving much more to a gig economy. let's say that society and markets are changing and that's of course also impacting Rijk.

Emily Fenech (03:59)
Yeah, man, let's break those down one at a time. I'd like to start with the global workforce, right? How are you addressing that challenge? think, you know, a lot of folks, I think being global and also being remote, think some of those challenges at least similar in terms of aligning your time, ensuring that you stay connected. We've been in this space since a lot of organizations since 2020. What sort of has emerged as a nice solve?

or what sort of systems have you put in place to help make that a little easier?

Remko Verheul (04:33)
I mean, obviously, I think there's two elements. There's the remote element and there's the global element. And global in that sense also has kind of, let's say, two legs to say. So one is diversity in terms of the cultures that basically come to work and we work with. And the other one is the time zone element. those are kind of, let's say, the perspectives there. What I've seen to work and what we focus a lot on is building and driving alignment through the organization.

That's not easy because when you have a team with team members in Tokyo, in Bangalore, in Prague, in ⁓ the US and somewhere in between, you spend a time zone which crosses day and night for a manager who's either in the middle or somewhere on the left or the right. So what we do is we use our platform, first of all. That's kind of our source of record. So we really eat our own dog food to say so.

So our platform is the source of everything we do. And that helps because it provides a base foundation where to go and look for information. That's one. Secondly, we do build a ⁓ cadence of how we communicate and collaborate. That cadence has a kind of a global company perspective in terms of, and I was just mentioning it prior to checking,

I just come from an all hands meeting here with a ask me anything type of session. So that's become a ritual in the organization, which means that we travel as executives, but also the members in our organization travel quite frequently to be able to have those opportunities. And I would say lastly, in terms of the overall perspective of alignment.

putting a lot of time for teams working together, getting them together on defining, you know, what are the touch points? What are the handover points? What are the moments that we need to to delegate? What are the moments that we can basically give it away?

Emily Fenech (06:33)
Yeah, I love that you're using your platform. mean, it probably helps you build a better product. The fact that everyone internally is using that as your source of record, source of truth.

Remko Verheul (06:41)
Definitely, yeah, definitely.

And actually it's one of the biggest feedback generators to our product teams, which is great. And also anytime when we bring out new features, new, we first do an internal, I wouldn't say Go Live, because Go Live is obviously internal, but let's say internal opportunity to work with it. And we learn a lot from that,

Emily Fenech (06:48)
Yeah.

They say if you buy your product, you're not shipping fast enough. Hopefully you see some things in there and spot them before the market does. But that's awesome. Let's talk about remote work. We've talked about some of the global challenges, but what have been some of the challenges and solutions that you've come up with for a remote workforce?

Remko Verheul (07:23)
Yeah, remote workforce in my opinion, the key challenge is that, and this is not new, think this is not a secret, that through the nature of the remote work, it's like how we're communicating today. You focus a lot on the transactional side. So what I push and promote for, or kind of let's say advocate for, is bringing in humanity back to work, which is not easy from a remote point of view.

But what we can do and do do is make sure that during every all hands meeting but also during any type of one-on-ones do make time to check in with people because when you are sitting next to each other you just grasp by nature much more of how someone is doing when you're just only being able to see each other 180 degrees like we do today.

Emily Fenech (08:15)
Yes. When you have to put time on someone's calendar, it almost feels like a hesitancy creeps in of, don't want to ask you about your personal life because you're going to think I'm wasting your time because I had to block this time. There's very little space for like organic conversations anymore. I miss that. I miss that quote a bit.

Remko Verheul (08:33)
Yeah. And

obviously next to that, it's definitely also creating a culture where people feel comfortable to reach out and ask for support and making sure that that has sometimes there you see happening in organizations and can be in a platform as well. It's like that you start to communicate just like by exchanging either Slack messages or comments in our example in a task. That at a certain moment you really need to call it off and say, okay, now that's going to

get on a call because that opportunity to have direct interaction. that's all about making sure you have a culture where people are comfortable reaching out.

Emily Fenech (09:03)
Yeah.

And as terms of executives traveling to be face to face with people, really, I really like that. Is that something that's sort of formalized or just part of the culture? Like, is it sort of a mandate that leaders will travel and be face to face with people? Is there a cadence to that or how does that work?

Remko Verheul (09:32)
I

wouldn't say it's formalized, if you look at the outcome, it's there. So it's probably informally formalized to say so. For example, myself, I travel 50 % of my time and my peers do the same. And the whole purpose of that is connecting with the organization, finding out what's happening and try to support the alignment in the organization.

But I'd say even more relevant is that this is not only for executives happening, but also it needs to be feasible for, and obviously not for the entire organization from a cost point of view. But what we do do is kickoffs with, for example, the product teams, with the finance teams. And today I'm here in Cyprus within our office when next to our ⁓ product meeting, we also have a finance kickoff meeting.

that it's become part of the culture to bring either once a half a year or once a year, depending on the type of a role and function, people together to be able to interact and work together on the challenges there at hand.

Emily Fenech (10:37)
Yes, our whole company is getting together in January. I'm very excited about it, but we look forward to that a couple of times a year. And I saw on your LinkedIn, it looks like you guys have a bit of fun when you get together as well. It like you're all dressed up in lab coats, making ⁓ plans, having fun as well.

Remko Verheul (10:43)
I can imagine. Nice, yeah.

Sure.

Yeah, and I agree. mean, in my personal values that I find one of my values is fun and fun. I can be, let's say having a nice party together, but it can also be a good conversation. So it doesn't have to be, but I do think that when people are having fun in an organization, then they're just much better connected and more productive and also more glued to each other. When it's glued to each other, I mean, from a perspective of culture.

Emily Fenech (11:21)
Yeah, absolutely. Let's talk about the third challenge you mentioned. You actually mentioned it first was AI acceleration, both in your product and as a tool that I assume most of the teams at RIC are trying to leverage to do better work. So tell me a little bit about what that's looked like for both the product and the workforce and what you think the role of a chief people officer or a head of people in sort of navigating that.

Remko Verheul (11:49)
Yeah, think, mean, in our company is obviously always two layers. What we do with our product and what we do in our organization. I focus a bit more on the latter, but from our product point of view, ⁓ it is our number one priority and also focus and execution area where we put all our resources and I wouldn't say all of these, but a lot of significant amount of resources in terms of accelerating with AI. And we very proudly announced the MZP server a couple of months ago.

We're now having an opportunity that customers can build their own agents in our platform and we will continue to deliver ⁓ additional functionality. And feedback we've heard so far is already that people, it's saving tons of hours on our customers day to day. So that's more on the product side. When I look at it from a company point of view, we look basically at two perspectives.

Yes, we want like any company we want to improve productivity. Because that's, let's say, the unlock that everybody is looking for. Next, in Wrike, we want to be the architects of how work is being done. And being the architect of how work is being done means also that we have to be and we need to be the advocates of embracing AI. So we have a concept in our organization which we call human AI plus

Emily Fenech (12:52)
Thanks everybody for watching.

Remko Verheul (13:11)
Sorry, human intelligence plus ⁓ artificial intelligence is organizational intelligence. And when you think about that, when you think and project that to the people slash the HR function means what we're doing is we're taking a top down strategy and a bottom up strategy. So top down strategy is like, hey, we will focus on three to four particular work streams where we will invest in AI and make sure that there is ⁓ outcomes very much kind of cadence structured and top down led.

And bottom up is basically enabling and building more AI capability in the organization by experimenting, providing room for experimentation. And that ranges from the availability of tools, but also doing boot camps, doing pitches internally to just create momentum that people work with AI. And for example, ⁓ we just had a, well, just a couple of weeks ago, we had our people, global people team offsite.

Emily Fenech (13:48)
and through the experimentation and the training.

Remko Verheul (14:10)
in Prague, we did an internal AI pitch in the team and we're now basically building up on the outcomes of that AI pitch in the team.

Emily Fenech (14:19)
That's great. So kind of like a hackathon type thing. ⁓

Remko Verheul (14:23)
Yeah, that's another way to call it. So we're now working on a workforce optimizer agent and a performance coach agent. The first one is more focusing on, let's say, resourcing cost and kind of let's say allocation perspective. And the second one is more about developing and making sure that people will perform and develop.

Emily Fenech (14:44)
Yeah, that's great. I think it's great when organizations don't just sort of top down only, like we're going to hire people to train you. We're going to enforce, you know, a set of tools on you, but really sort of create that space and the spotlight and the celebration and the fun of experimenting and learning something new. Right. I think that's actually more sustainable. People are going to, I think people are more willing to adopt things when they hear about it from their peers than when they hear about it, you know, top down.

Remko Verheul (15:10)
And hence

we have let's say a dual approach. Let's say top down with like focused in particular units and bottom ups as I call it in the frame that you're mentioning.

Emily Fenech (15:22)
Yeah, that's wonderful. The last challenge you mentioned was ⁓ you'll have to jog my memory. I know you said something about the world changing and the gig economy, but maybe you could help me refresh my memory on what that challenge looks like for you.

Remko Verheul (15:30)
Yeah.

Yeah, so mean, gig economy is, say, a particular, let's say, application for what it means, particularly from an HR and people point of view. I mean, we are all facing the external world. We're all living in the same global setting and that is constantly changing. Think about the geopolitical ⁓ developments. But bringing it back to HR, what I observe is that...

Again, it's not something new, people are candidates out there in the market and the labor market is much more from a, let's say, looking at a journey from a gig point of view. So moving from gig to gig to gig versus the longer, more traditional tracks, not only from an employment tenure point of view, but also from a career development perspective. So it's basically both. So it's career development perspective and from a employment perspective.

Emily Fenech (16:28)
Yeah, and how have you adapted to that? What does sort of career planning, career pathing look like now and how has that changed over maybe 10 years ago?

Remko Verheul (16:38)
Well, I'd say in a sense, I think we moved from a more kind of let's say a job evaluation model, in other words, know, just job to that job to that job to kind of a skill collection model. And that is, think, the biggest change that we also see in our organization. It's much more about building and acquiring more or different type of skills.

versus going from job one to job two to job three, like the more traditional model. And in that sense, I think it also prepares people much better for the VUCA world out there where one day you these skills, then the next day you need those type of skills. So looking at it more holistically and focusing on skills versus just only jobs.

Emily Fenech (17:26)
Absolutely. I've also noticed like in that space silos sort of tearing down. It used to be, you know, I do this one function and I don't sort of step outside that function. And now you're seeing, you know,

For example, the collaboration that's required between your tech teams and your HR teams, for example, is much different than it was a decade ago. Same thing with sales marketing. Marketing rarely even spoke to engineering in the past, right? And now it's like, you know.

we're collaborating across almost everything. And so I feel like that's much, much different than it was in the past. I think our, but in some instances, I don't think job descriptions or career path thing has really kept up to sort of acknowledge how much things have changed. But the positive there is that the silos sort of dissolving, I feel like is a huge plus.

Remko Verheul (18:02)
Absolutely.

Absolutely, yeah.

And instead of let's say one dimensional, two dimensional, you're looking at let's three dimensional type of development, yeah.

Emily Fenech (18:24)
Yeah, and we used talk about T-shaped people, and now it's like Starburst people, you know, having the ability to step into a multitude of roles. This has been a wonderful conversation, Remko. I appreciate you taking time out to join us. Do you have any sort of parting words of advice for the HR listeners today? We've talked about, you know, four pretty big challenges. We've covered a lot of ground, but sort of any final words of encouragement or advice?

Remko Verheul (18:29)
Yeah.

I would say there's

two things that I find very important from a people function, but also from a kind of let's say business leadership perspective. From a people point of view, make sure to remain humanity. That doesn't mean we are business focused, we keep looking at our numbers, but remain humanity, especially in that context of remote distributed work where you don't know what happened, you know, let's say half an hour prior to someone's jumping in a call.

And secondly, it's this concept of zooming in, zooming out. So I think, you know, in order to be successful now, today and tomorrow, and that's, think, one of the things that HR leaders need to develop ⁓ very significantly is the ability to zoom in, to kind of, let's say, go to the full detail and really do a deep dive into something.

Emily Fenech (19:26)
one.

Remko Verheul (19:37)
and to zoom out and to look at, what's really at stake here from a bigger picture point of view and what we're trying to solve for and what do we actually need to solve for?

Emily Fenech (19:48)
Yeah, great advice. Well, thank you so much. And I hope you enjoy the rest of your time in Cyprus and ⁓ yeah, take care. ⁓

Remko Verheul (19:54)
Thank you. Yeah, thanks Emily and look

forward to hear next in the next podcast.