Alim Dhanji has left HR three times — to run a business, to run a dating app, and to work in finance — and come back each time. He has worked in Hong Kong and led adidas Canada, and he is now chief human resources officer at TD SYNNEX, the world’s largest IT distributor.
Q: At 19, you talked your way onto a one-person creativity team at a bank. What did you take from that into HR?
Alim: I convinced David Hardy, the Senior Manager of Creativity and Innovation, to hire me as his understudy. We held workshops across the organization on how to solve problems — thinking about thinking. That gave me practical tools very early: any problem can be solved. Later, in HR, I learned that HR needs to learn about the business. If you understood the customer, if you understood how the company made money, then you understand what’s in the way of execution and growth.
Q: Hong Kong was the most different culture you’ve worked in. What did it teach you about running a global company?
Alim: It was hyper-competitive. No one went home at 6:00, and there was a hustle, a resourcefulness — there isn’t just one way to do something. Bringing that back to North America distinguished me. I also learned the difference between principles and practice. Principles I believe should travel, especially if you have a cohesive culture. Practices I don’t think should. They should be about local execution and competing in local markets.
Q: Your advice to your 21-year-old self was to worry less about getting the plan right. What do you tell a 21-year-old today?
Alim: It has to be different, because of AI. I’ve said this to our interns: don’t build your identity around what you know. Technical knowledge is becoming cheaper and more accessible every day. Build it around your ability to learn, your judgment, critical thinking, curiosity, and being able to connect with other people. What I fear is people will lose the ability to connect with someone else and have discourse, because you also learn from that.
The full profile covers what Dhanji told 2,000 adidas Canada employees when an HR executive showed up to run the business, what TD SYNNEX did with ten recruiting jobs its new process no longer needed, and the basement-gym plan that showed him he hadn’t been asking AI the right questions.
