A conversation with Hubert Saint‐Onge

Abstract

A conversation with Hubert Saint‐Onge, senior vice‐president for Strategic Capabilities at Clarica Life Insurance Company focusing on knowledge strategy and its implementation at Clarica, a large, knowledge‐driven financial services organization, where intangible assets are the most valuable assets. Saint‐Onge discusses how he reformulated the traditional human resources function into the new configuration called strategic capabilities which links strategy and performance. This new mandate takes into account both the greater importance of intangible assets and the principles related to leveraging organizational learning and knowledge. Saint‐Onge discusses how the strategic capabilities approach reframes the roles of people, technology, values, leadership and measurement in creating an evolving “sense and respond” organization. He emphasizes continuing the shifting of Clarica’s member workforce from a dependency to a self‐initiating orientation as a key requirement for ongoing success in this knowledge‐driven transformation.