Alison Lewis & Pree Rao (Kimberly-Clark & Egon Zehnder) | Age of Authentic Leadership

A recurring theme has started to pop up on the CMO podcast, Sustainability. One of our recent guests even incorporated sustainability into his job title. He might not be alone. According to Deloitte's 2023 Global Marketing Trends Report, sustainability continues to be a focus for brands. While some organizations may want to pull back on sustainability initiatives in times of economic uncertainty, consumers continue to stress that a brand's commitment to sustainability is critical to their preferences. However, only 25% of brands that Deloitte surveyed say their focus for 2023 is on urging consumers to take action. Instead, organizations are recognizing that focusing on their own sustainability efforts can have an even more positive impact on the planet and on their business. For more inspiration on how to make this year be your organization's most impactful year yet, check out Deloitte's 2023 Global Marketing Trends Report at Deloitte.com slash Global Marketing Trends. Allison, what's the first brand you remember as a young girl growing up in Ontario making an impact on you? So I'm going to say two brands because I was this sort of bifurcated child. They're both from Mattel, but I played with Barbies extensively. And you know, my sister and I would cut that beautiful long Barbies hair to this beautiful short haircut. That was lots of fun with our Barbie camper and all the things we would do with Barbie. But at the same time, I guess it was a little bit of a tomboy because I also played with the race cars as well, Hot Wheels. And so Barbie lover and Hot Wheels lover. And I'm not quite sure how Mattel would have segmented me as one of their kids to go after given that I love both of those brands. Hi, I'm Jim Stangel and I help major brands find their purpose and activate it and the profits follow. For seven years, I was the global marketing officer for Procter & Gamble where I oversaw the marketing of hundreds of brands. You may not know it, but the CMOs, the chief marketing officers of all of your favorite brands, are trying to connect you with your favorite products and services through purpose. And on this show, I delve into how they do it. Today is the first of three episodes inspired by the 2023 Marketing Leadership Summit at the Kellogg School at Northwestern. The summit is an annual gathering organized by Kellogg faculty with executives from EgunSender and McKinsey. I help design and participate in the annual gathering. Our first of the three episodes is a goodie. My guests today are Allison Lewis, the chief growth officer of Kimberly Clark and Pre-Rough, who leads EgunSender's global marketing and sales practice. EgunSender is, of course, a leading leadership advisory firm, which includes executive search. Kimberly Clark or Casey is a top consumer goods firm with revenue of $20 billion and $5 billion brands. Huckeys, Kleenex, Cottonale, Cotex, and Scott. Both my guests have rich CPG career paths. Allison is a native of Canada and she has worked at Kraft Heinz, Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, and now Kimberly Clark, where she has been chief growth officer for about four years. Pre-worked at Unilever and Denon or Dannon before joining EgunSender about four and a half years ago. In this lively show, we will explore more deeply some of the themes from Allison's keynote at the Marketing Leadership Summit at the Kellogg School at Northwestern. Here is my conversation with Allison and Prey. Welcome to the CMO podcast, Allison and Prey. Now, we were all together very recently at the Northwestern Kellogg Marketing Leadership Summit at the MLS. I want to ask each of you, what has stayed with you from that event? Why don't I start with Prey? Thanks, Jim, for the question and it's great to be here. It's actually, Allison, something that you said, which is that we're in this age of authentic leadership. To me, that rings very, very true. And it's also, for me, I think, just a symbol of what's been one of the positive things, I think, of all the negative things that we've been through these last few years, but just the silver lining of the pandemic is a lot more authenticity, transparency, and vulnerability. Allison, how about yourself? I know you participated most of the day in addition to your keynote. Was there a person, a saying, an event, a quote, an engagement that stayed with you? I think it was just the overall interest in resilient and authentic leadership. I feel like that's something that people want to hear voiced, because I think the last three years has really told all of us the importance of how difficult it is to navigate in this VUCA world and how we all need to shift, evolve, change. And so I was amazed that how engaged everyone was throughout the entire session and really curious, wanting to be better leaders and recognize what it took to get there. So that's really stuck with me just because it felt like a bit of a movement pre, I felt like you guys unleashed something that has some real power. I want to talk a bit about Allison's keynote, which I think had a couple really rich and terrific themes in it. And I want to explore those themes with both of you. And the first one is this area of growth mindset. And one of the themes of the conference, of course, was resilient leadership. We've already talked about that. And Allison, you talked about how important it was for you to learn how to operate in a growth mindset. So I'd like you to share a little bit more deeply. What does that look like for you? So I feel like it really is having this mindset that we're not done as human beings and that we can be developed through really good curiosity and dedication and hard work and recognize that shaping and forming ourselves as leaders and continuing to grow as leaders is critical because the world continues to grow. The world continues to evolve. And so I've learned sort of through my career that instead of being discouraged by criticism, use it as a moment to be energized and motivated to sort of improve your skills. And I guess I've come to that because if I look back at my history of my career, the importance of influence in any organization. So maybe it started with Coca-Cola where you're working in a franchise system. And the bottlers were very quick to tell you that that marketing activity was not good. And you had to be able to take that feedback and really use it as not a demotivator, but to dig in and say, why isn't it good? How could we make it better? And when you took that sort of approach of asking questions back, tons of insights would come to you and that allowed you to be better. And then as you know, Jim, as you go into a global CMO or Chief Brand Officer or Chief Growth Officer role, like I have from my last two roles, the reality is that you have to influence, you have to get people to really see a future in a different way and want to rally towards that future. And you know, often you'll get pushback on that a little bit because I think, you know, the role of influencing in any matrix comes down to concerns that people have on either control or cost. And so you have to get through that barrier and really paint that picture of that better world, but also listen to, you know, their concerns, listen to the constraints that they have and really problem solve through that. And I've just found a mindset of continuous evolution and continuous growth allows you to really break through some of the barriers and to get the business to a better place overall, which is a win-win place. Pre, there's a lot to think about and what Allison just said. But one thing I'd like you to reflect on for us is you do a lot of counseling with C-suite and this area being taking criticism and making it productive and welcoming it. And I just think for myself and a lot of people I know, it's hard because you naturally get sort of defensive. So Pre, what's some wisdom you can share with our listeners about having the attitude Allison has and putting it into practice? Certainly, Jim. I think there's a couple things when we are assessing someone for a role. We often look at how someone leads. How do they set strategy? How do they guide teams? How do they influence across the organization? How they drive results? But we also look at potential. And I think this gets to this notion and Allison, you mentioned curiosity and Jim, you mentioned something I call grit and determination. Those two elements in particular are what allows someone to transform and transcend. If you're not curious enough to transform yourself, how can you transform an organization? If you don't have the grit to power past barriers, how are you going to drive real transformative results? So my advice to people is to really lean into those difficult moments. And Allison, you talked about this too at the summit. Raise your hand for the things that are uncomfortable. Do the hard pieces, the hard parts, because that's where you learn and that's where you grow. And when you do it once, the next time it gets easier, you do it twice, the next time it gets easier and so on and so forth. I want to go to that space next that Pre-E just brought up in your keynote, Allison, you talked about do things out of your comfort zone. That was one of your principles, your career advice. And obviously, that, again, easier said than done, it takes some risk to move out of your comfort zone. Career paths are interesting. And some companies, a mistake or two is sort of fatal. So to go out of your comfort zone, you may not perform as well. So I think it takes great courage to do that. But again, I don't know how we evolve if we don't do that. So it's that tension I think we managed throughout our career. So Pre-E, I'd like to go to you and this one then, Allison, when have you been out of your comfort zone as a leader? And how has that helped you? Yeah, I'll go back a little bit to what I was just referring to and actually I've been referred to my former career as a marketer. I'd moved to France. This was in 2011 and I brought my then fiance with me and I was on a business of Volvik, France, local business. And here I am, I hadn't spoken French in 13 years. So I didn't really know the language, didn't know the culture, didn't know the customers. France is a place that can be difficult, especially Paris at the time, to integrate. So I was miserable. And three months in, I wondered what did I do? And I'm glad I stuck it out. I had a boss who was really helpful in saying, I said, I'm struggling. And he said, let's do our one-on-ones in English. And everyone around me was French speakers. So that was the lifeline I needed. And then two years later, I had an opportunity then to move to our Africa business unit. And there I got to work in not only different language in terms of speaking, but also in terms of writing some of my territories, the language was Arabic. And I couldn't even read the creative. And so again, that notion of that moment in time, the most, on paper, I've been thinking, okay, you're living in Paris and living this expat dream. It doesn't get better. And here I am miserable. That was the best, honestly, probably the most formative three months of my life. And that was definitely well outside my comfort zone and was just such an accelerator to where ever since then I've carried that with me. It changed who I am as a leader. It changed how I see the world and made me definitely much stronger as a result. Allison, how about yourself? As you look back, when have you been most out of your comfort zone? How did you deal with it? And how else it helped you? So I would say, quite honestly, anytime I take a new job, I'm out of my comfort zone. Because the reality is that it's all new. In many ways, you know, do you really know what you're doing when you go into a new job? No, you've got to figure it out. And so I think that whole being uncomfortable and a little bit of that fear factor that kicks in really motivates me. And so I just use even the role when I moved to Kimberly Clark. I mean, the CEO wanted someone to come in and reimagine the way that we invent, market, and sell our brands. I mean, that's a pretty daunting task. I mean, okay, let's reimagine that. And so you start with chunking it down. And I think you start with sort of digging in and sort of saying, well, how are we doing against these three areas? And then really honing in on a lot of analysis to lead you to sort of, what's that one metric maybe that we go after? So on innovation, maybe we need to drive more incrementality with our innovation because we aren't getting as much incrementality as we want in things like revenue growth management. Maybe we need to drive more diversity of our revenue growth management activities versus just straight rate-based pricing. But to get there, it's sort of digging in, figuring out what's that one thing I'm going to do? Then once you've figured out that one thing you're going to do, where are some quick wins that are going to be easier for the organization to drive against? And then really move that forward. So, pre, there's some similarities where you're super uncomfortable, but it drives you to really dig in, find those sort of quick wins that are going to be difference makers. And then it's sort of like a snowball rolling down the hill, getting bigger and bigger and bigger. You create some momentum and you can drive towards that momentum. So really uncomfortable when you change jobs. And I think everyone is even when you change jobs within a company, because you've got to sort of quickly bring some value and ensure that the organization believes you were the right person to move into this. It's a beautiful opportunity to reboot yourself. I found when you change jobs or change assignments, you get a chance to sort of start over. And I think that's always very exciting and very renewing. As a marketer, our job is to be creative. But what does that mean? I love George Lois's definition of creativity. George is, of course, a famous art director. And he said, creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality overcomes everything. I love it. The way I think about creativity, I love George's definition. But I think of it as fresh and unexpected ways to solve a problem or to discover new opportunities and new approaches. In the world of business, however, creativity can be a scary word, but it doesn't have to be. In the 2023 global marketing trends report, Deloitte surveyed more than 1000 top executives from today's top brands to understand how they plan to meet their customers needs this year. Turns out some of these high growth brands are reimagining creativity in their organizations. At a time when we're seeing a shift from creative skills to analytical skills and marketing, these brands are often doing the opposite. And some CMOs are discovering creativity can be their superpower. Are you looking to make a meaningful impact in your organization in the year ahead? 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In today's ever-evolving retail space, digital marketplaces offering a centralized space for shopping needs are very popular. If you are rethinking your digital marketplace, Deloitte Digital is here to work with you. They advise a large consumer brand as it transformed its e-commerce ecosystem, drove growth, and met customers' needs. The brand wanted to try to stay ahead of trends and develop a faster and more flexible way to add new products and categories to their website, and Deloitte Digital delivered by advising them with strategy and the implementation of innovative technology. As the trend towards online shopping grows and grows, e-commerce services are more important than ever. Contact Deloitte Digital at www.deloittedigital.com today to see how they can work with you. Now you talked about the brief you had coming in Allison from the CEO and another theme in your remarks at Kellogg. What's about innovation? You talked about how you are working with the team at KC on the whole thing, how you innovate in the broadest sense, products, services, go-to-market, and of course marketing. That's not in the remit of most CMOs or CGOs. Priya, I'd like you to reflect on that a bit. This is an enormous remit. I'm going to talk to Allison in a moment about how she's doing it. Do you think this is the leading edge of something? Do you think the remit is generally getting broader to look at more than the traditional CMO has looked at in the past? I certainly think so. It's one of the reasons why at Aegon Zender we actually just recently reoriented our practice to not only be a CMO practice, but really broader marketing and sales. Traditionally you have functions that are both aligned to driving top line, but have operated in a bit of a clash mentality to where now if you really want to unlock, especially in a world where you're fighting over a point or two of growth in many cases, you need that to come together synergistically and you need to have a holistic view. Whether you call it marketing or you call it something else, I think is a semantic debate, but at the end of the day you do need someone who's really driving top line. Often that person's coming from a marketing background originally, but if you just look at things with a marketing mentality, it's pretty myopic versus really that the objective you're trying to first and foremost is drive the top line more broadly speaking. Alistair, you talked about this in your speech about this remit and I was imagining myself in your seat doing that. One of the challenges is of course bringing people along when that's your any outside your function because I suspect you are working with R&D, you're working with purchasing, you're working with supply chain. As you came into this company a few years ago with this big remit, could you talk a bit about how you approached it and how you most importantly brought everyone along on that? So they felt like they were part of the solution and you were in it for the company and not your function or not where you came from. Yeah, I'd say a couple of things. I think first of all, it comes from recognition that the consumer has to be first always and everything we do has to be in service of that end user no matter what kind of business you're in. And I think that's what this chief growth officer, chief marketing officer, chief commercial officer, whatever you want to call it, can really hold a flag on which is that consumer is who we have to win with and we all should be gunning towards doing that to the best of our abilities. So I think that's one piece. The second piece I would say that I've learned is co-creation in bringing these sort of diverse groups together is super powerful. And what do I mean by co-creation? Well, let's identify sort of the problem we want to solve. So if the problem we want to solve is we want to drive towards more incrementality in our innovation. Let's bring all these diverse groups together and really talk about, you know, where are we today? What innovations are driving incrementality? What aren't driving incrementality? Why behind both of those and really unpack that? Or when it comes to digital transformation, it's the same thing we've really pushed to be much more digital moving our paid media to digital, but also pushing to get our earned, shared and owned. And the way we did that was we didn't say, okay, this is the way it's going to be, you know, to the organization. We said, let's prototype this with the US market. Let's really try to figure it out in one market. And then once we kind of co-created and prototype it, let's start to roll that to other markets. But again, from a prototyping standpoint, so we took it from there and we tested it with 32 use cases around the world. So really using co-creation, prototyping, a bit of the tools from Agile to ensure that you don't buy off more than you can chew. And I think that's the problem that many people run into as leaders are trying to drive change. Change is a bit of a go slow to go fast sport. And so you go slow by prototyping, you go fast through the scaling. And that I think is a real difference maker along with holding that consumer always at the center. That's who we're fighting for. That's who we have to win. Sounds like it's going well. Sounds like you're approaching in a very inclusive way, focus on the problem and the consumer. What's been the greatest challenge? I think the greatest challenge is you have organizations generally that tend to that are publicly traded, that really need to deliver the month, the quarter, the year. And we're really good if we can think one year out. And so I think the challenge often is, in these broader global roles, you're the person that's trying to get people to move three to five years out. And yet the incentives, the quarterly reporting, all of that has a inertia that pulls you back to the short term and the here and now. And I think that we've managed to break through some of that by really picking some large inspirational things that we're going after, whether it's game changing innovations, whether it's a vision in terms of digital isn't just about digital marketing. It's about getting to a total ecosystem approach, whether it is thinking about how we execute and using technology, automated sales tools that allow you to do your job leveraging AI and what's that next best solution, which is a value to our employees, because it takes them out of some of the more minutia part of their job that doesn't add value and lets a machine do that part. And then they can spend time selling more and that's engaging to them, that's inspiring to them. So they see sort of the inspiration of where we're going and they want to sign up for that. So I think we've been able to carve out a small portion of people's time 10 or 20% also think about the future and they see the value from that. My CEO when I was at PNG said to me early in my job as Chief Marketing Officer, he said there's very few people in this company thinking about beyond the next few years and you have to be one of them. And I had that lens on for my entire time there. Just am I spending my time when things that will impact this company five years out? And what does that look like? How do we have to change how we think? How we spend people development, everything. So really, what you just said is a really, really important piece of advice. And pre I'm looking for affirmation on that. Yeah, it's interesting. I sense almost a couple of echoes here. And I think about, and you know, Alison, you were talking earlier about what you've learned in moving roles and you know, you have this dynamic of performing versus transforming. And I think that's especially true of a new hire where anytime you change companies, you have about 90 days. And often, we actually help new leaders are getting started to make sure they can deliver quick wins in that period of time. Because afterwards, all that curiosity is has to be met with, okay, well, what are you actually delivering? And then you think about that on a sustainable basis. And absolutely, if you're not delivering the short term, the quarterly, you're not going to have time to dream for the bigger picture. But if you don't dream for the bigger picture, I mean, it's probably one of the reasons why often CMO 10 year tends to be one of the lowest in the C suite, because you do need to find the way to navigate both of those successfully. Otherwise, if you do one or the other, it's not going to be enough. Allison, at Kellogg, you spoke very eloquently about your title, Chief Growth Officer versus Chief Markin Officer. You were asked a direct question on that. And I sort of want to start with pre on this and then come back to you. Pre what's do titles matter? I mean, there are there's a proliferation right now, there's chief brand officer, chief commercial officer, chief growth officer, chief marketing officer. So why is that going on pre? And is it is this significant? Is something we should pay attention to? Should we think about our title very intentionally? Hopefully this isn't too controversial a statement, but categorically, it's no for me. And I'll often tell people I'm speaking to. You know, oftentimes, if you're looking at a smaller company, for instance, you might be looking at a role, this is CMO and you could be looking at an opportunity for an SVP role that's actually much more compelling. So first and foremost, I would say to anyone, don't get caught up on title. And that goes for a candidate. What really matters is the content of what you're doing. And I think the reason Jim's here question is to why this is happening. And also probably going back to the other point on why sometimes the CMO role is such a short tenure. I don't think everyone understands what they're looking for from the marketing function. And that causes some of this proliferation. And it causes some of the short 10 years because ultimately, a CMO role in one company may be very, very different from the CMO role in another company. And a VP marketing in one company might be the same exact role as CMO in another company. So, the short answer, Jim, is categorically, I think the title does not matter. So when you're advising someone going to a company, look past the title, look what the job is about. Is this something that you feel excited about? And do you think it's something that you will grow into? So is that how you advise people? There's a couple pieces to thinking about a job. One is, could you be passionate about the work? Do you like the people? I think that is overlooked, especially for folks earlier in the career. But that's, I think, of paramount importance. And the type of role that you're being asked to do, does it speak to what energizes you? Is it the type of marketing role? Some marketers are very creatively inclined. Others are very general management orientation. Is it the type of market you want to do? So all those pieces, I think, have to come together for it to be the right role for somebody. So, Allison, to you, this is your first chief growth officer job, right? Yes, it is. So do you feel it's different because of how it's named and how it's scoped and other roles you've been in? I would say, so I always think of roles in terms of the impact that you're supposed to create. And so that's how I would think about taking on roles. Can I make a difference? Can I make an impact? I guess I would say that I've always believed that marketing is about driving growth. I was trained that my job is very much about getting more people to use whatever your product or brand is more often for more money because you're building value into that brand. And so I've always operated from that mindset. And then along with, again, traditionally trained in the four pieces of marketing, which to me are very end-to-end and very holistic because one of the pieces is price, one of the pieces is place. Those traditionally are considered more sales functions, but marketing plays a role in that. And so does this role feel different? I don't know that it feels different because my mindset has always been one where I've driven across the marketing side, the sales side and the innovation side and had different roles that have given me different experiences in those areas. What is different is my remit is really about bringing those all together. And I think that in organizations that really want to unlock the matrix and unleash the matrix, you have to have systems thinking, you have to have integration, and you have to think of your business like an entire ecosystem. And I do think, you know, sometimes the title link can help with, okay, that's how I'm supposed to think about this. But again, it isn't all about title, it definitely is about impacting. You had a pretty good definition of marketing in there, Alison. More people, more frequently at a higher price. I can feel Coca-Cola in there, by the way. They trained me well. They trained me well. A little bit of crap times, too. Yes, that was my first place. So a nice combination. So you had a quote in your talk, Alison, it sort of went viral, at least within the conference. And the quote was, care and empathy are not the same. Care is more action-oriented. And everyone was kind of buzzing about that when we did the debrief at the end of the day with the participants that quote kept coming up. First of all, tell us more about that and why the heck do you think it went so viral? I think because when you reframe people's thinking, it lists them up and makes them reevaluate some of the things that they're doing. That, to me, is an important part as leaders of what we need to do every day. How do you sort of shift that thinking? How do you get people to reevaluate what they may be doing? And I think this idea of care is not as action-oriented. Empathy is not as action-oriented as care. Really resonates, also looking back to the beginning part of our conversation, where we need to be in an environment where we need to be more present for our employees. We need to be in an environment where employees are demanding more authentic leadership. And I think that doesn't mean that you're just being empathetic all the time. It also means that you're carrying in an active way by addressing their concerns by doing something. It's beautifully said. Now, we have this little show with Egon Zender on it along with you, Allison. And so we have to talk career path. So I want to spend a few moments doing that. Allison, you work with, for the most respected companies in the world, right? Kraft Heinz, Coke, as we talked about Johnson & Johnson and now KC, all more than 100 years old, all market leaders, all great leadership development companies or academy companies, I think we call them. And pre-year, not so bad yourself, right? You have Unilever, Denon, and now Egon Zender. So I'd like you both to reflect on your careers for a moment and talk about maybe one experience in these great careers you both had that has been most developmental for you, most stretching, most important in your evolution as a leader. I can think about myself. You know, first time I got promoted to general manager, moved out of my country, moved into a different job, different country, different language, different business model, everything was turned on its head. And I learned skills there and I learned to lead in a very different way, which I carried forward. So I'd like both of you to reflect on that in your careers. Sure. So I think I talked at the Kellogg event about taking risks and zigzagging your career and doing those things that, you know, maybe no one else wants to do or are the toughest jobs. And I will always go back to the craziest job I ever took was at Coca-Cola, where the leadership wanted me to take on a heavy operating role to prove that I had sort of the operating stripes. And so I was asked to lead the franchise management to leadership organization. So that's essentially managing at the time there were 85 bottlers across the United States. It accounted for two thirds of our business. And, you know, it was a role that, quite honestly, I'd always watched the individuals in that role. In the back of my head, I'd always said, Oh my gosh, that has to be the toughest role in the company. How do you possibly align 85 bottlers from, you know, Fortune 500 companies down to, you know, a very, very, very small territory. And so here I was being asked to do this role and I was a marketer. But anyway, why was it so incredible? It was incredible because what I realized is when you get out of your comfort zone, really, really, really out of your comfort zone, you see the forest through the trees like never before. And I was able to go into that role and really solve problems that, you know, really needed to be solved because I didn't think you couldn't solve them. Whereas people that had been around longer, we're like, Oh my gosh, that problem will never be solved. We tried this and we tried this and we tried this and I went in with this very naive mindset, Oh, we can change, you know, the pricing, the incentive structures of the bottler, we can change how we do, how we do pricing. And, you know, many of those things are still in place today that we were able to drive change against. And many of these bottlers became very good friends. And you know, I remember going into their territories and big hugs, you know, inviting each other. They're very special events with their family and their friends. And it was just an incredible experience, not only because what we were able to do, but because of the relationships and the partnerships that existed. And those bottlers make you better every single day, you know, as you can probably tell, throughout this conversation, I like to be stretched. I like to be made better. And I like people that push me against that. What skill did you lean on most to make that as as amazing an experience that you had? Intellectual humility, which I talked about in the conference, absolutely. Because there was a lot I didn't know. And I certainly couldn't go in, you know, expecting to, you know, know it all. And I remember one particular situation, there were some company owned bottlers. So the company would acquire bottlers that, you know, we needed to revamp. And this was in Philadelphia. And I went and I met with the head of that bottling group. And I was probably four weeks into the job. And he said, so what is your role? And I very humbly said, I don't know, I'm trying to figure that out. That's why I'm coming and talking to all of you. And I was forever in dear to that individual, because he said, no, executive members said that. It's beautiful. You actually said what really was the truth. And now we're going to work together really well to figure this out. So yeah, I guess I learned through those situations that the intellectual humility can get you really far. So pre how about yourself? It's interesting. My my answer, I'm trying to frame it in a way that might resonate with your audience, Jim, because for me, it was pivoting away from being a marketer into the world that I'm in now. And I go back to what Allison mentioned earlier about impact. And you know, in my job today, I get to work at the very top of the house on all leadership advisory topics, involving people search being part of it, but more broadly speaking. And it was an interesting point in time where I was in a marketing leadership program called the Marketing Academy, that first had me starting to think a bit more openly about my why versus my what. And that's something I encourage people to always do because I think too often we get caught up on while I'm a brand manager, I want to be a senior brand manager, I want to be a director, I want to be a VP, I want to be a CMO. And I think I myself was on that on that train, if you will. And you know, one of the people who had interviewed me for that program, when I was deciding to leave Dan in pointed me to a gentleman, a day gun center called Rory Finlay. And Rory, for those who know, I'm just a charming Scottish man. And we're having a conversation about a possible CMO opportunity. And he flips a switch on me. And you know, he'd been the former chief marketing officer at Beam. And so I said to myself, well, if this guy is doing this, I at least have to consider this. And lo and behold, that has been transformational, because what's happened is, I've now focused wholly on my why versus my what. And I have what I wish for everybody, which is that you go to work every day, I go to work every day, I hope you go to work every day energized by what you do truly deeply, because you're anchored to your north star, as I feel I am now. And that's just been super inspirational for me. And just such a breadth of just opening the aperture in a way that I if I stayed in my old sort of realm would never have happened. I know Rory, he's wonderful. And I love that story about a leader who's had an impact on you. Alison, who has been your Rory? If you can think about one leader along the way, who helped you sort of make a shift like pre just described. Well, I'd have to say Sandy Douglas at Coca Cola, only because I think every promotion or move I ever had, he was definitely involved in that, whether I was reporting to him or not reporting to him in his group. But he was the one that sort of placed me in that franchise role and really recognized, I guess, you know, people that could rise to the occasion and gave me the chance. And as I always tell people, you know, for all of us to get to where we are today, we have to have people that take a bet on us. There are no guarantees when you place someone into a role. So you need that leader who is a sponsor, who and have the safety of an environment that allows you to learn and grow. So Sandy was that because I was there for 18 years. So I moved from a senior brand manager up to a senior VP during those 18 years. And he was behind, I think almost every one of my of my moves. I knew Sandy when he was a youngster at P&G. He was. He was great back then too. Yeah. And I've seen him since that the Coke job. And we worked in some things together when I was at P&G's. Wonderful guy. Absolutely. All right. Now we're going to shift to the creative brief. And Alison, Priyani, you're going to team up on this one. And this is the section of the podcast where we ask you offbeat things about how you stay fresh, how you stay invigorated, how you stay inspired. And we talk sometimes about quirky things in your history. So I'm going to start with that. You are a former board chair of the National 4H Council. So go there with us. We're you in 4H as a child and it's had a lasting impact on you. Or tell us that story. No, I was not in 4H. I was a girl, a Brownie and a girl guide. So that I guess is a youth organization like 4H. But I got onto the 4H board as part of the Coca-Cola Company. So Coca-Cola places in their executives onto various not-for-profit boards that the company is a very large supporter of. And 4H was something that Coca-Cola supported. So I got in there and ended up being on that board for 10 years. And I was the first female chair of that board. But what I learned over time was that organization made a huge impact on 6 million youth throughout the US and turned them from maybe shy, not quite sure what my focus is, you know, youth to these incredible leaders who went on to do great things. And maybe that gets back to my point on impact. I felt like being on that board, you know, I could help make an impact and a difference in these kids' lives. Pre your turn. So Alison, you're not everyone may know this, but you're from Canada originally. What part of your heritage do you still bring being Canadian today to the job? It's a good one. Oh, that's a really good one. So winter and winter sports. So my kids all grew up in the South, but they are incredible skiers because as a family, we probably ski 15 to 20 days a year just to keep protecting those Canadian roots. The other thing I'll say is we continue to be Toronto Maple Leafs fans in our household. And so the hockey night in Canada is on every Saturday night on our TV. And we bring reminisce about those days in the basement that I spent, you know, as a three year old kid watching hockey games with my dad and the Toronto Maple Leafs, which that team has not won a Stanley Cup since the year I was born 1967. So it's a bit of a tough team to be a fan of, but Canadian roots. My daughter and I skied in Rosalind, British Columbia this year on Red Mountain. We went out there for a bit a week and just sort of settled into the local community. And I just loved it. We got a massive snowstorm. We were there and all the Canadians were just telling me everyone's mood lifts when we get this much snow, which is like the opposite of what happens down here. We get snowing everyone's complaining up there. It's snowing everyone's so happy and they're out and about. It's that good old Canadian spirit. It's wonderful. All right, my turn. Alison, what's the first brand you remember as a young girl growing up in Ontario making an impact on you? So I'm going to say two brands because I was this sort of bifurcated child. They're both from Mattel, but I played with Barbies extensively. And you know, my sister and I would cut that beautiful long Barbies hair to this beautiful short haircut. That was lots of fun with our Barbie camper and all the things we would do with Barbie. But at the same time, I guess it was a little bit of a tomboy because I also played with the race cars as well, Hot Wheels. And so Barbie lover and Hot Wheels lover. And I'm not quite sure how Mattel would have segmented me as one of their kids to go after given that I loved both of those brands. Pre-back to you. I would be curious if you fast forward now and excluding any of the companies you've worked at, what brand stands out in your life today? Well, I'd have to say it's technology brands and I'm going to have to say it's Apple. Because, you know, every company that I go into now, I break the rules and I get an Apple computer because I know how that interface works. Obviously our phones, we're all connected to. But I think the bigger point about Apple is that I have so admired how they've built an ecosystem. And it's an ecosystem that once you move into it, how do you move out of it? And, you know, that's something that, you know, as I continue on my career, I really want to figure out how we can do that for fast-moving consumer goods. So that's a big intellectual challenge that I'm trying to sort through, which is why I say I admire that brand and that company. Allison, you were a highly awarded leader, created Market of the Year at Cannes, at Age Market of the Year, at Womond of the Year from She Runs It and On and On, which of all that is most meaningful to you? I don't think any of the awards quite frankly are that meaningful to me. It's wonderful to be recognized. Obviously, I appreciate that. But those of you that know me well, know I am an extremely humble leader. And what really that is all about is being recognized for that because you're making a difference and you're making an impact. I mean, I really believe strongly that any role that we're all in, it's about delivering. It's about making sure that, you know, you leave whatever you touch a little bit shinier than when, you know, you start it. And that's what's driven me. And I guess the rewards are just, you know, the awards are just sort of an outcome of all of that. But the more important thing is the difference that you're making, not only on the business, but the difference that you're making on people and how you lead them, how you make them better leaders, because ultimately that's the greatest legacy we can all leave. You know, our theme, not at this year's summit, but the last one was about seeing around the corner. And an exact quote I've heard said about you is, you're someone else and who knows how to see around the corner. So when you think about perhaps one thing that the audience here should have in mind about what may be coming in this book or world that we've been speaking of, what would that be? I believe that brand building and the brand management structures that we all grew up with, them that, you know, PNG sort of invented and pioneered are going away. I think the speed with which we have to operate, I think the way we get insights today, I think the way that we connect with consumers, communicate with consumers needs to really do a 180. And the only way you're going to get there is through more agile teams and pods that really are different than how we've gotten to managing the business in the past. So I think that's the thing that we have to think about, which is what is the organizational construct that's going to unlock and allows to operate in this VUCO world. And I guess tying it back to our conversation a few weeks ago, I think that's going to take a lot more authentic leadership, resilient leadership and an ability to always operate with that growth mindset and intellectual humility. Okay, Alison, we've been directing the questions at you and you've answered them beautifully. I'll give you the opportunity to ask pre or myself any question to close us out. Oh gosh, okay, well, I'll ask you, Jim, what was your biggest takeaway from the summit that we held? You were there, you were listening, you were participating, I'm curious as to what stuck with you. I saw so many amazing female leaders, women of color, at that conference, who I just found smart, funny, strategic, and makes me very hopeful about our future. And one or two of them I'm going to have on the show, they just blew me away, as you did, but very hopeful about how our leadership is evolving with the help of people like yourself, Alison, and your organization, pre. So that was my takeaway. That's what I came home and talked about with my wife. I love that, Jim, you see, because you've been in this industry, I think 35 years. You've seen sort of the evolution and it's great to hear that you're more inspired than ever. So, pre, for you, I guess I'm good to ask, because you're in an industry that people are always curious about, where do you see the world of sort of roles of the future going? And your role in that, because I think many listeners want to understand sort of, how do I see the horizon? How do I see around the corner related to my career and where kind of maybe the industry is going and something? I'm not thinking about right now. It's a great question. And I go back a little bit to what I was saying earlier, where I think the best advice I can give is to determine where you're truly energized, because I don't think anyone has a crystal ball. I think about the evolution over the last decade, even, you know, well, I graduated business school more than a decade ago. But when I graduated business school, CPG brand management, that was sort of where you wanted to go. Five years later, it was Facebook and Google. And now obviously, those industries with some of the job cuts, we were talking to students at Kellogg, they're facing challenges recruiting now as well. So, does anyone know where things are going on a sustainable, ongoing basis? I don't think so. I certainly don't. But if you point yourself in the direction of what energized you, make sure that you're working with people that you enjoy working with, make sure that you're behind the purpose of the organization, you're joining the leadership. Those pieces, I think, are the most important and probably the best advice I could give. Love it. Love it. The mission, the culture, the impact is what matters. So, great. Alison, Priya, this has been so good. I'm so happy to Kellogg, Northwestern, Egon Zender, Mackenzie Conference brought us together for this show. It was a different format for us, and I just loved it. So, thank you both. Very inspiring and very rich in content and so, so helpful for our listeners. So, thank you. This is a real gift. Absolutely. A pleasure. Great to be with you, Jim, and Priya again. That was my conversation with Priya and Alison. Three takeaways from this one for your business brand and life. The first one, we heard a great criteria for a wonderful job and career. Priya and Alison both laid this out. But are you in a career where you feel energized by the opportunity, where you're aligned with the mission of the organization, you really dig the culture, you feel like you're making an impact, and the people there are the ones you want to be around. It was a great lesson in how to think about your career and your next role. Second takeaway, when leading change, always go to the customer and consumer and make them the center of your decision-making. When I asked Alison how she is leading, transformational change at KC across multiple functions, the first thing she said was we always start with a consumer, what problem are we solving, how can we help the consumer have a better experience with our brands. Great advice. And third takeaway, whenever you're changing a role in a company or changing a job, it's a wonderful time for renewable and recharging. Both of these leaders said that the most significant career experience they have had was when they shifted into a different role and had a chance to renew themselves. So think about that as you change roles or jobs, are you being intentional enough about your rebooting and your renewal. That's it for this episode of the CMO Podcast. If you found this helpful and entertaining, I would be so grateful if you could share our show with your friends, and I would be super happy if you subscribe so you can be updated as we publish new episodes. And if you really want to help, leave us a five-star rating and a positive review on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen. The CMO podcast is a gallery media group original production.