Karuna Rawal & Martha Williams (Nature's Fynd & Egon Zehnder) | Brand Building Starts with Purpose

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. Karuna, what's the first brand you remember making an impact on you as a young girl? So I don't know, Jim, if you even know this, but I came to this country as a 10 year old. I was born in India. My dad was a diplomat and he had lived all over the world. And right before I came to the US, I lived in Bhutan, which is a tiny country in the Himalayas, no running water, no television. And then I landed in JFK in New York City. The reason I tell you all that is America for me had this like at that age was this like incredible thing. And the thing I remember so vividly as the first brand is Campbell's soup. Believe it or not. And it's because I remember going to school and coming home for lunch. And the idea of an American lunch was Campbell's tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich. And when my mom would make me that, I was like, I'm the cool American kid now. Hi, I'm Jim Stangall 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 Prokka and 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 a second 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 Egun's Endehr and McKinsey. I help design and participate in the annual gathering. This session is a first on the CMO podcast. We will talk not about the metaverse, but something more exciting, the fungiverse. My guest today in the CMO podcast are Karuna Robaul, the chief revenue officer and chief marketing officer for Nature's Fine, and Martha Williams, a consultant with Egun's Endehr, focused on the retail and consumer sectors. Nature's Fine is among the most interesting brands we have hosted on this show. It is a new to the world nutritional fungi protein that uses a fraction of the resources of traditional agriculture. Get this, it was born out of research conducted for NASA on microbes in Yellowstone National Park. The company has raised more than 500 million in capital, and its first consumer products are breakfast patties and dairy-free cream cheese. Martha from Egun's Endehr hosted a panel with four CMOs at the Kellogg Northwestern Summit. The theme was resilient leadership in disruptive categories. Karuna was one of the CMOs on the panel. This is my conversation about purpose, leadership, and fungi protein. Here's Martha in Karuna. Welcome Karuna and Martha to the CMO podcast. Let's start with how you two met. So Martha and I actually met right before the Kellogg Marketing Leadership Summit. I was invited to be a panelist and Martha was the moderator. So we actually have not known each other for very long, but I would say we met about a month ago, maybe. Well, this might get more interesting. Karuna, I need to ask you how you and I met. And there it definitely is a Kellogg Northwestern link to that. And it is way longer than when you and Martha met. So Karuna, what's your version of how we met? Let's see. How we met is my god, that goes back a long way. I was, I think, between my first and second year at Kellogg and Northwestern, at Northwestern, and P&G came to recruit. And, you know, my confession is time, true confession is time, is that it was my dream company to go work for. So I applied for the summer internship. That was the very first year that P&G accepted students from Kellogg. And I was one of two. And as luck would have it, I ended up getting into the opportunity in the Food and Beverage Division. And I was supposed to work on Alastra. And then literally the day before I showed up, I got a call from, I believe it was Sandy Moore's door, who was the recruiter way back then, and said, we have a little change. You're no longer going to be working on Alastra. You're going to be working on Jiff. And I thought, well, that's cool. I love peanut butter. So that was pretty exciting. And then I showed up and met you for the very first time. So that's my recollection. I don't know if yours is any different. I hope it's the same. No, it is the same. It absolutely is the same. And do you still eat Jiff, Corona? I still eat Jiff. And, Jim, I have to tell you, one of the greatest joys is for me to go to the shelf and still see simply Jiff on there. It was the very first project I worked on when I came back to work for you. And, you know, there's not a lot of line extensions that last that long. So, it was the first one that Jiff did. And it's there. I don't want to say how many years later, because it's going to date me. But, yeah, what a great opportunity to start my career in brand management. We had a fantastic brand team back there, a diverse brand team as well. And that's why that's one reason we were so successful. Corona didn't know this at the time, Martha, but she was we just want we just had to get her at PNG. There was no ifs, ends and buts. And I was, I think, heading up Kellogg recruiting then. So I had to bring you in. So I was very persuasive. I don't know how I was once you joined the company, but I was very persuasive before you joined. So listen, Martha, I'm going to bring you into this conversation in a bit of a more serious way. You hosted a panel at the Kellogg Marketing Leadership Summit called resilient leadership in disrupted categories. And there were four remarkable women in the panel. And Corona, of course, was one of them. So thinking back to the panel that you moderated, Martha, if you can remember, I have trouble remembering when I moderate and when I host. So you may have trouble with this. But thinking back on it, what was your big takeaway from that panel? Yeah, absolutely. Fortunately, I remember it clearly. We had, yeah, as you mentioned for fantastic panelists, we had Corona, and we had Kimberly Gardner, who is our chief marks now. So a chapter supply that came from a really interesting background in auto, actually the experienced disruption. We had Sammy Barr, who's chief brand officer at Colerne, been a number of different industries, and Denise Carclass, who had been the chief marketing officer at Sirius XM and Pandora. So now they're really disrupted media entertainment category. And I think some of the themes that came through were this maniacal focus on the consumer, like not getting distracted by competition, what you've done historically, but really focusing on what is the customer needs and what's the customer asking for and why they're going. I think the importance of developing teams and talent came through really clearly, empowering teams, giving them voice. And then I think there was this other theme just based on the collection of women that were on the panel that was around sort of taking some risks and your career and embracing change. Corona, what stayed with you from the summit? You know, we go to a lot of these kind of meetings. We hear all these inspiring stories. But was there a quote or a person or an experience or presentation that has stuck with you? I think, you know, there were so many great takeaways. And for me, it's always so re-energizing to be around so many smart marketers who just are incredibly inspiring. I think for me, the, I believe it was Tracy from Walgreens. Just the idea of waking up every day and really thinking about leadership. Do I deserve to be the leader of this group? And what am I doing to earn that each and every day? I think was really remarkable. And it's something I spend a lot of time, obviously, have led many, many teams over the course of my career. And it's a great question and it's one that has really stuck with me. There were many other takeaways, but I think that one just really was compelling to think about because it's easy to lose sight of it as you go on and in the day to day. And it's important for me as a leader to always think about what is this individual and what does this team need for me as a leader? And what can I do to make them as effective as possible? That was a very provocative presentation. I mean, she stood up and said immediately, I wake up every day thinking, am I worthy to be followed? Yeah. That's a great question. A great question. Yes, agreed. Well, Martha, I want to flip it back to you. You have helped a lot of people in your career, including CMOs. 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 1,000 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 in 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? Check out Deloitte's 2023 Global Marketing Trends Report today at Deloitte.com 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 on strategy and the implementation of innovative technology. As the trend towards online shopping grows and grows, e-commerce services are more important than ever. So contact Deloitte Digital at www.deloittedigital.com today to see how they can work with you. Deloitte Digital is here companies struggling to compete in the digital marketplace. Does your e-commerce ecosystem fuel growth and meet ever-changing customer needs? Well, Deloitte Digital recently advised a large consumer brand as it reimagined its e-commerce ecosystem and Deloitte Digital can work with you too. Deloitte Digital has extensive experience in marketing, strategy, design, technology, and finance and works with brands so they can create experiences that cater to their customers' needs. As a former CMO who speaks to podcast guests regularly, I know the rise of online shopping means e-commerce services and experiences are more important than ever. If you're a company looking to reimagine your e-commerce ecosystems, contact Deloitte Digital by visiting www.deloittedigital.com. Let's find the right roles for them. But Caruna's role seems to me to be nearly one of a kind, right? She's the first CMO unicorn company and her remit is to introduce a new-to-the-world protein, build a brand, and build a category and that's a bit of what she talked about, the Kellogg Summit. And she seems to be really happy. I've known Caruna through many jobs. She's always happy. She seems to be extra happy in this role. From your perspective, Martha is a leadership advisory expert and I know you've only known Caruna for a month or so. But what's your point of view? What's your feeling? What's your thinking about why Caruna is thriving so much in this role? Yes, it's a great question. I think our responsibility, I guess, is recruiter is to know the talent and to know the talent, not just at a social level, but to know passion, preferences, and principles. And I think, and I'm sure Caruna won't mind you sharing this story, but the reason I, part of the reason I know Caruna is my colleague played a role in her position at Mateus Find. And I think Caruna shared with me that part of the reason that she took the call is because she knew my colleague. And part of the reason he called her is because he knew her passion and her principal and was able to think about the right person and the right fit for the role. And so I think that played any clearly Caruna's the oldest, beautiful experience in her career, but she also had a real passion for food and a real passion for this space. And this core sense of trying to make the world a bit better. And you'll see that just in her, the breadth of her background and some of the causes that she's involved in. But I think that that that you can almost see the authenticity of her belief in this business and her passion in building and growing and making the world better in a context where we are worried about food sustainability. Caruna, what's your reaction to that? Well, it's lovely to hear, first of all. And it was actually, you know, I think Martha's absolutely right. It's not a, it was a call that I took because of who was calling me, honestly. And when he kind of started with, just hear me out. And I thought, oh, this is going to be a good one. Because it was so sort of off the beaten path of anything I had been thinking about. But what was remarkable was, as he started explaining the opportunity, I just found myself getting really excited. And I thought, wow, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. And I can't but take the leap. And it was a big leap of faith to be very clear. Going to a startup that, you know, I was, I think I was employee number 25, the first marketer, you know, obviously they had had. And I went from running a 400 person agency, enough, you know, a few weeks before that to walking in. And I had a summer intern who was returning in two weeks from business school. And a Bain extern who, you know, had never done marketing. And they said, this is your team. And I thought, Oh my goodness, what have I done? But at the same time, I think the opportunity to really build something. And this was something it was it was interesting Mark Tutsil at Leo Burnett, who I worked with for a long time. We you know, Jim, chief creative officer said to me, at your heart, you're a builder. That is what excites you. That's what lights your fire. And you need to go build something. And that has struck with me for a long time. And as I look back at my career, those are the opportunities that I was most excited about. And you know, to Martha's point, I think knowing about what it was that really was my passion and being able to connect that to even something that looked so unfamiliar was was really a talent. And I think that's something that the team at Egon's under, you know, did incredibly well. They really knew me. Anytime someone calls and uses in the first paragraph, NASA, you know, fun guy and Yellowstone National Park, immediate your hook. When I first heard about you in that role, I thought, what? Yeah, but it was exactly intriguing. That's exactly that there were two things. It was one about being a builder. And the second was, I thought, this is Toy Story. This is Buzz and Woody. I mean, it literally I was walking in Yellowstone, you know, surrounded by the mountains and watching the cow. And I thought, this is an amazing story. This is a story that can touch every human at an emotional level. And I've just got to figure out how to put these pieces together. And at the end of it, it's, you know, a little thing called saving the world. So you can't ask for a better purpose than that. So I want you to go back to that, that time four years ago, when you walked into this job with your Bain Extern and your intern coming in two weeks. And I suspect most of the other employees were extremely technical. I'd like you to talk about how you even knew where to start. You probably didn't have a terribly specific remit, is my guess. So, so like, where did you start? You're the first CMO of a company that could be an unbelievable force in this world. And tell us, walk us through that. Yeah. So when I met with the CEO, one of the things he said to me, again, it was exhilarating and terrifying at once. He said, you have a blank sheet of paper. The company was actually called Sustainable Bio Products when I joined another little part of the story. Yeah. And I said, kind of like I told my husband when we bought our old house, I said, I only signed this deal if we get a new kitchen. So I said, I only signed this deal if I could get to read to the brand. And luckily, he said, you have an absolutely blank sheet of paper. And Jim, I went back to kind of what I knew at my very core on how to build a brand. And I said, all right, we're going to start with and oh, by the way, they told me I had about nine days to present to the board my marketing vision and strategy. So that was, that's how I started my job. So the very first thing we did was I took the exec team and the number of employees from the company and we went off to do a day of purpose work. We literally went to New York with, you know, a moderator that I've worked with before. And I said, I'm not going to build anything logo or brand or anything else until we start with what is our purpose? Why do we exist? And that work starts with what are our beliefs and what are our values as a company? I had the amazing opportunity and I really think this was incredible to start with what are our values as a company? What do we care about? And I had the chance to articulate those values. And those values are what we use to build our beliefs, our purpose system. And then from there, our mission. And you know, and then yes, we eventually got to name and logo and all of that stuff. But we built a very solid foundation that's what I walked into the board and I said, this is what I need to do. If we're going to do this right, if we're going to live up to this incredible ambition that we have, we have to start with understanding who we are, what do we care about and how does that get expressed in the brand? Because it matters just as much externally as it does internally. Like we are employees have to believe this as well, right? Creating a brand that just sits out in the world isn't enough. It's something that we have to do and be really true to our purpose. And then it was all about who's our consumer. And I have a funny story to tell you on this, if you will indulge me. But we will. First thing I did was go off to do, you know, good old fashioned consumer research and it was focus groups. But I felt like I needed to start with just a grounding of like, this is fun guy, like what's going to happen here? And in all the years I've done research, I've never had this happen. The moderator came to me and she said, this is going to be a disaster. You actually have a paragraph that has the word fun guy in there three times. And she said, it's going to blow up and I'm strongly advising you not to do it. And I looked at her and I said, if it's going to blow up, I'd rather know now that when I get out into the marketplace, because we're going to be transparent, we're going to talk about who we are and what we do. And it was remarkable to then see and literally I had the CEO face pressed up against the mirror because he was so excited about here, like they had never done this work. Right. So really hearing what is the consumer, the core consumer we're going after think about this. And everyone was struck by there's really something here. These people who care about making the world a better place and understand the connection between the food we eat and climate change. If we can figure out how to tell them the story and make that emotional connection, there's something really powerful here. And that gave me sort of the grounding to say, okay, now I know how to go build a brand. I know who I'm doing it for. I know who we are. And it was brand building 101, which I learned from none other than you Jim Stangle. So it stuck with me all these years. Now that sounds all very smooth and no bumps in the road as you did that. So what was the most challenging part of what you just described? I think the most challenging part was we getting the framework to be simple and not get distracted with, we have so many things we can talk about. It's like bringing it back to, okay, what are our six core values? What is our purpose? What is our mission? And how do we stick to that and not get distracted by lots and lots of things that can happen along the way? I had my share of, everybody thinks they can do marketing, especially in a company that's not built on marketing. So everyone had an idea on what the name should be and what the logo should be and what, you know, and it was really interesting because our belief is around this idea of nature and science as I told you Woody and Buzz coming together. And it was like, how do we just figure out a brand name? That was probably one of the hardest things. And I did, you know, for the years that I did consulting on my own, I did naming. And it is the hardest thing to do. And that was, again, proved to be true. Very, very difficult to get everybody to align, you know, especially when you have a founder and multiple founders in my case, you have everybody's got an opinion on what it should be called. And, you know, yes, you can do consumer research, but ultimately it's a strategic and I got in an emotional thing. And so that was probably the most challenging part. And I'll never forget the day like literally I woke up one morning and I was like, I got it. We have like nature and we'd come up with the word find. And we'd put the Y in it because of Yellowstone. So it, you know, and our whole company is about exploration and discovery. So that's how we got to it. But there was something missing and we were all kind of like, how do we like get a little bit more, you know, our archetype is both an explorer and a caregiver. And we're trying to figure out how to bring that together. And literally I woke up one morning, I said, I went on the road on the board. I said, it's nature is fine because it is, it's we found it in nature. It's a and all of a sudden everyone around the room was like, that's it. And I've seen that happen. I'm not, you know, few times in my career, when you when you know, you know, and that was one of those moments, but very, very difficult to get there. But once we got there, everybody was like, that's it. I think the name's brilliant. I think it's just perfect. That means a lot coming from you. No, no, it really does. Now, Martha, you just heard a story of a CMO starting up in a new category and a startup, so on and so forth. You help a lot of people do that at your company. So what are the lessons we should draw from what Corona just said for anyone starting a new company, changing roles within their current company? I mean, I think curiosity and openness are always really key to sort of thinking about where to start. There's really a connection, I think, between what we talked about and this focus on the customer and the consumer. And I think there's some beautiful stories that I'm sure Corinne can speak to about how she decided where to focus based on that. But equally, this piece around vision and purpose and making that connection between where you're going and the immediacy that we hear in terms of consumer data and availability in the moment requires a real discipline and a real focus. And I think that the marketing talent that can get that balance of like, where are we going and what's the vision and what's the purpose and what culture do we want to represent and build? And also, like, what am I consuming about the now and how do we need to react with immediacy to the things that are urgent and the people I feel kind of crack it in the early stages. I want to get a little bit more personal now and go back to the panel discussion that Martha, you hosted and Corinne, you shared on that panel that you are a lifelong vegetarian and that in this role, your purpose and values are in total harmony with the companies. And you have been a top performer your whole career from when I recruited you until this day. But I'd like to ask you in this job, how do you feel your performance, your effectiveness, your motivation is different from roles you've had before with this incredible harmony with your own personal purpose and values and the companies. When I first started the role, I it was really remarkable because, you know, we all work on a number of categories and I don't, I'm not one of these people that believes you must be a user of the category in order to be able to market it. I don't think that's true. But the thing that I've found as I've progressed in my career is, you know, really thinking through my own personal values and what really matters to me. And I got to a point, I think in my career where I said, you know, I have this ability, how do I take that and leverage it towards something I really feel personally passionate about. When it started to really, you know, as I started to think about this role, the ability to wake up every morning and bring my entire self to work for one thing and wake up super energized every single day to be able to do the work. And it is incredibly difficult work. It is probably the hardest job without a doubt I've had in my career. And the days there, you know, as our CEO told me when I joined the highs are high and the lows are low. And that is very, very true. I think what keeps me energized and going is I know I'm doing something that I personally believe in and that that's something I can feel incredibly passionate about. And I think that makes me, you know, more authentic as a marketer when I go and I mean, I've been it, I can't even tell you countless consumer events over the last year and a half or resample. And I'm there representing the company and I'm able to be 100% authentic in how I talk about this and why I care about it and why it matters and how it fits into my life. You know, I love marketing, always have. And that's, you know, truly my passion, but the ability to bring together my own personal values into the role every single day makes a huge difference. Martha, I'd like you to reflect a little bit on what Corona just said, because you know, I hear myself when I hear people that decide to leave an organization, it's awful because there's not often because there's not a match with their own personal sense of purpose, whether it's explicit or implicit in the companies. So I'd like you to talk about from your experience in Aegon Zendars, is this an important criteria for most people? If it is, how do you help them find this harmony that Corona has? I mean, not everyone can have the perfect fit like she has right now. Yeah, I mean, I think sometimes that takes a little bit of kind of time in Korea to work out the things that feel important. And sometimes they're a trade-offs, right? Like, I think there's a there's lots of things that play. There's career trajectory, there's compensation, there's passions, there's location. But I think there is a beautiful moment where there's alignment of all of those things. But it doesn't come with that risk. I mean, you have to take a little bit of a leaker, say, if you're going to follow a passion or a or take an exciting career opportunity that's always risk involved. And so I think it's really weighing up as you think about career moves, like what are the things that feel like they're the best paths for you? What are the really important pieces? What are the maybe sort of nice to have? And then what are the pieces that feel like then non you're not prepared to compromise on? And making informed decisions on that. I mean, it's great to something like Karun. I have to share with you. We had a dinner and one of the night sex, how long? And our table was completely enraptied with Karun as story. I mean, she's never going to be a dirty dinner party guest ever again. I think Karun and I think people are so interested in there in the business and what it's trying to do. And it's so optimistic, right? I mean, we live in an environment where there's so much wrong with the world. And I think this is a business that's trying to do something really good and really meaningful. Just seeing the passion and the conviction in what Karun is doing. It is a real clear moment in somebody's career where all of that experience aligns with the passion. And those moments are special. You know, it's interesting because marketing, especially when you're looking at different roles as I was, it's amazing. The variety of what that actually means. And I'd actually gotten pretty interested in the innovation space and was looking at startups a while before this opportunity came along. But when I would talk to the CEOs, it was like, well, we need someone to run our Facebook campaign. And you want a cheap marketing officer to do that. And so, or, well, we just need someone to design our logo. And I thought, okay, this is not what I want to be doing. And it was very interesting because what really struck me, and I was surprised, was when I went and interviewed with Thomas, our CEO, he was like, I need someone. I want you to come in and build an iconic brand. And the reason he was so excited about having me in the role was actually because I've worked on like a girl campaign. Yeah, the always campaign at Leona and he said, you know how to build something that has an emotional connection. And I want to build a brand. And I thought, that's a remit. I can get super excited about. But Martha is absolutely right. Beyond that, you know, I now have, you know, responsibility for sales, for innovation, for business development, and culinary recently. So it's the role has definitely grown and broadened. But I think, again, I come back to my job is well beyond just the marketing, it's the consumer experience. And so, all of those different points make up our consumer experience. And I have to, you know, I need my understanding and background and retail has been incredibly valuable. I feel like we should break here for a nature's find at what do you think? No, actually, for our listeners, where can they find it? So if you go on our on our website, there's actually a, it's about a 90 second film we did very early on that kind of tells the story of the brand. And yeah, our products are now available at Whole Foods, as well as sprouts, which is more of a rescue. You probably know sprouts from your west coast. And yeah, continuing to expand. So it's exciting. I did a recording with P&G with Mark Prichard and Marco Northern about P&G's strategy and sustainability and how it's integrated into brand building. And we talked an awful lot about habit change, right? And how do you, how do you enable habit change with consumers in a way that is easy for them? Simple, has a benefit, and is sort of built into the brand platform. So when they think about Cascade and Tide and somebody, the brands at P&G that have made a big, big impact, you know, and sustainable usage, it's not a bolt on. It's part of the brand platform, but it entailed some sort of habit change. So what are you learning about that, Karuna? Right? It's the, holy grail for every marketer, right? To be able to change a habit, develop a new habit. Great brands are built on habits. What have you learned in this journey in terms of how to think about habit change? And in your case, a change that will be better for the individual and better for the planet. That's a great question. I think, you know, a lot of what I've learned about habit and how to change behavior actually comes from my time at Leobranette and, you know, really believing and seeing that creativity has the ability to transform behavior, right? It's really incredible to see how you can leverage that. But I think it's the combination of that. And it's also really believing in emotion is what really drives behavioral change. A lot of times we get very, you know, and we've seen this and learned this. You know, you can give people all the sustainability, gloom and doom. And no one want, you know, people don't change. They kind of shut you off. And it's interesting, even when I was at Arc and Leo, we did a campaign for Walgreens, when we did the flu shot campaign. And, you know, everyone was kind of centered around telling you, you're going to get sick and it's going to be terrible and you're going to miss work. And, you know, finally, we just kind of, you know, I remember talking about it with our creators. And I said, you know, there's something in here about let's motivate positive behavior, like, tell them why they need to do it, right? Like it's around. And then we came up with this idea of arm yourself for the ones you love. And it was this notion of you're not, you know, it's not about you feeling terrible and it's going to be awful. It's like, how do you, how do you start to, you know, change behavior by incentivizing the positive, right? And so as I was mentioning for our brand, it's really around this idea of optimism. So we don't, you know, we don't chastise people for where they are, wherever they are on the journey, we want to meet them there. And we make it very clear. One of the reasons I think we're going to be able to take on this challenge is, we can literally create products for every single occasion throughout your day. So whether you choose to just, you know, do a meatless option on Monday, whether you decide to do Vigannuary and commit for the month, or you decide your lifelong, it doesn't matter, every step you take kind of makes a difference. So we are focused very much on optimism, on telling people, hey, it's we're not, you know, we're with you, wherever you are, we can be a resource. People want to do the right thing, but it needs to be easy. It needs, you know, in our case, it needs to be delicious. You know, every survey I've done every time I talk to consumers, but how does it taste is the question, right? And it's one of the reasons we actually partnered with Michelin Star Chef Eric Repaire from La Burnet End, because, you know, he brings that level of credibility and people, that's what people are curious about. And now we are on the menu at La Burnet End in New York City, using our five protein. I mean, it's pretty, you know, let's no better stamp of approval than that from a culinary standpoint. So I'm always focusing our team on how do we make this easy, because people want to do the right thing. But if it's not convenient, if it doesn't taste good, I might try it once, but I'm not going to come back. Now, one last question about the panel we had. Karuna talked about the Eisenhower Matrix on this panel. That got a lot of buzz. Immediately, everyone's googling it. What is the Eisenhower Matrix? And currently, you said something like, I use this every day, I use this every minute in this job. And so along with the audience, I googled it too. So Karuna, could you talk a bit about the Eisenhower Matrix? What it is, why it's important for you, how you discovered it? Yeah. So I mean, I've used it in the past, but not to the same level. And our CEO, I think, is a big believer in it. And it's incredibly valuable in a place like a startup, because you have, in any given day, there's a thousand things that need to be done, and they need to all be done yesterday. And one of our biggest challenges with our teams is how do we get them to focus on the most important things? Because there's always urgent, and there's important work that needs to be done that often gets put off because you're busy focusing on the urgent. So it's really a very simple two by two matrix, urgent, not urgent, and important, not important. And you just want to be constantly looking at how you're spending your time. Everyone has to do work that's urgent and not important sometimes. But if you're spending all of your time there, and we literally map our projects and try to make sure that we're not over-indexing on just dealing with the day-to-day fires, because then we're not going to build a long term. And the priorities do shift very quickly in my role and in our company. So it's always kind of re-looking at it and saying, okay, are we working on the things that are going to build for the long term while also moving the short term forward? We are going to flip into the creative brief of this episode. And that's a fun one where we talk about all sorts of things that are kind of wacky, personal offbeat. And Martha and I are going to share this. I hope you were warned about this, Martha. I'm not sure you were or not, but we're going to share the question. I'm not sure I was warned. No, of course you were warned of it. So the first one I'm going to ask, and then I'll turn it over to Martha. What's the last thing leadership lesson, Caruna, you have carried forward from P&G? It's around this idea that I think Chip actually and Chip Berg instilled in me. Who's now CEO of Levi's or has been CEO of Levi's? Yes, now CEO of Levi's and one of my mentors, along with you, Jim, but it's always choose to do the right hard thing over the easy wrong thing. And it's something I resonated with very early on in my career. And I think if you think about that, it applies to both business and people. From a business standpoint, it's sometimes easy to do the focus on the vanity metrics or the short term stuff versus the, as we talked about, the longer term brand building. It takes time. It takes effort. It takes incredible hard work, but it's the right thing to do. It applies when I'm thinking about where the right brands and partners that we choose. There are lots of people that want to be affiliated with brand like ours, but how do we make the right choices? And sometimes they're hard choices. Similarly with people, there are people who are we've brought in who have been great fits and others who aren't. And sometimes you have to make that hard choice and do the right thing. The easy wrong thing is always there waiting for you. But the other stuff takes being value-based, takes being purpose-driven, takes being authentic. And as hard as it is, you have to do it because that's ultimately, I think how you build a great brand and how you build a great team. Martha, your turn. Well, I have to do a follow-up P&G question. What was it like working with Jen? Oh, you're good. You're good. Well, the fact that Jim and I are still connected after all these years should be a big part of that answer. As I said, Martha, early on, P&G was my dream job. I thought, if I can get to Kellogg and I can get a job at P&G, that would be amazing. And then to have the incredible fortune of working for Jim, it was like a kid in a candy store. Every meeting I learned so much that I still carry with me today. I think the fact that I could walk into this job and know how do you build a great iconic brand comes from Jim. Beyond all the business lessons, I think the thing I carry most from working with Jim is how to just be a great human and care about your team and be a wonderful leader. I think a lot of the leaders that the memories you always have are the things that they did for you as a human. I mean, Jim knew I had a commuter marriage when I started at P&G and his incredible empathy and understanding and flexibility. I will not forget. And it's one of the things I try to do now for my team. So I could go on and on, but I know we have a limited amount of time. Thank you for that, Corinna. It's very touching. Okay, I'm going to take it back to the marketing world. What's the marketing campaign in your amazing career that you are to this day most proud of that you've been involved with? That's an easy one. That's always like a girl campaign. I had the amazing opportunity to work on that even though I wasn't working on the always business. Our CEO, Leo Burnett, called me one day out of the blue and said, we need your help. We need a great strategist on this campaign. And I had the opportunity to work with a creative director I had never met before, Judy John out of Toronto. And we became partners in crime working on this campaign. It was on top of our day jobs, nights and weekends, but again, a personal passion. We both had girls at that time that were right around that age. And we were seeing this change in confidence happening in them. And we kind of drew from that inspiration to create this idea around, and it was data that P&G had all along. And it was, how do you take that insight around girls lose so much more confidence and voice at puberty and connected back to always purpose of empowering women and having the opportunity to work on something that we had a pretty good feeling about. And we thought it would help build the business, but to see the cultural movement that it created across the world was just incredibly gratifying. I mean, to this day, people who know I worked on it still talk about it and then to end up walking on that red carpet in Hollywood to get an Emmy, it was hard to top. I mean, that's the power of what we do, right? Yes. That's the power of what we do. Still makes me wait for that commercial. Yeah, it was an amazing one. Really hit the emotional connection. So I knew Karuni, you were nominated as a trailblazer man and separate from your day job, your life is also full of amazing work, board roles, commitment to the community, et cetera. I'm a pretty new mom myself. I'd love to hear a bit about how you balance baby business, giving back to the community. How do you set it all in? Do you sleep? Not enough. Yeah, it's the advice I get and I get asked this question a lot because I do have three children, now all adults, but back in the day, three kids under six, marketing director at P&G and managing flying every other week, and it was a lot. And I will be honest, and I'm very honest about this. I think it is very challenging to have it all at the same time. I'm not sure I could do the job I'm in when I had the young kids. It's a lot. It takes a lot out of you. So I've looked at my own life and in chapters and known that there's never going to be a perfectly balanced day, and I hate the word balance because I think it's a myth. But even over a month, what I've tried to do throughout my career is say, okay, over the last month or a quarter or even a year, have I devoted my time to the things that are most important to me? And have I achieved the right level of focusing on my kids or focusing on my work? And the day-to-day balance is never perfect. And so I've stopped holding myself accountable for that because it's really hard. But I think it's a matter of making choices. And I chose once I had kids to actually stay home with them when they were very young. So I've been a stay-at-home mom full-time. I've been a part-time working mom. I've been a full-time working mom. I've done all of it at different points when it was the right thing for me and my family. And I have to say, every one of those is hard. They're all different trade-offs. Karuna, what's the first brand you remember making an impact on you as a young girl? So I have a good answer for this one that might surprise some people. I actually have two. So I don't know, Jim, if you even know this, but I came to this country as a 10-year-old. I was born in India. My dad was a diplomat and he had lived all over the world. And right before I came to the US, I lived in Bhutan, which is a tiny country in the Himalayas. No running water, no television. And then I landed in JFK in New York City and lived in Manhattan on 65th Street. So the reason I tell you all that is America for me had this like, at that age was this incredible thing. And the thing I remember so vividly as the first brand is Campbell's soup. Believe it or not. And it's because I remember going to school and coming home for lunch. And the idea of an American lunch was Campbell's tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich. And when my mom would make me that, I was like, oh, I'm the cool American kid now. So that was one of my early brand connections. The other one was Barbie because it was sort of like this, you know, to be an American girl, you had to own a Barbie. And I remember that brand having such an impression on me. But both of those are, you know, obviously the context is being, you know, an immigrant and trying to be as American as you could and fit in was really as a nine and 10 year old that was utmost on my mind. So those are those would be my brands. That's a beautiful story. I still love Campbell's soup and grilled cheese sandwich. Still, it's such a good thing. Yeah, I got to work on Campbell's when I was actually over that. So it comes, came full circle. All right, Martha, you have the last question. That's a big one. Okay, well, I think I've got to ask a leadership question. I know you've talked about building a team, I'll make some scraped impact entirely from scratch. Like, what do you look for when you think about having talent? We're gonna. Great question. I think for me, one of the things I do feel like I've really honed as a skill is attracting talent, identifying and attracting talent. And I think, again, I owe a lot of that to the incredible leaders I worked with at PNG. I think they did such a good job of it. And I think I picked up a few tips along the way. For me, you know, obviously it's somewhat role dependent. So there's, you know, there's the skills you would need if you're going to be working at a large CPG versus a startup. So, but for me, what I've found over and over again is a level of curiosity is incredibly important. And it almost doesn't matter what role you're in. But for myself, that's what led me to this role. And it's been, you know, for my own career, curiosity has led me down those, you know, roads less traveled to explore things that most people wouldn't. And in fact, you know, one of the reasons I ended up at an agency is, and Jim probably doesn't remember this, but he sent me a note when I left PNG and he said, if you ever decide to come because I was going to be a full-time mom at that point. And he said, if you ever decide you want to, you know, get back, Leo Bernat would be a great fit. Let me know. And I literally found that email the other day. And amazingly enough, that opportunity came along. But it's this idea of being curious and open to new things, particularly in the role I'm in now and the company I'm in. We need that desperately. We need people who have the curiosity and desire to figure things out, because we don't have all the, we don't have a playbook. No one's done what we're doing before, whether it's in marketing or engineering or technology, and a certain amount of leadership resiliency. It's a very tough business, you know, regardless of what category you're in today. It's hard, but especially hard when you're trying to build something out of nothing. And so the ability to bounce back to be able to ride that roller coaster is incredibly important. And it's interesting as I look at my team, I have a very diverse team. And as someone who has spent 15 years at Pepsi, you know, not an immediate, clear fit for a startup. But there was something in his background that said to me, this is someone who can come in and really take all of that knowledge, unlearn what he needs to unlearn, and then build something new. But I also have people who have come from agency or from a number of different startups or, you know, are just very incredibly diverse backgrounds and bringing that together, I think is what makes us as powerful as we are. So it's a very small team, but pretty mighty. Karuna, Martha and I have worked you very hard in the last hour. So we're going to let you have the last word anything you want to ask Martha, or myself, before we sign off. That's a good one. Let's see. So, Jim, I guess, as you think about marketing and all of the knowledge that you have around what's happening in the world and how marketing's evolved, what do you kind of see as the key skills for marketers going into the future and continuing to navigate all of the uncertainty ahead of us? Well, you said it a minute ago, and if there's one theme from my podcast, and I've done a lot of them, it's curiosity. I've asked so many people from Ted Saranda's at Netflix to Keith Wiedt at Unilever to Karuna, and Nature's Find what the key characteristic is of a CMO, and they say curiosity because it's all moving so fast. So I think it's curiosity. I think it's agility, the ability to pivot, and that is not everyone's strength. And I think the last one, and this has always been true, and this is why I think P&G people are successful outside P&G strategy. You talked about your first couple weeks of the job. What did you look at strategy? Who's our consumer? What's our reason for being? What are we going to stand for? What are our beliefs and values? If you don't ask those questions before you talk about what your media mix is, or what your product superiority is going to be, it's ungrounded. And Martha, I would ask you the same question just to any builds on what Jim just shared. I think it's beautifully put. It's interesting within our world's curiosity of the consistent potential market that can move across any competency if a leader is growing. The only thing I would add is the chance of being there. I think in life, you just need to be able to smile at the smile at the small depth and work out what's left at. So that's all I'd add. Yeah, that's great. I do find myself alternating some days between screaming into a pillow and laughing about his stuff. That's a good place to be. But Martha, you, Sean, when you're on me for not bringing this up because Karuna talked about this, I mean, I think also care. Just, you know, Alison talked about this at our summit. Alison, notice the KC, how care is more proactive than empathy. And Karuna, you care about your people. You talked about, I cared about you years ago, and we still have a friendship. So I do think it's honest care when I talked to Marco Northern, a PNG earlier today, who was named coach of the year at PNG. First thing she said was care about my team, about the whole person. I don't know, they're growing to their potential. They feel great about their work. They feel like they're part of the super team. Are they being stretched and developed and supported? You know, that's all active care for the whole person. So I think that's a really powerful one for the future. I'm going to add one last thought, Jim, which I did not get to say when Martha asked me earlier. But one of the things that I think I was really struck by leadership at PNG that I think I've carried with me is every leader I worked for, and I was incredibly lucky. I had a whole string of amazing leaders, had the ability to anticipate what I could achieve and what my potential was before I even knew it. And that is an amazing act of caring, in my opinion. You know, just the fact that you know me well enough to know that if you put me in this thing that feels incredibly risky, you've got my back and I can still go forward and take that risk. And I think that's what's allowed me to do the risk taking I've taken in my career. That's a great place to stop this beautiful conversation. Thank you, Martha. Thank you, Corona. This has been just wonderful on so many levels. So I appreciate your generosity, your insights and your care. Thank you, Jim. This was just this was on my bucket list, I have to say. So I'm incredibly happy that I got to do this and to spend the time with both you and Martha. Thank you so much. We were set to treat to be with me back. That was my conversation with Corona and Martha. Three lessons from this one for your business brand and life. The first one, if you can, find a job in a company where your values, principles are perfectly aligned with the company's values, principles and priorities. Corona has this deeply in this job. She's been happy in her other jobs, including when she started her career at PNG. But this one is just spot on for Corona in terms of what she values, what she believes and what this company is trying to do for the world. Second takeaway, the leadership lesson, when I asked Corona what she's carrying forward from her time at PNG, she quickly talked about she learned how to choose the right hard thing to do versus the easier wrong thing. We hear that saying a fair amount, it's living it. That's the hard stuff. And Corona spoke very beautifully about how she's taken that lesson into her current role and her current work. And the third takeaway is this, be sure you do the fundamentals in your brand and strategy before you do the tactics. Corona talked about her first days in the job at Nature's Fine, how she took the team together. They talked about who their consumer is, what's their purpose, what's the reason for being, what are they going to offer the world, how are they going to bring it to life. So she populated a brand framework before they jumped into tactics. So think brand first, think strategy first, think simplicity. 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.