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Speaker 1: You guys had, you know, my boss, AC on in

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Speaker 1: the past. And, you know, she has the saying, she

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Speaker 1: always would say to me, boring is the new sexy,

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Speaker 1: get boring right. That’s the fundamental part I think is

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Speaker 1: really important. And all of this is dictated by data.

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Speaker 1: You know, the way we were saying earlier, having your

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Speaker 1: data signals right and being able to understand and have

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Speaker 1: the right currency is vital. The second aspect to it

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Speaker 1: that I think most people focus on has been the

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Speaker 1: emergence of the creator economy. Having a really platform authentic

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Speaker 1: and compelling content is so important. and the role of

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Speaker 1: creators and their advocacy has become, you know, really paramount,

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Speaker 1: I think, for everyone in the space.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to today’s episode of Brave Commerce.

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Speaker 3: I’m Rachel Typograph, the founder and CEO of Micmac.

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Speaker 2: I’m Sarah Hofstetter, president of Profitero, and.

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Speaker 3: This is a show that talks about what’s relevant in

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Speaker 3: e-commerce for the world’s biggest brands. Sarah, do you prefer

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Speaker 3: shiny object or boring and reliable?

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Speaker 2: I don’t know if this is a personal or professional question,

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Speaker 2: but I can tell you it’s just going to make

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Speaker 2: me sound super freaking lame.

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Speaker 4: Life’s crazy.

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Speaker 2: I don’t need bright, shiny objects. I need reliability. And

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Speaker 2: I have had this debate so many times on both

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Speaker 2: personal and professional level. I just want a little bit

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Speaker 2: of just chill. I like people around me that… can

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Speaker 2: give me a little bit of sparks of excitement and

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Speaker 2: tantalize me. But for me, I got enough drama. Thank

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Speaker 2: you very much. How about you?

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Speaker 4: You were talking about your husband before. Yes.

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Speaker 3: I’m a classic gal. I love things that last and

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Speaker 3: stand the test of time. But I would say when

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Speaker 3: I’m in a retail therapy mood, that’s when I might

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Speaker 3: splurge a little on something that’s stupid and silly. But

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Speaker 3: it’s only frivolous for that moment in time.

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Speaker 2: Self-awareness is the most important component of this situation, don’t

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Speaker 2: you think?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely. But what about when it comes to your

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Speaker 4: business partnerships?

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Speaker 2: When it comes to your business partnerships, you absolutely cannot

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Speaker 2: be boring. So I think that’s probably why I’m more

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Speaker 2: boring at home. Nobody’s going to want to be friends

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Speaker 2: with me after this episode, but I definitely am just

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Speaker 2: a lot more chill at home. But at work, I

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Speaker 2: think you constantly have to be challenging yourself. You always

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Speaker 2: have to be thinking through what’s around the corner. That’s

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Speaker 2: what I’m saying. That brings a lot of drama. That

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Speaker 2: brings a lot of tension. That brings a lot of

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Speaker 2: challenging the status quo. But I think you can also

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Speaker 2: easily get distracted by the constant, the what’s next, the

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Speaker 2: so what, the now what, without having those fundamentals in place.

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Speaker 2: So I kind of think it’s a little column A,

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Speaker 2: a little column B. It’s just knowing when to turn

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Speaker 2: up the column A and when to turn up the

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Speaker 2: column B.

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Speaker 3: You’re about to hear from a friend and partner, Rio,

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Speaker 3: who is an executive at Unilever for nearly 20 years.

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Speaker 3: And on the show, he quotes his boss, who’s also

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Speaker 3: been on the show, Essie Eggleston Bracey, who’s now the

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Speaker 3: global CMO of Unilever. And what Acey tells her teams is,

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Speaker 3: you got to get boring right before you can go

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Speaker 3: focus on sexy.

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Speaker 2: I feel like that is lessons to live by. You

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Speaker 2: got to get your fundamentals right. Look, let’s just think

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Speaker 2: about it from the perspective of just beauty, right? You

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Speaker 2: don’t have good foundation. You can’t go building all that stuff.

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Speaker 4: It all starts with sunscreen.

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Speaker 2: Damn right it does.

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Speaker 3: Well, on that note, and especially because now we’re talking

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Speaker 3: about skincare and personal care, let’s bring Ryu onto the show.

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Speaker 2: Today, we are happy to have Ryu Yokoi, Chief Digital Officer,

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Speaker 2: Personal Care of North America and U.S. Media at Unilever.

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Speaker 2: If you can say that three times fast, then you’re

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Speaker 2: a heck of a lot better than me. That’s all

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Speaker 2: I can say. Thank you so much for joining.

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Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. I’m so excited to be here with

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Speaker 1: you guys. Thanks so much for having me.

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Speaker 4: We’re thrilled.

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Speaker 2: And you’ve got a really interesting story. career trajectory, even

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Speaker 2: within the walls of, or virtual walls, I suppose, of Unilever.

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Speaker 1: Sure.

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Speaker 2: You’ve been there almost 20 years, is that right?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, 20 years, because I summer interned when I was

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Speaker 1: in business school here. So it’s around 20 years if

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Speaker 1: you include that.

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Speaker 2: That’s pretty extraordinary. And sometimes you see CPG marketers kind

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Speaker 2: of jumping around and they stay in a similar role

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Speaker 2: and they kind of move up the chain. They go

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Speaker 2: through the ABM and then the brand manager, senior brand manager,

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Speaker 2: and you kind of move your way up. You, on

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Speaker 2: the other hand, have done Lots of different things kind

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Speaker 2: of jumping around, almost like leapfrogging everywhere you were jumping.

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Speaker 2: So there was always something very different about your career.

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Speaker 2: Can you talk about how you were able to seamlessly

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Speaker 2: transition from signing the reins in marketing to running a

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Speaker 2: startup and now leading digital commerce? Like there are all

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Speaker 2: these different parts to it. Help us unpack it.

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Speaker 1: Thanks so much for that. When you put it that way,

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Speaker 1: it sounds much more flattering than it was living it,

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Speaker 1: I think.

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Speaker 2: We’re storytellers. It’s what we do for a living. Yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 1: I went back to my B-School reunion recently, and I

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Speaker 1: was one of the few people that were still at

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Speaker 1: the same firm. I’ve been really blessed within Unilever. I

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Speaker 1: think for me, it’s really the benefits of doing brand

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Speaker 1: management and working within the confines of consumer products. Like

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Speaker 1: you were saying, Sarah, most of us start as associates

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Speaker 1: within the marketing world. I think the really powerful thing

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Speaker 1: about it is because of sort of the cross-functional model

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Speaker 1: where you have sort of an enterprise that’s being run

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Speaker 1: with marketing at its unspoke, you kind of get the

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Speaker 1: dual benefits early in your career of sort of real

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Speaker 1: bootcamp in marketing fundamentals and training because of the cross-functional

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Speaker 1: nature of it. You know, marketing within these kinds of

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Speaker 1: companies isn’t a silo that’s receiving something, it’s really managing

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Speaker 1: the business. And so you have exposure to the other functions,

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Speaker 1: you know, that I think gave me sort of a

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Speaker 1: comfort zone. Later in my career, I grew up working

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Speaker 1: with and within the company was very clear that sort

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Speaker 1: of the best associates were the ones that understood what

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Speaker 1: R & D did or what supply chain did or

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Speaker 1: whatever or knew how to get stuff done. So when

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Speaker 1: the time came that I moved outside of marketing and

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Speaker 1: my first real role, totally outside of marketing, I was

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Speaker 1: the chief operating officer for Schmitz, a startup that we

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Speaker 1: had acquired. Like you said, when I went there, it

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Speaker 1: was the first time I had R & D and

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Speaker 1: supply chain and finance and sales reporting into me. But

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Speaker 1: I felt really comfortable doing that because I really had

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Speaker 1: an understanding of what those functions did. based on the

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Speaker 1: earlier experience that I had and the extent of collaboration

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Speaker 1: that we had with them. So I think the model

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Speaker 1: sets itself up where it’s one of those things where

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Speaker 1: you get a lot of exposure to different functions and

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Speaker 1: it rewards curiosity really early in your career. And ultimately

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Speaker 1: that curiosity and hunger is I think what makes it

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Speaker 1: easier to assimilate and try different things.

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Speaker 3: So you joined Schmitz as COO but I believe when

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Speaker 3: you moved to CEO, it was.

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Speaker 4: Awesome to see.

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Speaker 3: I’m so curious what you took from that end-to-end operating

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Speaker 3: experience that you now bring into your role that’s heavily

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Speaker 3: focused on marketing.

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Speaker 1: Maybe the first 10, 11 years of my career was

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Speaker 1: traditional brand management. One of the beauties of that is

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Speaker 1: you do lots of different categories. Every category is different.

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Speaker 1: The different portfolios that you have available, the brands are

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Speaker 1: all in different situations. So you learn a ton of stuff.

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Speaker 1: I think when I went to Schmitz, it was the

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Speaker 1: first time I had the chance to really run the

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Speaker 1: totality of the operation. I was just referencing, I had

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Speaker 1: the chance to have all of these functions I’m reporting

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Speaker 1: in through me. So there was a ton of learning

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Speaker 1: there just in terms of operating business, ultimately having that

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Speaker 1: accountability and really being responsible for all the people I

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Speaker 1: had the blessing of getting to work with there. If

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Speaker 1: I think about what I’m doing now and what I

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Speaker 1: really picked up from it, it was a real big

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Speaker 1: pivot for me from the traditional brand model I had

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Speaker 1: been working in into sort of a more DTC built

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Speaker 1: performance oriented and really omni-channel foundationally set up enterprise that

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Speaker 1: Schmidt’s was right. For me, it was like so cathartic

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Speaker 1: to come into a business and experience one where in

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Speaker 1: the digital commerce space, which I mean, you guys know, well,

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Speaker 1: this is what you guys do is your podcast. You

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Speaker 1: have so much more agency over outcomes in the traditional

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Speaker 1: brand world. You know, we are fighting for shelf space.

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Speaker 1: Points of distribution have such a massive impact in terms

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Speaker 1: of dictating outcomes. In the digital landscape, we have the

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Speaker 1: opportunity to change the planogram every minute of the day.

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Speaker 1: So that for me has been really energizing, cathartic. I

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Speaker 1: took that during COVID as e-commerce became just a massive

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Speaker 1: opportunity for Unilever. We had to really up our game there.

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Speaker 1: I came back in and had the opportunity to take

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Speaker 1: over our e-com marketing for our beauty and personal care business.

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Speaker 1: It was very much sort of now applying that back in,

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Speaker 1: at least within the commerce side, the e-commerce space. for

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Speaker 1: our traditional brands. And that’s a real pivot for the

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Speaker 1: company that we had to build out that muscle. You know,

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Speaker 1: what’s been really exciting there is as more and more overall,

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Speaker 1: we just have this massive convergence that’s happening as everything

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Speaker 1: that’s data driven is driving where marketing is going. We’ve

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Speaker 1: sort of had this challenge of how can we take

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Speaker 1: the kind of performance marketing that we’re doing to really

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Speaker 1: drive the shelf in digital commerce and to drive our

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Speaker 1: sales in that space and apply that across all of

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Speaker 1: our marketing. And that’s really where we see things going

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Speaker 1: within Unilever. And that’s why I’m so excited about our

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Speaker 1: current sort of direction as a company. And we recently

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Speaker 1: combined and collapsed into sort of new structures within each

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Speaker 1: of our business units, digital marketing, media, and commerce into

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Speaker 1: a single entity, right? So I know Sarah worked really

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Speaker 1: hard to get across my title, but in principle, the

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Speaker 1: idea is, right, I’m the chief digital officer, but I

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Speaker 1: look after our media, right? And that’s a deliberate decision

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Speaker 1: because it’s all data-driven and It’s all performance-oriented, and we

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Speaker 1: have a chance to make outcomes better every day in

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Speaker 1: a way that’s so much more progressive than we’ve considered

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Speaker 1: in the past. And I view and my team, our

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Speaker 1: key challenge is applying into our overall investment approach the

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Speaker 1: sort of tenets that we see as have been the

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Speaker 1: winning formula for these startups and also in the e-commerce

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Speaker 1: world that I picked up when I moved back in.

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Speaker 1: So I think I’m really blessed in terms of having

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Speaker 1: had that experience at Schmitz.

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Speaker 3: The change that you just articulated is fairly massive, right? Unilever,

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Speaker 3: one of the biggest CPG portfolios in the world. And

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Speaker 3: if I heard you correctly, essentially sales and marketing have

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Speaker 3: converged as function.

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Speaker 1: So we have sales, right? And I would say the

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Speaker 1: selling unit is still a separate entity, but our let’s

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Speaker 1: say the marketing for e-commerce, our retail media, all of

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Speaker 1: that is sitting now together with our digital marketing and

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Speaker 1: with our media organization so that they can work in harmony. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: And so in that articulation, just compared to so many

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Speaker 3: other portfolios that we interview on this show, often you

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Speaker 3: would find retail media still sitting within the sales organization.

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Speaker 5: Sure.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: That’s like such a big shift.

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Speaker 3: And how did the organization identify that that was the

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Speaker 3: right move for the business.

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Speaker 1: Well, you just see more and more of these retail

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Speaker 1: media arms of our customers really maturing and developing into

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Speaker 1: true media entities. We want to be able to make

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Speaker 1: decisions pound for pound between the different investments that we’re making.

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Speaker 1: For us, that was sort of the critical factor, right?

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Speaker 1: We have a real performance edge at Unilever. When I

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Speaker 1: challenge my team every day, we want to be the

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Speaker 1: most outcome-oriented advertiser in the marketplace. And, you know, for

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Speaker 1: that to be the case, we need to be able

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Speaker 1: to govern the investment across media channels. You look at,

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Speaker 1: you know, Walmart media, you look at Amazon today, those

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Speaker 1: are real media companies and they have incredible assets that

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Speaker 1: allow you to commercialize from the top to the bottom

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Speaker 1: of the funnel. And they’re advancing, you know, more and more.

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Speaker 1: And so it was really fundamental to be able to

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Speaker 1: have those all part of the same team and sort

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Speaker 1: of within our scope.

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Speaker 4: I love it.

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Speaker 2: And so I’m just going to pull a little bit

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Speaker 2: more on this one, even though, uh, Other people cannot

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Speaker 2: see your background. We’re doing this on video and I

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Speaker 2: see the shelves behind you. And you talked about the

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Speaker 2: importance of the planogram.

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Speaker 1: Virtual shelves.

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Speaker 2: Even better, actually, because you talked earlier about the planogram

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Speaker 2: shifting on the regular and the importance of retail media

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Speaker 2: being a discrete lever that you can pull more programmatically,

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Speaker 2: let’s say, than changing up an end cap overnight, which

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Speaker 2: in and of itself is not the easiest thing to do.

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Speaker 2: So with such a dynamic planogram, how do you guys

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Speaker 2: think about the role of organic content and things like that?

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Speaker 2: Does that sit within your world? How does everybody play

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Speaker 2: with each other in that regard?

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Speaker 1: So my team and the equivalent structures within, so we’ve

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Speaker 1: got these hubs set up that look after digital marketing, media,

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Speaker 1: and commerce in each of our business units. And in parallel,

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Speaker 1: in each of those, those teams would be responsible for

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Speaker 1: owning the digital shelf. My team is responsible for understanding

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Speaker 1: what we need to win between, to your point, organic content,

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Speaker 1: ratings and reviews, all the things that we would need

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Speaker 1: to be driving and having the right strength when it

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Speaker 1: comes to organic search. And then what the key terms are,

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Speaker 1: we need to be winning, what the key piece of

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Speaker 1: the portfolio are, we need to be driving for each

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Speaker 1: of those. Importantly, they also work on understanding what the

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Speaker 1: portfolio is that we should have. It’s not just the

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Speaker 1: investment choices, but developing the portfolio. So It’s sort of

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Speaker 1: end to end in terms of the e-commerce marketing, the

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Speaker 1: way that we look at it.

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Speaker 2: I love that. And what’s so interesting about the digital

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Speaker 2: shelf as it relates to that and organic content is

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Speaker 2: the role of 3P marketplaces. So if you’re only thinking

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Speaker 2: about what’s happening in the store, then.

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Speaker 4: That’s one thing.

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Speaker 2: But when you’re on Walmart and let’s say Dove deodorant

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Speaker 2: is out of stock, the only other way you’re going

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Speaker 2: to be able to get it is if you’re using 3P,

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Speaker 2: for example. You’ve got to think about all the different

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Speaker 2: levers you get to play with or potentially other people

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Speaker 2: that are reselling your product. So the dynamicism that’s for

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Speaker 2: art for that is so much higher. And it 100%

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Speaker 2: plays well to the way that marketers instinctively think. But

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Speaker 2: how do you educate the sales team to understand what

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Speaker 2: the loss to a marketplace could look like and why

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Speaker 2: that should change the way you think about maybe even

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Speaker 2: your JVPs with the retailers?

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Speaker 1: So we’re really blessed, really progressive around the space of

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Speaker 1: commerce and the level of focus that we need to

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Speaker 1: have both on the marketing side, as well as the

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Speaker 1: CD side. So we have sort of articulated also, let’s

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Speaker 1: say commerce sales folks who focus on this side of this.

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Speaker 1: So we’re blessed as a team. We have partners that

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Speaker 1: I think really understand, you know, that space, but that’s

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Speaker 1: the heavy area of focus that we have carving up

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Speaker 1: the sort of key responsibilities within that. As Rachel said,

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Speaker 1: you know, that can be tricky. It’s a new space.

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Speaker 1: And so developing sort of that trust between the teams

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Speaker 1: and also the making sure we have the right amount

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Speaker 1: of focus. The reality that I’ve found is that you

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Speaker 1: hit it. This is like a 24 hour job in

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Speaker 1: terms of understanding how much, what you need to be

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Speaker 1: doing to be staying up and to be winning on

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Speaker 1: the terms that you want to be winning on. It

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Speaker 1: involves a ton, both on our side from what I

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Speaker 1: would consider sort of the more e-com marketing side, as

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Speaker 1: well as all the work that has to happen from

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Speaker 1: our e-com sales side so that we can be winning.

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Speaker 4: So on the topic of winning.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Your competition is just other major conglomerates in the personal

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Speaker 3: care space. It’s also challenger brands that are coming to

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Speaker 3: market every day.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 4: You know, when you were at Schmidt, there was a playbook.

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Speaker 3: You could launch a Shopify site, start buying Facebook ads,

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Speaker 3: and boom, you’re in business. Now, all these challenger brands

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Speaker 3: are actually on Walmart shelves, on Target shelves, Sephora’s shelves.

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Speaker 3: So how is Unilever positioning themselves against challenger brands in

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Speaker 3: the mass retail environment?

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Speaker 1: That’s a great question. This experience I had at Schmitz,

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Speaker 1: it’s a real blessing for me having had to live

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Speaker 1: through some of this. So we were one of the

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Speaker 1: OG first of the sort of DTC natural brands that

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Speaker 1: moved into the traditional set and got to experiment with

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Speaker 1: sort of this omni world. From a Unilever standpoint, we’ve

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Speaker 1: been doing that with several of our other acquisitions, whether

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Speaker 1: it’s Shea Moisture, more recently our Liquid IV brand, which

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Speaker 1: is really exploding in the health and wellness space. I

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Speaker 1: think there’s sort of an emerging playbook against this that

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Speaker 1: we’re seeing land. That’s really about full funnel marketing. You

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Speaker 1: want to be thinking full funnel and how we meet

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Speaker 1: and reach the people that we serve with the right messages,

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Speaker 1: right time, understanding how to move them from building awareness

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Speaker 1: to really bringing them to convert and building that loyalty

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Speaker 1: and advocacy for our products. But for that to work,

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Speaker 1: some of the critical leaps that we’ve had to make

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Speaker 1: have really involved building the right data signals that allow

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Speaker 1: us to understand how that journey is taking shape and

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Speaker 1: how to move within that. you know, I guess my

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Speaker 1: cheap plug, you know, obviously, Rachel, you’re a huge partner

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Speaker 1: for us in that regard, in terms of the work

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Speaker 1: that we do with Micmac on that front. And I

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Speaker 1: think the other piece to it, maybe the less sexy,

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Speaker 1: which might be offensive, given that’s what Rachel does.

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Speaker 4: I don’t want to be sexy. That means I’m a

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Speaker 4: must have.

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Speaker 1: You guys had, you know, my boss AC on in

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Speaker 1: the past. And, you know, she has the saying, she

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Speaker 1: always would say to me, it’s like really boring is

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Speaker 1: the new sexy get boring, right? That’s the fundamental part,

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Speaker 1: I think is really important. And all of this is

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Speaker 1: dictated by data, you know, the way we were saying earlier,

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Speaker 1: having your data signals right and being able to understand

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Speaker 1: and have the right currency is vital. The second aspect

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Speaker 1: to it that I think most people focus on has

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Speaker 1: been the emergence of the kind of creator economy, having

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Speaker 1: a really platform authentic and compelling content is so important.

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Speaker 1: And the role of creators and their advocacy has become,

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Speaker 1: you know, really paramount, I think for everyone in the space.

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Speaker 1: And you really see, you know, whether it’s OGs like

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Speaker 1: myself at Schmitz to, you know, some of these competitors

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Speaker 1: that have come up or some of, our brands that

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Speaker 1: are coming into the traditional space out of DTC are

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Speaker 1: really taking advantage of that as an asset.

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Speaker 3: Well, we could pick your brain all day, but we

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Speaker 3: have to ask you our famous last question, which is

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Speaker 3: what’s the bravest thing you’ve ever done?

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Speaker 1: Oh man. So I have to say, aside from coming

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Speaker 1: on this podcast, I thought about this a lot. I’m

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Speaker 1: really fascinated by the concept of bravery. I have two

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Speaker 1: young sons, 10 and five, and one of the things,

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Speaker 1: you know, as a parent, I think about a lot

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Speaker 1: is how to motivate them to confront things that they’re

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Speaker 1: uncomfortable with and that they’re afraid of. And I love

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Speaker 1: this concept, like J.K. Rowling did it with Harry Potter

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Speaker 1: and George R.R. Martin talks about it a few times

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Speaker 1: in like A Song of Ice and Fire and Game

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Speaker 1: of Thrones, this idea that like, you can only be

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Speaker 1: brave when you’re afraid. I think it’s really interesting because

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Speaker 1: like when you’re, what makes us afraid or uncomfortable is

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Speaker 1: so personal and unique. And so sometimes I think I

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Speaker 1: was trying to think like how to answer this question

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Speaker 1: in a way that’s actually like interesting to somebody, because

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Speaker 1: I think the things that make us afraid sometimes are

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Speaker 1: like really idiosyncratic and different. So I’d say like professionally, I,

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Speaker 1: you guys talked about it. Like it was like a

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Speaker 1: deliberate thing or something that like my early experience unlocked,

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Speaker 1: but a little after halfway through my experience at Unilever,

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Speaker 1: I kind of made the decision to leave traditional brand

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Speaker 1: management and just start doing what I thought was most

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Speaker 1: interesting with each role. Right. So I left, I had

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Speaker 1: been a marketing director on multiple categories, looking after portfolios and,

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Speaker 1: kind of took a divergence in my last more internal

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Speaker 1: job I was doing, sort of strategy and looking at

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Speaker 1: M & A and new brand creation and doing the

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Speaker 1: M & A and having such exposure to all these startups.

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Speaker 1: I was like, this is really interesting. And I went

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Speaker 1: and told Unilever guys, I might want to leave and

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Speaker 1: go to one of those guys. So if something opens

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Speaker 1: up at one of these people that we’re buying, let

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Speaker 1: me go do that. And so the company was like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that’s a good idea. Don’t leave. We’ll make that happen.

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Speaker 1: So I got to go there. And then over time,

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Speaker 1: to your point, I got to be the CEO there.

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Speaker 1: And I spent all my time there talking back into

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Speaker 1: the org about all the things that were happening at

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Speaker 1: Schmitz in digital commerce. So when the pandemic happened and

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Speaker 1: e-commerce became the fastest growing part of the company and

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Speaker 1: a real sort of burning pot, we needed to evolve

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Speaker 1: and build the muscle there, both on the sales side

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Speaker 1: and the marketing side, as we were saying earlier. So

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Speaker 1: that became like, oh, let’s go do that. That sounds fun.

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Speaker 1: And as we’ve seen convergence now between retail media, traditional media,

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Speaker 1: digital everything is coming together. Each one of these things

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Speaker 1: has sort of been the next step. But that first step,

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Speaker 1: just leaving marketing was terrifying because you have sort of

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Speaker 1: like a path that you feel comfortable with. And to

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Speaker 1: Sarah’s point that a lot of people that come up

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Speaker 1: within this world just go through the same sort of

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Speaker 1: road steps and you do the same thing just a

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00:20:06,109 –> 00:20:08,560
Speaker 1: little bit. different and maybe you move across companies or

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00:20:08,600 –> 00:20:10,700
Speaker 1: if you stay and you’re just doing it in different categories.

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Speaker 1: And so trying a different path was definitely something I

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Speaker 1: had to kind of get over myself and just like

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Speaker 1: gird myself to do. But it’s been such a blessing

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Speaker 1: because what I find is, you know, when you’re having

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00:20:19,570 –> 00:20:22,250
Speaker 1: fun and it doesn’t feel like work is when you

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Speaker 1: do your best work. It’s when, you know, you’re most creative,

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00:20:26,170 –> 00:20:29,560
Speaker 1: you best understand and, you know, like the mental stamina

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Speaker 1: that you have to interrogate a problem when it’s the

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00:20:31,720 –> 00:20:34,660
Speaker 1: thing that you would be, you know, excited to think about.

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00:20:35,060 –> 00:20:36,780
Speaker 1: if you were in a network, if you can like

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Speaker 1: break the labor leisure trade-off, that’s when, you know, magic happens.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: So I’ve found that kind of taking that leap has been,

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Speaker 1: you know, really beneficial to me. And then on a

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Speaker 1: personal front, I think like the most afraid I’ve been

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00:20:49,050 –> 00:20:53,290
Speaker 1: in a professional setting, but from a personal standpoint, I remember, um,

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Speaker 1: when they first asked me to go to Schmitz, uh,

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00:20:56,030 –> 00:20:59,359
Speaker 1: I remember the brief was Amanda Suri, who was the, um,

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00:21:00,010 –> 00:21:02,090
Speaker 1: She was the president or CEO. I forget what we

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00:21:02,130 –> 00:21:03,530
Speaker 1: called her at the time. She was the leader of

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00:21:03,630 –> 00:21:06,149
Speaker 1: our business in the States for Unilever. I said, I

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00:21:06,190 –> 00:21:09,459
Speaker 1: need you to go to Portland and we need to

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00:21:09,960 –> 00:21:14,340
Speaker 1: really land sort of the right culture and get buy-in

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Speaker 1: from Schmitz. We have this incredible leader within our organization, Jostein,

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Speaker 1: who runs our health and wellness collective. And he had

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Speaker 1: been the CEO of Ben & Jerry’s. She’s like, the

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Speaker 1: way Jostein won over the people in Vermont, I need

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Speaker 1: you to win over the people of Portland. I was like, oh,

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Speaker 1: my God. So I just remember, like, boarding the flight

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Speaker 1: to Portland and being so terrified of, like, what this

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00:21:38,210 –> 00:21:40,500
Speaker 1: experience was going to be like. And it was, you know,

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00:21:40,520 –> 00:21:43,820
Speaker 1: an entirely different kind of company, a lot of young people.

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Speaker 1: And Portland is really different than New York City, I think,

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00:21:46,280 –> 00:21:46,619
Speaker 1: you know, like.

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Speaker 5: I’m an MBA.

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Speaker 1: I don’t think there was any MBAs over there.

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Speaker 3: No, you got to make your own micro brews over there.

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Speaker 1: We literally had kombucha on tap and it was wonderful.

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Speaker 1: I had never tried the booze, but we had peach booze.

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Speaker 1: It was wonderful. I really just loved it. And I

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00:22:01,470 –> 00:22:04,080
Speaker 1: don’t know if they became native or I became, you know,

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00:22:04,160 –> 00:22:06,619
Speaker 1: I went native that way. You know, in hindsight, you know,

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00:22:06,640 –> 00:22:08,800
Speaker 1: that was like one of the great like human challenges

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Speaker 1: I’ve had is sort of bridging those cultures. And it’s

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Speaker 1: one I really cherish. And so I always think back

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Speaker 1: on how I felt getting on that plane and how

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Speaker 1: scared I was. That’s one of the few moments where

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Speaker 1: I felt personally uncomfortable in a business setting and one

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Speaker 1: that I’m glad I got over and I’m glad I

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Speaker 1: had to confront.

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Speaker 4: Well, Portland can be scary.

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Speaker 1: Portland is awesome.

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00:22:28,240 –> 00:22:28,600
Speaker 3: I agree.

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Speaker 5: I agree.

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Speaker 1: I cannot advocate enough for the city of Portland. I

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00:22:31,420 –> 00:22:32,750
Speaker 1: love it. And I love my team there.

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Speaker 4: So appreciate for your insights.

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00:22:34,190 –> 00:22:38,130
Speaker 3: It’s evident that Unilever is going through massive changes to

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00:22:38,310 –> 00:22:42,949
Speaker 3: really leapfrog the industry. And so everything that’s going on

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00:22:42,990 –> 00:22:44,980
Speaker 3: in your organization, I think so many.

487
00:22:44,859 –> 00:22:47,140
Speaker 4: Of our listeners… are three.

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00:22:46,920 –> 00:22:49,640
Speaker 3: To five years behind trying to make that happen.

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Speaker 4: So thank you for leading the way.

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Speaker 1: Oh, thank you. I mean, listen, the challenge is trying

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00:22:53,119 –> 00:22:55,780
Speaker 1: to stay there and keep pushing it. And so, you know,

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Speaker 1: I’m appreciative of, you know, folks like you guys that

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00:22:57,859 –> 00:23:01,460
Speaker 1: are helping to drive really thought-provoking conversations about the material.

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00:23:01,480 –> 00:23:04,040
Speaker 1: And obviously, you know, Rachel, for you as a great

495
00:23:04,080 –> 00:23:05,720
Speaker 1: partner in terms of helping us to keep moving.

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00:23:05,940 –> 00:23:10,560
Speaker 4: Appreciate that. Well, stay tuned. There will be more from Unilever.

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00:23:10,840 –> 00:23:12,200
Speaker 1: Thanks very much, guys. Appreciate it.

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00:23:16,119 –> 00:23:18,510
Speaker 3: Well, if you enjoyed that episode and you want to

499
00:23:18,570 –> 00:23:21,850
Speaker 3: hear from another great Unilever executive, you got to go

500
00:23:21,890 –> 00:23:25,970
Speaker 3: check out the episode we recorded with AC. Eggleston Bracey,

501
00:23:26,010 –> 00:23:29,350
Speaker 3: who is now the global CMO of Unilever. And if

502
00:23:29,390 –> 00:23:32,350
Speaker 3: you want to think more deeply about business fundamentals, go

503
00:23:32,390 –> 00:23:36,270
Speaker 3: check out a recent episode we recorded with Michael Rosenberg,

504
00:23:36,609 –> 00:23:41,090
Speaker 3: who is the founder and CEO of Pym Brands. If

505
00:23:41,109 –> 00:23:43,390
Speaker 3: you like what you heard, tell a friend, write a review.

506
00:23:43,570 –> 00:23:44,550
Speaker 4: Thanks for listening.

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00:24:01,930 –> 00:24:05,910
Speaker 5: Hi, I’m Jackie Cooper, Global Chief Brand Officer at Edelman

508
00:24:05,930 –> 00:24:08,700
Speaker 5: and the host of Touch of Truth, a new podcast

509
00:24:08,760 –> 00:24:12,200
Speaker 5: launching on the Adweek Podcast Network. My dad gave me

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00:24:12,240 –> 00:24:15,919
Speaker 5: this incredibly smart piece of advice. Meet everyone once. As

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00:24:15,960 –> 00:24:18,280
Speaker 5: a result, I’ve met some of the most fascinating and

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00:24:18,340 –> 00:24:21,450
Speaker 5: inspiring people on the planet. Now on Touch of Truth,

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00:24:21,650 –> 00:24:24,919
Speaker 5: we’re coming centre stage and sharing the mic to experience

514
00:24:24,960 –> 00:24:27,830
Speaker 5: stories of truth, insights and visions for the future that

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00:24:27,850 –> 00:24:30,330
Speaker 5: will challenge your way of thinking. Touch of Truth is

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00:24:30,369 –> 00:24:33,920
Speaker 5: available wherever you listen to podcasts. New episodes come out

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00:24:34,119 –> 00:24:36,170
Speaker 5: every Tuesday. I do hope to see you there.