March 3, 2025 • 20 mins
On this episode of Spotlight On, Elaine Bermudez sits down with Ari Labell, an independent consultant and strategic advisor to the consumer goods industry and former President of North America for Hain Celestial. Ari shares valuable insights from his illustrious career, revealing the essence of building authentic brands that resonate with consumers.
We also discuss how forward-thinking brands can balance purpose and profitability, strategies for enhancing supply chain resilience, and how AI could revolutionise data usage in FMCG.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Spotlight Up, the must-listen podcast
series where visionary leaders,global executives trailblazing
entrepreneurs and top-tierexperts come together to share
inspiring stories and tackle thehottest issues facing
businesses today, brought to youby the Barton Partnership, an
award-winning global talentsolution organization we
specialize in executive search,independent consulting and
consulting services fromstrategy through to execution.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Our mission.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
To help businesses accelerate their growth by
connecting in with world-classstrategy and transformation
talent.
Tune in and join us as we shinea spotlight on the game
changers and thought leaders whoare shaping the future of
business.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Hello, my name is Elaine Bermudez-Walsh, Head of
Corporate Recruitment for NorthAmerica at the Barton
Partnership.
On this episode of Spotlight On, I have the pleasure of being
joined by Ari LaBelle, who mostrecently was president of North
America for Hain Celestial.
Here he was responsible for a$1.2 billion P&L and around
(00:56):
1,300 North American employees.
Hain is an approximately $2billion revenue CPG company
specializing in natural andorganic products such as
celestial seasonings, tea, terrachips and Earth's best snacks.
Ari also spent over 20 years atUnilever across a variety of
commercial roles with the FMCGgiant, most recently as senior
(01:19):
director of channel and customerstrategy, where he was head of
sales for the ice cream andrefreshments business unit.
Ari, I'm sure that made youquite popular at parties and
it's great to have you with ustoday.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Thanks, lane, it's great to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Let's jump into the first question.
Can you give us an outline ofyour illustrious career to date,
from your time at Penn State toyour current role?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Sure, I'd be happy to .
I'm not sure how illustrious mycareer has been, necessarily,
but I'm happy to walk youthrough the highlights of my
journey.
For me it starts with my dad,who was a big role model for me.
He was a successfulentrepreneur and someone that
didn't graduate from college,and so that entrepreneurial
spirit and mindset has alwaysbeen with me and kind of how I
(02:06):
think about business, and myplan was to follow in his
footsteps.
After I graduated from PennState, through a family friend,
I landed a job at Unilever as aretail sales rep on the sales
team, and my plan was that Iwould stay at Unilever for four
or five years or so and thenfollow in my dad's footsteps and
(02:27):
go do something on my own.
But almost every time that Igot the itch to do something new
while I was at Unilever, I gotthe opportunity to take on
another role and thereforeanother learning opportunity and
experience, and so it kept methere for much longer than I had
originally planned.
In the late 90s, when theinternet was really starting to
(02:48):
become popular and that internetboom was happening, I started
looking outside of Unilever tothe startup world.
Through that process I foundactually an internal startup
within Unilever called theInteractive Brand Center,
internal startup within Unilevercalled the Interactive Brand
Center and I went to go work forthat group.
(03:08):
Which was the remit of thatgroup was to think about how
could the internet create newopportunities, new ways, more
efficient ways for Unilever toreach consumers than just
traditional media at that point.
This group ultimately becamethe very early days of digital
media and was my first role inmarketing.
(03:30):
Up until that point they hadall been sales roles.
From there I went on to anothermarketing role, again another
startup there were multipleUnilever companies at the time
and I moved over to the foodsbusiness business where I was
part of a team that was startingup shopper marketing what would
now be referred to as retailmedia and create and building
(03:50):
that and creating that.
And then from there I movedback into sales and kind of
moved into more sales leadershipand commercial strategy roles.
And then, as you mentioned, thatculminated with my last role at
Unilever, where I was the headof sales and commercial strategy
for the ice cream andrefreshments business unit.
That was the ice creamportfolio that Unilever owns, as
(04:12):
well as, at the time, liptonand Slimfast, and it was around
that time that I really startedthinking about if I should stay
at Unilever or if I should leaveat Unilever or if I should
leave.
Ultimately, I decided to leavebecause I felt as though if I
did stay at Unilever, I didn'tthink I would reach what I felt
was my full potential.
So I made the decision to leave.
(04:33):
And my first stop after Unilever, after almost 20, just over 21
years was at a company calledSapphalo Group, which is the
second largest eyewearmanufacturer in the world, and I
went there to run sales forNorth America.
That was a really interestingopportunity for me to lead a
whole sales team but also reallyto learn a completely new
(04:54):
industry.
At that point all I knew wasCPG or FMCG and Unilever, and so
this gave me the opportunity toreally get into a whole
different industry and learnthat, as well as different route
to markets and go to marketsand different compensation
schemes and so on and so forth.
I was there for a few years.
At that point I decided to goback into the FMCG space and
(05:17):
that's when I moved to HainCelestial and I joined Hain to
build their first sales andcommercial strategy team.
I did that for the first coupleof years or so that I was there
out of about seven, and thenthat led into multiple different
roles.
At my time at Unilever and forthe last year and a half or so
(05:39):
of my time, of the seven yearsthat I was at Hain, I was
president of the North Americanregion, which is about 60% of
their total business.
So that's a little bit about myjourney.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Appreciate that answer.
I actually had recentlylistened to you on a I think it
was a 2024 podcast by BraveCommerce.
Could you maybe talk us througha concept of building
purpose-driven brands?
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Sure, yeah, that was fun to do the Brave Commerce
podcast with those guys.
I think they do a really goodjob with that show.
And for me, I think the conceptof purpose-driven brands is
somewhat overcomplicated, whichI think sometimes ends up being
the case with some marketingprinciples and concepts Really
(06:30):
smart people tend to like toovercomplicate things.
Principles and concepts Reallysmart people tend to like to
overcomplicate things.
For me, simply put, apurpose-driven brand is just a
brand that solves a need that aconsumer has in their life, and
it can be and often is,something really simple, like
maybe it's a better for yousnack or a snack that is better
for you, my kids like to eat itand I feel good about letting
(06:53):
them eat it.
Or it's a household cleaningproduct that cleans well but
isn't bad for the environment orfor my family and what have you
.
It can also take on the form ofsomething at a much higher
order.
I think Dove has done an amazingjob of helping girls and young
women build self-esteem.
But ultimately, I think itcomes down to what is the
distinctive role a brand playsin the consumer's life, and that
(07:16):
often is very simple, but Ithink sometimes people feel the
need to search for some sort ofmuch bigger idea, and oftentimes
when you try to do that, itfeels forced and disingenuous.
So for me I kind of like tothink about regard, whether it's
purpose driven brands or justkind of everything in my life.
How do you keep it simple?
And and and purpose drivenbrands is just one of those
(07:39):
examples where I think it can bereally, really simple and just
does it meet a need in aconsumer's life?
And if it does, that's thebrand's purpose and that can be.
It doesn't have to be anythingbigger than that.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Appreciate that answer and I completely agree
with you.
Simple is, 99% of the time, thebetter way to go.
And we mentioned earlier,you've worked for both Unilever
and Hain Celestial, both of whombelieve really strongly in
sustainability.
So I'm wondering how cancompanies make genuine and
meaningful progress onsustainability and, along with
(08:13):
that, how can they bestcommunicate those efforts to
their consumers?
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Yeah, I think this is an interesting one, especially
in the polarized world that welive in now.
I do think that there is aplace for sustainability or
sustainable brands and products,but I again think it's like
purpose driven brands that itcan be often over complicated
and lack common sense.
For me, it starts with twothings.
(08:38):
The first one is what is thebest thing for the business?
And the second thing is is itthe right thing to do or not?
And it should always come downto those two things.
How am I going to move thebusiness forward and by doing so
?
Am I doing anything wrong bydoing so?
And, of course, if you are,then you shouldn't do that.
Oftentimes, those two things cancome together, but I don't
(08:59):
think that we need to forcesustainability on every brand.
There have been many examplesof that, and whether it be on
individual brands or in certaincompanies or even investment
portfolios and I don't think weneed to do that and therefore we
don't need to communicatesustainability to consumers.
In all cases when there is agenuine sustainability or a
(09:24):
sustainable initiative or agendathat is true to the brand's
core, it's what the brand isabout and it's something that
consumers will value, then Ithink the messaging becomes easy
.
It's what the brand is aboutand it's something that
consumers will value.
Then I think the messagingbecomes easy because it is that
it is the brand message and it'snot something that is tacked on
or forced, like I was saying aminute ago.
(09:46):
Two examples that I would givein this and I think do great
jobs of this one is Patagoniaand the other one is Ikea.
Both of them, they don'tnecessarily trump.
It is Patagonia and the otherone is Ikea.
Both of them, they don'tnecessarily trump it.
Maybe Patagonia does a bit morethan Ikea, but they don't
necessarily trump andsustainability over and above
everything else.
It's just part of who they areas brands, and so that's why I
think those are really goodexamples of how sustainability
(10:08):
can come to life and be messagedto consumers.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
Yeah, I think.
Great answer.
A lot of the things that wetalk about in sustainability is
also specifically supply chain.
So I'm wondering you know howare leading companies
proactively redesigning theirsupply chains for not only
sustainability but alsoresilience in the face of very
much increasing globaldisruptions, and what best
practices are emerging?
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Yeah, it certainly has become a really important
part of the FMCG space over thelast several years.
I should say that I'mdefinitely not an expert in
supply chain.
However, as a P&L owner, Idefinitely have to be
knowledgeable about the impactthat supply chain decisions can
have on the business.
Also, when I was at Penn State,my major was actually business
(11:00):
logistics, which would now bereferred to as supply chain
management, and it was aroundthat time that I was a student
at Penn State that the conceptof just-in-time inventory was
really just starting.
In fact for I think it was mylast two years at school I was a
teaching assistant for aprofessor named Dr John Coyle,
who literally wrote the book, orat least one of the books, on
(11:21):
just-in-time inventorymanagement, and so what I think
has happened is CPG companiesare excellent at finding
efficiencies throughout thebusiness, are excellent at
finding efficiencies throughoutthe business, and the supply
chain is one of the mostimportant areas to find fuel to
grow the overall business.
However, I think in some cases,companies have become overly
(11:44):
efficient to the point of notbeing able to react quickly
enough to demand spikes, andthat's what happened during the
pandemic, and some of thoseareas were really highlighted
during the pandemic.
So there's a few things, a fewareas that I think have emerged
since, and those are things likehaving balanced inventory
throughout an overalldistribution network.
(12:04):
That allows you to still beefficient in terms of inventory
management but also be able toreact better to demand spikes,
especially on A items or themost important items.
Another one would bestrategically using unique
distribution providers, likeretail consolidators, for select
(12:24):
customers.
We had a lot of success withthat with one particular
customer in my last company.
That was really helpful for usand dramatically improved our
ability to serve the customerand, ultimately, the consumer.
And then some other ones wouldbe ensuring redundancy around
key ingredients that you want tomake sure that you always have
(12:46):
on hand, or the ability to getquickly, and then also a
redundancy within manufacturingof certain key items as well.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
Yeah, I know the cocoa crisis definitely caught a
couple of people off guard lastyear or so.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
For sure.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
Thinking now about culture, team development.
I'm wondering how organizationscan build their operational
excellence but also enhancetheir culture and team
development, and I think thoseare probably two of your core
strategic companies, personally,yeah, I like to think that they
are, but to me they're not twodifferent things, they're sort
(13:22):
of one in the same.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
I'm a big believer that everything we do in
business needs to start withculture, because companies,
ultimately, are about the people.
If you ever ask anybody aboutwhat's your favorite thing about
this company or what are yougoing to miss the most, every
single person always says thepeople.
And so people are at the heartof what we do, regardless, I
(13:46):
don't care what kind of businessit is, people are always at the
heart of that, and people whoare engaged and excited about
what they're doing and happy aremore productive than people
that aren't engaged and aren'thappy and so forth.
And so creating a culture thatdrives that kind of spirit, I
believe, is paramount.
Personally, I try to do thiswith a very authentic leadership
(14:07):
style, very transparent aboutkind of who I am and what makes
me tick and so forth.
Some other pieces of that areaccountability.
Oftentimes, I thinkaccountability is thought more
of as a negative thing, whereit's you hold someone
accountable for not doing theright thing or what they were
asked to do, or doing it welland whatnot.
(14:27):
But accountability can go, canbe very positive too, and when
someone does a great thing ordoes, goes above and beyond
holding people accountable thatway, empowering people,
empowering people to makedecisions and then helping them
along the way, and if somethinggoes wrong, well then course
correcting, and that's howpeople learn.
And then the other one is fun,and I think this one gets way
(14:50):
overlooked.
It doesn't have to beeverything you do, has to be fun
and forcing fun, but havingenjoyment in what we do.
We all spend way too much time,or so much time of our day and
our life working.
If you're not having fun, wellthen you know, frankly, why do
it.
And so those are things thatare really important to me.
(15:13):
That, then, to me, drives agreat culture, and that kind of
culture creates high-performingteams.
Those high-performing teams arethe ones that then drive
operational excellence.
So that's what I mean by thosetwo things both culture and
operational excellence go handin hand, and again, I believe it
really starts with culture.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
I'm curious in terms of emerging trends.
What are trends, or maybe evenchallenges, in the global retail
world that you see aspriorities for both companies
and investors?
Speaker 2 (15:46):
The first one that comes to mind.
For me, I don't think it'semerging.
I think it really has emergedat this point, and that's what I
like to refer to as unifiedcommerce.
Unified commerce is oftenreferred to as omni-channel, but
to me, it's bigger than justmultiple channels.
It's really the idea of, or theconcept of, being prepared to
meet the consumer wherever andwhenever they want to buy.
(16:10):
That could be someone on theirphone on Amazon or Walmart or
Kroger at three o'clock in themorning filling up their cart
because they can't sleep, or itcould be in their local shop
right during the weekend ontheir normal grocery run.
Or it might be on Wawa on theirway back from watching Penn
State beat SMU in the firstround of the football playoffs I
(16:32):
had to get that Penn Statefootball thing in there or it
might just be someone doingresearch on TikTok or on Google
or using one of the AI tools.
Now, regardless, to me, theopportunity for manufacturers is
really to think about is tothink beyond the traditional
marketing mix and developsolutions that enable unified
(16:56):
commerce to take place withtheir retail partners, and these
could be solutions that takeall kinds of different shapes,
but a couple that come to mindare messaging and marketing and
really socially driven orderived messaging and marketing
and maybe different packagingoptions or kind of some custom
(17:16):
variety packs, if that'spossible, and then also some
unique distribution models aswell that fit better for that
unified commerce opportunity.
That to me is a really big onethat I think the industry is
getting better at, but there'sstill a lot of room to improve
there.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
Yeah, I can definitely think about the early
mornings of can't sleep andwe're scrolling on the phone and
finding things to distractourselves with further.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
I think we all can.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
And for my last question, hopefully a fun one,
and I'll preface this by sayingyou definitely get bonus points
for a ridiculous but plausibleanswer.
If you could predict the nextbig FMCG fad, what would it be
and why?
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Yeah, I'm sorry for not trying to make this more fun
, and I don't think that this isreally a fad, but I think the
biggest opportunity for the FMCGspace is artificial
intelligence, and what I mean bythat is there is so much data
(18:25):
and information within the FMCGindustry and oftentimes it
doesn't get used, or it getsused sparingly or maybe
incorrectly, or human bias getsin the way, and so what ends up
happening is an overall industry.
We spend way too much time oncleaning data, reporting on that
(18:48):
data, reviewing reports, tryingto find insights and
interpreting what the reportsmay mean and all that sort of
stuff, and not nearly enoughtime taking actions against
those insights and what I thinkAI could do and I'm sure it's
happening in certain pockets,but I have not seen this, at
(19:10):
least in my experience yet inany type of really meaningful
big way and work as aproductivity initiative and we
can then take that informationand find the most important
(19:31):
insights and then go after thoseinsights and really drive them
into mutual growth opportunitieswith our retail partners,
because today there's so muchtime spent on the reporting and
the reviewing of the data andnot nearly enough of actually
taking that information anddriving it into action.
(19:52):
So maybe not fun necessarily,but I do think it's a massive
unlock for our industry and forthe future growth.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Yeah, well, listen, I think, like everybody, if we
had a nickel for every time weheard somebody say AI is the
future growth yeah, well, listen, I think, like everybody, if we
had a nickel for every time weheard somebody say AI is the
future, none of us would need tobe working anymore.
Well, ari, thank you again somuch for making the time today.
It's great chatting with youand hope we can do this again.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Have a great rest of your day.
Thanks, lauren, you do the same.
Welcome to Spotlight Up, the must-listen podcast
series where visionary leaders,global executives trailblazing
entrepreneurs and top-tierexperts come together to share
inspiring stories and tackle thehottest issues facing
businesses today, brought to youby the Barton Partnership, an
award-winning global talentsolution organization we
specialize in executive search,independent consulting and
consulting services fromstrategy through to execution.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Our mission.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
To help businesses accelerate their growth by
connecting in with world-classstrategy and transformation
talent.
Tune in and join us as we shinea spotlight on the game
changers and thought leaders whoare shaping the future of
business.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Hello, my name is Elaine Bermudez-Walsh, Head of
Corporate Recruitment for NorthAmerica at the Barton
Partnership.
On this episode of Spotlight On, I have the pleasure of being
joined by Ari LaBelle, who mostrecently was president of North
America for Hain Celestial.
Here he was responsible for a$1.2 billion P&L and around
(00:56):
1,300 North American employees.
Hain is an approximately $2billion revenue CPG company
specializing in natural andorganic products such as
celestial seasonings, tea, terrachips and Earth's best snacks.
Ari also spent over 20 years atUnilever across a variety of
commercial roles with the FMCGgiant, most recently as senior
(01:19):
director of channel and customerstrategy, where he was head of
sales for the ice cream andrefreshments business unit.
Ari, I'm sure that made youquite popular at parties and
it's great to have you with ustoday.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Thanks, lane, it's great to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Let's jump into the first question.
Can you give us an outline ofyour illustrious career to date,
from your time at Penn State toyour current role?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Sure, I'd be happy to .
I'm not sure how illustrious mycareer has been, necessarily,
but I'm happy to walk youthrough the highlights of my
journey.
For me it starts with my dad,who was a big role model for me.
He was a successfulentrepreneur and someone that
didn't graduate from college,and so that entrepreneurial
spirit and mindset has alwaysbeen with me and kind of how I
(02:06):
think about business, and myplan was to follow in his
footsteps.
After I graduated from PennState, through a family friend,
I landed a job at Unilever as aretail sales rep on the sales
team, and my plan was that Iwould stay at Unilever for four
or five years or so and thenfollow in my dad's footsteps and
(02:27):
go do something on my own.
But almost every time that Igot the itch to do something new
while I was at Unilever, I gotthe opportunity to take on
another role and thereforeanother learning opportunity and
experience, and so it kept methere for much longer than I had
originally planned.
In the late 90s, when theinternet was really starting to
(02:48):
become popular and that internetboom was happening, I started
looking outside of Unilever tothe startup world.
Through that process I foundactually an internal startup
within Unilever called theInteractive Brand Center,
internal startup within Unilevercalled the Interactive Brand
Center and I went to go work forthat group.
(03:08):
Which was the remit of thatgroup was to think about how
could the internet create newopportunities, new ways, more
efficient ways for Unilever toreach consumers than just
traditional media at that point.
This group ultimately becamethe very early days of digital
media and was my first role inmarketing.
(03:30):
Up until that point they hadall been sales roles.
From there I went on to anothermarketing role, again another
startup there were multipleUnilever companies at the time
and I moved over to the foodsbusiness business where I was
part of a team that was startingup shopper marketing what would
now be referred to as retailmedia and create and building
(03:50):
that and creating that.
And then from there I movedback into sales and kind of
moved into more sales leadershipand commercial strategy roles.
And then, as you mentioned, thatculminated with my last role at
Unilever, where I was the headof sales and commercial strategy
for the ice cream andrefreshments business unit.
That was the ice creamportfolio that Unilever owns, as
(04:12):
well as, at the time, liptonand Slimfast, and it was around
that time that I really startedthinking about if I should stay
at Unilever or if I should leaveat Unilever or if I should
leave.
Ultimately, I decided to leavebecause I felt as though if I
did stay at Unilever, I didn'tthink I would reach what I felt
was my full potential.
So I made the decision to leave.
(04:33):
And my first stop after Unilever, after almost 20, just over 21
years was at a company calledSapphalo Group, which is the
second largest eyewearmanufacturer in the world, and I
went there to run sales forNorth America.
That was a really interestingopportunity for me to lead a
whole sales team but also reallyto learn a completely new
(04:54):
industry.
At that point all I knew wasCPG or FMCG and Unilever, and so
this gave me the opportunity toreally get into a whole
different industry and learnthat, as well as different route
to markets and go to marketsand different compensation
schemes and so on and so forth.
I was there for a few years.
At that point I decided to goback into the FMCG space and
(05:17):
that's when I moved to HainCelestial and I joined Hain to
build their first sales andcommercial strategy team.
I did that for the first coupleof years or so that I was there
out of about seven, and thenthat led into multiple different
roles.
At my time at Unilever and forthe last year and a half or so
(05:39):
of my time, of the seven yearsthat I was at Hain, I was
president of the North Americanregion, which is about 60% of
their total business.
So that's a little bit about myjourney.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
Appreciate that answer.
I actually had recentlylistened to you on a I think it
was a 2024 podcast by BraveCommerce.
Could you maybe talk us througha concept of building
purpose-driven brands?
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Sure, yeah, that was fun to do the Brave Commerce
podcast with those guys.
I think they do a really goodjob with that show.
And for me, I think the conceptof purpose-driven brands is
somewhat overcomplicated, whichI think sometimes ends up being
the case with some marketingprinciples and concepts Really
(06:30):
smart people tend to like toovercomplicate things.
Principles and concepts Reallysmart people tend to like to
overcomplicate things.
For me, simply put, apurpose-driven brand is just a
brand that solves a need that aconsumer has in their life, and
it can be and often is,something really simple, like
maybe it's a better for yousnack or a snack that is better
for you, my kids like to eat itand I feel good about letting
(06:53):
them eat it.
Or it's a household cleaningproduct that cleans well but
isn't bad for the environment orfor my family and what have you
.
It can also take on the form ofsomething at a much higher
order.
I think Dove has done an amazingjob of helping girls and young
women build self-esteem.
But ultimately, I think itcomes down to what is the
distinctive role a brand playsin the consumer's life, and that
(07:16):
often is very simple, but Ithink sometimes people feel the
need to search for some sort ofmuch bigger idea, and oftentimes
when you try to do that, itfeels forced and disingenuous.
So for me I kind of like tothink about regard, whether it's
purpose driven brands or justkind of everything in my life.
How do you keep it simple?
And and and purpose drivenbrands is just one of those
(07:39):
examples where I think it can bereally, really simple and just
does it meet a need in aconsumer's life?
And if it does, that's thebrand's purpose and that can be.
It doesn't have to be anythingbigger than that.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
Appreciate that answer and I completely agree
with you.
Simple is, 99% of the time, thebetter way to go.
And we mentioned earlier,you've worked for both Unilever
and Hain Celestial, both of whombelieve really strongly in
sustainability.
So I'm wondering how cancompanies make genuine and
meaningful progress onsustainability and, along with
(08:13):
that, how can they bestcommunicate those efforts to
their consumers?
Speaker 2 (08:17):
Yeah, I think this is an interesting one, especially
in the polarized world that welive in now.
I do think that there is aplace for sustainability or
sustainable brands and products,but I again think it's like
purpose driven brands that itcan be often over complicated
and lack common sense.
For me, it starts with twothings.
(08:38):
The first one is what is thebest thing for the business?
And the second thing is is itthe right thing to do or not?
And it should always come downto those two things.
How am I going to move thebusiness forward and by doing so
?
Am I doing anything wrong bydoing so?
And, of course, if you are,then you shouldn't do that.
Oftentimes, those two things cancome together, but I don't
(08:59):
think that we need to forcesustainability on every brand.
There have been many examplesof that, and whether it be on
individual brands or in certaincompanies or even investment
portfolios and I don't think weneed to do that and therefore we
don't need to communicatesustainability to consumers.
In all cases when there is agenuine sustainability or a
(09:24):
sustainable initiative or agendathat is true to the brand's
core, it's what the brand isabout and it's something that
consumers will value, then Ithink the messaging becomes easy
.
It's what the brand is aboutand it's something that
consumers will value.
Then I think the messagingbecomes easy because it is that
it is the brand message and it'snot something that is tacked on
or forced, like I was saying aminute ago.
(09:46):
Two examples that I would givein this and I think do great
jobs of this one is Patagoniaand the other one is Ikea.
Both of them, they don'tnecessarily trump.
It is Patagonia and the otherone is Ikea.
Both of them, they don'tnecessarily trump it.
Maybe Patagonia does a bit morethan Ikea, but they don't
necessarily trump andsustainability over and above
everything else.
It's just part of who they areas brands, and so that's why I
think those are really goodexamples of how sustainability
(10:08):
can come to life and be messagedto consumers.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
Yeah, I think.
Great answer.
A lot of the things that wetalk about in sustainability is
also specifically supply chain.
So I'm wondering you know howare leading companies
proactively redesigning theirsupply chains for not only
sustainability but alsoresilience in the face of very
much increasing globaldisruptions, and what best
practices are emerging?
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Yeah, it certainly has become a really important
part of the FMCG space over thelast several years.
I should say that I'mdefinitely not an expert in
supply chain.
However, as a P&L owner, Idefinitely have to be
knowledgeable about the impactthat supply chain decisions can
have on the business.
Also, when I was at Penn State,my major was actually business
(11:00):
logistics, which would now bereferred to as supply chain
management, and it was aroundthat time that I was a student
at Penn State that the conceptof just-in-time inventory was
really just starting.
In fact for I think it was mylast two years at school I was a
teaching assistant for aprofessor named Dr John Coyle,
who literally wrote the book, orat least one of the books, on
(11:21):
just-in-time inventorymanagement, and so what I think
has happened is CPG companiesare excellent at finding
efficiencies throughout thebusiness, are excellent at
finding efficiencies throughoutthe business, and the supply
chain is one of the mostimportant areas to find fuel to
grow the overall business.
However, I think in some cases,companies have become overly
(11:44):
efficient to the point of notbeing able to react quickly
enough to demand spikes, andthat's what happened during the
pandemic, and some of thoseareas were really highlighted
during the pandemic.
So there's a few things, a fewareas that I think have emerged
since, and those are things likehaving balanced inventory
throughout an overalldistribution network.
(12:04):
That allows you to still beefficient in terms of inventory
management but also be able toreact better to demand spikes,
especially on A items or themost important items.
Another one would bestrategically using unique
distribution providers, likeretail consolidators, for select
(12:24):
customers.
We had a lot of success withthat with one particular
customer in my last company.
That was really helpful for usand dramatically improved our
ability to serve the customerand, ultimately, the consumer.
And then some other ones wouldbe ensuring redundancy around
key ingredients that you want tomake sure that you always have
(12:46):
on hand, or the ability to getquickly, and then also a
redundancy within manufacturingof certain key items as well.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
Yeah, I know the cocoa crisis definitely caught a
couple of people off guard lastyear or so.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
For sure.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
Thinking now about culture, team development.
I'm wondering how organizationscan build their operational
excellence but also enhancetheir culture and team
development, and I think thoseare probably two of your core
strategic companies, personally,yeah, I like to think that they
are, but to me they're not twodifferent things, they're sort
(13:22):
of one in the same.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
I'm a big believer that everything we do in
business needs to start withculture, because companies,
ultimately, are about the people.
If you ever ask anybody aboutwhat's your favorite thing about
this company or what are yougoing to miss the most, every
single person always says thepeople.
And so people are at the heartof what we do, regardless, I
(13:46):
don't care what kind of businessit is, people are always at the
heart of that, and people whoare engaged and excited about
what they're doing and happy aremore productive than people
that aren't engaged and aren'thappy and so forth.
And so creating a culture thatdrives that kind of spirit, I
believe, is paramount.
Personally, I try to do thiswith a very authentic leadership
(14:07):
style, very transparent aboutkind of who I am and what makes
me tick and so forth.
Some other pieces of that areaccountability.
Oftentimes, I thinkaccountability is thought more
of as a negative thing, whereit's you hold someone
accountable for not doing theright thing or what they were
asked to do, or doing it welland whatnot.
(14:27):
But accountability can go, canbe very positive too, and when
someone does a great thing ordoes, goes above and beyond
holding people accountable thatway, empowering people,
empowering people to makedecisions and then helping them
along the way, and if somethinggoes wrong, well then course
correcting, and that's howpeople learn.
And then the other one is fun,and I think this one gets way
(14:50):
overlooked.
It doesn't have to beeverything you do, has to be fun
and forcing fun, but havingenjoyment in what we do.
We all spend way too much time,or so much time of our day and
our life working.
If you're not having fun, wellthen you know, frankly, why do
it.
And so those are things thatare really important to me.
(15:13):
That, then, to me, drives agreat culture, and that kind of
culture creates high-performingteams.
Those high-performing teams arethe ones that then drive
operational excellence.
So that's what I mean by thosetwo things both culture and
operational excellence go handin hand, and again, I believe it
really starts with culture.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
I'm curious in terms of emerging trends.
What are trends, or maybe evenchallenges, in the global retail
world that you see aspriorities for both companies
and investors?
Speaker 2 (15:46):
The first one that comes to mind.
For me, I don't think it'semerging.
I think it really has emergedat this point, and that's what I
like to refer to as unifiedcommerce.
Unified commerce is oftenreferred to as omni-channel, but
to me, it's bigger than justmultiple channels.
It's really the idea of, or theconcept of, being prepared to
meet the consumer wherever andwhenever they want to buy.
(16:10):
That could be someone on theirphone on Amazon or Walmart or
Kroger at three o'clock in themorning filling up their cart
because they can't sleep, or itcould be in their local shop
right during the weekend ontheir normal grocery run.
Or it might be on Wawa on theirway back from watching Penn
State beat SMU in the firstround of the football playoffs I
(16:32):
had to get that Penn Statefootball thing in there or it
might just be someone doingresearch on TikTok or on Google
or using one of the AI tools.
Now, regardless, to me, theopportunity for manufacturers is
really to think about is tothink beyond the traditional
marketing mix and developsolutions that enable unified
(16:56):
commerce to take place withtheir retail partners, and these
could be solutions that takeall kinds of different shapes,
but a couple that come to mindare messaging and marketing and
really socially driven orderived messaging and marketing
and maybe different packagingoptions or kind of some custom
(17:16):
variety packs, if that'spossible, and then also some
unique distribution models aswell that fit better for that
unified commerce opportunity.
That to me is a really big onethat I think the industry is
getting better at, but there'sstill a lot of room to improve
there.
Speaker 3 (17:34):
Yeah, I can definitely think about the early
mornings of can't sleep andwe're scrolling on the phone and
finding things to distractourselves with further.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
I think we all can.
Speaker 3 (17:48):
And for my last question, hopefully a fun one,
and I'll preface this by sayingyou definitely get bonus points
for a ridiculous but plausibleanswer.
If you could predict the nextbig FMCG fad, what would it be
and why?
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Yeah, I'm sorry for not trying to make this more fun
, and I don't think that this isreally a fad, but I think the
biggest opportunity for the FMCGspace is artificial
intelligence, and what I mean bythat is there is so much data
(18:25):
and information within the FMCGindustry and oftentimes it
doesn't get used, or it getsused sparingly or maybe
incorrectly, or human bias getsin the way, and so what ends up
happening is an overall industry.
We spend way too much time oncleaning data, reporting on that
(18:48):
data, reviewing reports, tryingto find insights and
interpreting what the reportsmay mean and all that sort of
stuff, and not nearly enoughtime taking actions against
those insights and what I thinkAI could do and I'm sure it's
happening in certain pockets,but I have not seen this, at
(19:10):
least in my experience yet inany type of really meaningful
big way and work as aproductivity initiative and we
can then take that informationand find the most important
(19:31):
insights and then go after thoseinsights and really drive them
into mutual growth opportunitieswith our retail partners,
because today there's so muchtime spent on the reporting and
the reviewing of the data andnot nearly enough of actually
taking that information anddriving it into action.
(19:52):
So maybe not fun necessarily,but I do think it's a massive
unlock for our industry and forthe future growth.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
Yeah, well, listen, I think, like everybody, if we
had a nickel for every time weheard somebody say AI is the
future growth yeah, well, listen, I think, like everybody, if we
had a nickel for every time weheard somebody say AI is the
future, none of us would need tobe working anymore.
Well, ari, thank you again somuch for making the time today.
It's great chatting with youand hope we can do this again.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
Have a great rest of your day.
Thanks, lauren, you do the same.
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