Life After "The Big U"

On a crisp autumn morning in NY during an Ascendant session at Advertising Week, I gathered some of my old colleagues from Unilever and moderated a panel about the diverse paths that we’ve all taken, and lessons learned since moving on from what we affectionally referred to as “the big u”. We started by introducing everyone and what they’re doing now. 

Laura Klauberg (LK): 25+ years at Unilever & Head of Brand & Community at Lululemon. 

Now: Her post corporate career included attending the Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative, a one-year academic program for late career executives focused on social impact. She has strong convictions about leveling the education playing field for the less privileged and now spends her time working on improving college access for disadvantaged high school and community college students.

Gail Tifford: Two different stints at Unilever totaling a couple of decades & Chief Brand Officer at WW (Weight Watchers) 

Now: After leaving WW, she reflected on what she wanted to do next and found that what she really loved was identifying core talent and helping them grow in their careers. She’s now a partner at the executive search firm True Search. 

Rob Master:  Recently celebrated his 20th anniversary at Unilever but called himself the least qualified person to be on this panel since he’s only been away for two weeks:-)  

Now: That said, he’s already gotten himself deeply involved with his alma mater, The University of Wisconsin as both an adjunct professor teaching a Media & Marketing class and helping to launch the “The Varsity Collective”, which he talks more about later. 

Jay Altschuler,: A decade at Unilever and Head of Media at Samsung

Now: Jay is now the SVP of Media at Mastercard. He kind of feels like he was meant to be here as it was his aunt, a former executive at McCann Erickson, who 20 years ago worked on one of the most memorable campaigns in history, the Mastercard priceless campaign and inspired him to go into advertising as a career in the first place. 

Geoff Seeley: 5 Years at Unilever in London & Head of Marketing at Airbnb in Silicon Valley 

Now: Geoff is the first global CMO of a fintech company called AfterPay, the Australian company known for its “buy now pay later” service that was acquired by Jack Dorseys company, Square for over 20 billion dollars.  

Babs Rangaiah: 14 Years with Unilever, and then IBM and Paramount. 

Now: Launched an Executive Coaching & Consulting practice called cc:babs

With that, we launched into a diverse set of topics around career growth:

Manage THINGS, But Lead PEOPLE

LK: “As a leader at a company like Unilever that’s in 125 countries, matrixed with all kinds of politics and bureaucracy, the roadblocks can be daunting. So, what I wanted to do was remove those roadblocks and barriers to give this awesome team the runway to innovate and lead. After that, I just championed their work and helped develop them where necessary. I love watching my people be superstars.  There's nothing that is more rewarding to me than to be sitting in the audience while the person that works for you is presenting something incredible and then seeing them soar in their careers.” 

cc:babs take: As a leader, your priority is to build up and develop those that follow you.  And It’s not enough to just tell people what to do and expect that things will just happen. You need to set them up for success and at times that means eliminating barriers and putting enablers in place. 

Take Your Shot!

Jay: “I had gone through the dot com boom at agency.com in the 90’s so I really gravitated towards companies that were going through big digital transformations. Unilever was a company that really understood how to build brands through mostly 30 second ads, but we were tasked with reimagining the whole go to market process through a digital lens. That was career defining for me and sent me down a whole path that led me to lead media for the tech giant, Samsung.

Gail: “The WW role was one of the most incredible opportunities of my career. I got to build teams from scratch, everything from content to ecommerce to consumer products to growth marketing, retention, customer intelligence, etc... It was probably a way bigger job I think than I was capable of, but it was an incredible 3 1/2 years.”

Geoff: “We work in an industry that moves at an incredible pace, so we sometimes have to make it up as we go along. Don't be afraid of that, and kind of lean into it, because it is that sense of discovery, that feeling that it hasn't been done before which should energize you and drive you rather than petrify you. So yeah, don't worry if you’re thinking, what the hell is going on because many of us aren’t sure.”

cc:babs take: It’s important to have peripheral vision and foresight in your career. If you get a chance to lead in a new area that you believe (based on your own due diligence) has great potential, take it. Don’t fear the unknown or feel like you’re unqualified. Because if it’s new, no one is overly qualified yet, and you’ll put yourself in a position to be the go-to person for your company and in some cases the industry at large. And since you’ll be the OG, you may get to even write some of the rules:-) There is a great opportunity for this right now as we speak, in Web 3.0 and the technologies and companies that will drive it.

Be Curious

Jay: “In our business we have the ability to shape the future, seemingly every day, and I don't think we could say that about very many industries.  So, this idea of being a lifelong student and being curious of all the changes that are happening in the world has been something that I've lived by and has been probably the biggest driver of whatever success I’ve had.”

cc:babs take: When most of us first started working, IQ was the most important thing. How smart you were and how much knowledge you had was what mattered. Over time, the importance of EQ became clear and now, the concept of CQ is critical as well. That’s your “curiosity quotient”. You must be constantly learning and staying on top of changes driven by technology, consumer behaviour, etc…to be able to adjust and optimize your business plans and careers. 

Scouting Talent

We were all hired by and worked for Laura directly or indirectly and stayed together as an in-tact team for many years. I asked her what her secret was in getting and keeping all this talent

LK: “This is a hard question to answer because there’s always the hard skill piece, like does the person demonstrate success? are they a strategic thinker? are they a problem solver? Etc... But what really separates this group are the intangible soft skills that are hard to quantify. When I met them, I found each of them to be charismatic, engaging, articulate, highly motivated and had diverse backgrounds that weren’t necessarily typical of UL marketing hires. Those soft skills are why they were able to lead others and inspire them to follow them and to influence other functions and leaders in the organization.  Those were critical skills for our roles in a centralized global function where we didn’t necessarily make all the decisions or have all the budgets. So, for us to succeed in driving digital transformation across the marketing organization, they had to have the executive presence to influence leaders top to bottom within the organization. And lastly, they were all fun. That might sound silly, but fun is an important indicator of likability, energy, etc. I used to ask myself do I want to have dinner with this person? And if the answer was no, it’s very unlikely that I hired them.?

Gail about Laura Hiring Her: I was a lawyer working at one of the brands she oversaw, and we worked closely together. One day she said you seem to have a knack for marketing do you want to come join us? So, I started as an assistant brand manager on Q-tips and the rest is history.  It’s people with the boldness and instincts and who are willing to take a risk on you that find talent in unexpected places.  To put a lawyer into a marketing role showed that Laura saw something in me that I didn’t see for myself. I am grateful to this day for that. 

cc:babs take - In today’s world of talent shortages, “the great resignation” and people trying to figure what to do in their careers, we may have to go beyond the traditional approaches to hiring and developing talent. Look for people with diverse backgrounds, in unexpected places, with transferable soft skills (likability, executive presence, influencing skills, adaptability, etc...) and who are fun!

Resilience

Gail: “In March of last year my husband was diagnosed with cancer and we knew he wasn't going to make it through the end of the year, so I stepped down from my job in September to spend the last few months of his life with him and it was the best decision I ever made. It really put things into perspective about what was important to me. I had been a C-Suite executive at a public company, I'm on a public board, I chaired a number of private boards and I thought, what am I trying to prove? So, for the next few months I just curled up in a ball and did nothing trying to figure out what’s next. And it was during that time, that I realized that what I really loved was identifying core talent and seeing things in them that they may not see in themselves the way Laura did for me all those years ago. And that led me to the career that I’m in now as an executive recruiter."

cc:babs take: Life is inevitably going to throw you curveballs. It’s how you handle them, adapt and come back from them that will define how successful you’ll be in your career and in your life.  

Networking 

Gail: “I don’t like referring to it as networking or creating a brand for ourselves. I believe we are who we are, and I think that comes through in the decisions that we make, the people we socialize with and the jobs we take. It feels inauthentic to me to create a brand personality and to talk to people solely based on their roles. For me, it was always about getting to know people and connecting as colleagues and/or friends. And for the people that I established a real connection with, I didn’t distinguish between work friends and personal friends.”

cc:babs take – Most executives will tell you to separate your personal life from your business life. We all clearly didn’t do that here and I don’t think you need to. I agree with Gail that the best way to build a strong network is to be your authentic self and establish real connections. But there is, however, something to be said about weak ties and polishing how you show up. Not everyone has the charisma and ability to connect so easily, so for some it does make sense to spend some time consciously making yourself more visible in your industry both in person and online. The other thing is that in the long run, the workforce will likely be more “liquid”, meaning we’ll all probably work more as contractors then full-time employees, so having a “brand name” or being visible will be more critical than it might be today for purposes of getting jobs and generating income. 

The Importance of Friends at Work

Laura: “One of the big reasons we were such a close team is that we were genuine friends in and out of the office… I was in the hospital when Jay had his first baby, my kids stayed at Babs’s parents’ house in India when they visited there, I was at Rob's son Bar Mitzvah, I’ve shared many a meal with Geoff, and my daughter was a flower girl at Gail’s wedding 25 years ago. So, what we had was really special. I’m not sure it’s possible to replicate in today’s world, but if you can, you should. It was pretty magical.”

cc:babs take - Out of friendship grows trust, having each other’s back, enjoying the work more, and helping one another above and beyond what’s typically done at work. Sadly, the reason it will be tough to replicate is because of the new workplace structure.  While remote work is great on a number of fronts, we must figure out a way to keep the concept of camaraderie, collaboration, and friendships alive in the workplace. One executive told me that he brings his whole team in one week a month, tue-thur and takes them all out Thursday night. He says that he has gotten closer to his staff from those Thursday nights out, than all the times he sat in his office over the years. This also allows employees to live wherever they want, as the commute from anywhere isn't a problem, if it's only for once a month, and they can still mostly work remote, but still collaborate with one another and develop friendships. We need more creative approaches like this. We owe it to the next generation to be able to experience what we all had! 

Giving back

The one clear central theme was that we’ve all been focused on giving our knowledge, advice, and experience back in some capacity. Whether it be to coach executives, help them get jobs, teach students, or prepare the less fortunate for their careers, the most gratifying thing for us is just to be able share what we’ve been given with others and that’s something that hopefully everyone latches on to!

Laura: I really believe that leveling the playing field in education is what we need to do as a country and so I've been spending a lot of my time working with disadvantaged high school students and Community College students trying to improve college access for them. So, I go to a high school and Community College every week and I spend all my time with 17- and 18-year-olds that come from very different backgrounds than my kids did, and it's been an incredibly eye-opening experience and I love doing it every day.

Gail

I’ve joined True Search, an executive search firm, as a partner in the Consumer practice. I’m at a point in my personal and professional life where people and talent are my passion and my priority. So, this is the perfect opportunity for me to embrace that passion and help organizations grow by unlocking their most valuable asset - their people.

Rob

“I am teaching 'Brand Building in a Digital Age’ at the UW-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication . The students show up every week prepared to engage and learn about the rapidly changing world of marketing and media and to hear first-hand from so many great industry leaders. I have also partnered with a team to launch The Varsity Collective which is University of Wisconsin-Madison entry into the Name, Image and Likeness space (NIL’s). This initiative is rooted in a purpose to support all student athletes, maximize their value in this new era of college sports AND prepare them for life after college with whatever career or journey they choose.

As for me, about 10 years ago, I took a leadership course designed to find my “true north”. And after an intense program, found that my purpose was to “inspire others to achieve their own greatness”. And so, after an exciting marketing career with blue chip companies such as Unilever, IBM & Paramount, I went back to school and got an advanced certification in executive coaching at Columbia University. And I have since started my own company called cc:babs, a consulting and executive coaching practice. I believe that once we elevate in our careers, it’s important to give something back. Actually it’s not just important…it's a must. We owe it to the those coming up and/or trying to improve or find themselves in the industry.  It’s our privilege and our responsibility. 

Babs Rangaiah

CEO, cc:babs

coach@ccbabs.com