Outside In with Charles Trevail

For a century, Tesco has been synonymous with British life. Today, the grocery retailer serves 80 million customers a week from the UK to Malaysia. But in the 2010s the business was faltering and becoming disconnected from its customers. The Tesco brand had become a drag on people’s perception of the quality of the food it sold. In 2014, Dave Lewis joined Tesco to turn the business around and in 2017, Alessandra Bellini joined the team as Chief Customer Officer, charged with revitalizing the brand and re-engaging Tesco with its shoppers. Bellini joins the podcast to take us inside how the retailer turned around its business by simplifying its product lines and shifting its focus towards customers and their love for food. She also talks about how Tesco responded to the Covid-19 crisis with unprecedented speed at scale -- from implementing safety protocols to hiring and training thousands of new colleagues -- forcing the company to flex its 100-year-old “memory muscle” where everyone instinctively knew what to do to help customers and colleagues.

Listen to this episode to learn:

• A brief history of Tesco and how it earned a reputation for innovative retail experiences

• The difference in responsibility and scope between a Chief Customer Officer and a Chief Marketing Officer

• How Tesco changed its brand strategy and simplified its value own-label brands to remove confusion and regain customer trust

• How Tesco responded fast in the early days of the pandemic -- including daily customer sentiment check-ins and launching a multi-channel campaign in 72 hours

• How values guide Tesco’s decisions to take a stand on social and political issues

Many people are skeptical that companies set out to achieve a higher purpose other than profit and serve any group other than shareholders. But John Mackey, founder and CEO of Whole Foods Market, has always pushed back against this notion. In 2013, he co-wrote the best-selling book, “Conscious Capitalism,” which laid out a philosophy that businesses should be guided by the value and good they can contribute to the world, not solely the profits they generate. His new book, “Conscious Leadership,” applies this thinking to leadership and building purpose-driven cultures. Mackey joins the podcast to explain how leaders can become more awake and intentional (that is, more conscious) -- creating greater value for companies and their employees, the customers they serve, and the communities they live in.

Listen to this episode to learn:

• How to lead with love and create cultures in which people can flourish and maximize their potential -- and how it’s done at Whole Foods Market

• What Mackey told Milton Friedman he got wrong about the purpose of a business

• Why applying a “win-win-win” framework to your thinking can open up creativity and innovation and reveal higher purpose

• Why appreciation is the “gateway” to love -- and companies could use a lot more of it these days

• How to apply the Jungian psychological concept of “the shadow” to business and leadership

• How an animal rights activist opened Mackey’s eyes to what needed to be changed at Whole Foods Market

Five years ago, PayPal was considered a dinosaur in Silicon Valley. With an antiquated structure and business model, and new competitors like Apple Pay entering the market, the digital payments company’s future looked questionable. But in 2015, Dan Schulman took over as PayPal’s CEO. He brought with him a philosophy shaped by his experience studying the Israeli martial art of Krav Maga: never stand still. To constantly move forward, always be learning, and think expansively about the challenges you face. Today, PayPal is “a radically different company” than it once was, says Schulman. Under his leadership, PayPal has become one of the most successful tech companies in the world. He joins the podcast to talk about the mission to democratize financial services, why profit and purpose should never be at odds, and why being a “customer champion” means sometimes going against your own business model to do what’s right for customers.

Listen to this episode to learn:

• Why a company’s single biggest competitive advantage is its ability to attract and retain the best talent -- and pay them enough to be financially healthy

• How PayPal created the “Net Disposable Income” metric to measure its employees’ financial well-being, and why other companies should do the same

• Lessons from Schulman’s working relationship and kinship with Sir Richard Branson

• How understanding someone’s life through experiencing it (rather than reading a report about it) engenders the authenticity and insight to design relevant products and services

• Why CEOs shouldn’t be focused on politics, but rather consistently standing for a set of values

Humanity is facing an existential threat. The destruction of ecosystems and rainforests, the extraction and burning of fossil fuels, rising carbon emissions and sea levels -- these wounds to our planet have dire consequences that affect us all. Since 1971, Greenpeace has been bringing attention to these threats through peaceful, direct action and standing up to the people and companies who are destroying the planet -- while risking arrest and harsh penalty. “You have to stand up for what you believe in and hope that people will support you and that ultimately you will prevail,” says John Sauven, the Executive Director at Greenpeace UK. He’s worked in various roles at Greenpeace for nearly 30 years and has been an instrumental figure in the organization’s success. John joins the podcast to talk about Greenpeace’s mission and fierce independence; the interconnectedness between Covid-19, racial justice, and climate; and how governments, companies, and consumers each have a critical role to play in the fight against climate change.

Listen to this episode to learn:

• The current state of the environment and why we’re leaving “the Garden of Eden”

• Why no matter what climate deniers believe or say, market forces are already driving us away from fossil fuels towards cheaper renewable sources of energy

• Why confronting the animal agriculture industry is the next chapter in the fight to save the rainforest and biodiverse ecosystems

• How Greenpeace stands up to multinational corporations like Unilever and BP, while also working with some companies to create positive change

• Lessons the climate change movement can learn from the global response to the Covid-19 pandemic

• How the younger generation is leading, organizing, and acting on climate issues

**Our 100th Episode** Early in his career, Chris Capossela got an inside look into Microsoft that few, if any, 20-somethings get. As a speechwriter for Bill Gates, Chris traveled the world and learned about the company and its leadership through the perspective of the CEO. Today, he’s Microsoft’s CMO, working under the leadership of Satya Nadella. After a 30-year tenure at Microsoft, Chris believes the last six years have been an “awesome transformation” for the company, as it’s shifted from a know-it-all culture to a learn-it-all culture. He joins the podcast to talk about how Microsoft discovered its new purpose and how the company is helping enterprise and small business customers recover from the pandemic crisis, and, for some, enter a new phase of reimagining their business for a post-Covid world.

Listen to this podcast episode to learn:

• How, at Microsoft, it’s all about culture and mission -- and the brand is embedded in that mission

• Why there is no simple path to cultural reinvention

• Why marketers should avoid layering too many high-level frameworks over their mission and brand

• The importance of having a growth mindset inside an organization

• Why Microsoft has changed its physical retail strategy, as more of its products are cloud-based and purchases are made digitally

• Why everything you read about Bill Gates’ humility and curiosity is true

During the years Tiffani Bova was advising startups and Fortune 500 companies, she kept coming up against the same questions: how do we accelerate growth? And, more importantly, how do we recover from slow, flat, or even negative growth? The answers to these questions were complex, and they inspired Bova to write the best-selling book, Growth IQ, which details the ten paths to growth that any company can take. Today, Bova is the global customer growth and innovation evangelist at Salesforce and host of the business podcast, What’s Next! She joins us to talk about how companies can put the systems, people, and processes in place to spot the signs of what she calls a “growth stall” early -- and the many ways companies across industries can take a customer-led, rather than a product-led, path to growth.

Listen to this podcast to learn:

• Why focusing squarely on the competition can be paralyzing for companies - and what they should be focusing on instead

• How McDonald’s recovered from a growth stall by streamlining the menu, re-organizing the kitchen, and listening to customers who were asking for all day breakfast

• How partnerships -- even the most unlikely ones -- are an important and powerful source of growth

• The unintended consequences of proclaiming that you are customer-led, but not actually acting on it

• Why “the fastest way to get a customer to love your brand is to get employees to love their job”

For more information: www.tiffanibova.com

Ninety-five years ago, an economist named Paul "Doc" Smelser was working for Procter & Gamble when he set out to answer a simple question: What percentage of Ivory soap were people using to wash their face and hands vs. for washing dishes? The journey to answering that question was the catalyst for what is today known as consumer insights and market research. Today, 5 billion consumers around the world use P&G products everyday. Trusted brands like Gillette razors. Crest toothpaste. Tide detergent. And, of course, Ivory soap. Now, as COVID-19 has forced the world to stay home, these household staple brands have become an even more trusted and central part of our lives. Kirti Singh is the Chief Analytics & Insights Officer at P&G where he leads a consumer insights department, which has been named as one of the world’s most innovative client-side research teams. Kirti joins us to talk about the philosophy and purpose behind P&G’s insights team, and how advancements in technology and research methodologies have transformed how they understand human behavior, emotion, and consumption.

Listen to this episode to learn:

• How the pandemic has changed P&G’s consumer research methods and accelerated virtual engagement

• How P&G uses consumer insights to discover growth opportunities, keep a consumer focus within the business and its brands, and activate growth drivers

• How advancements in data analytics, machine learning, behavioral sciences, and other methodologies have transformed P&G’s research capabilities

• Why Tide Pods are an example of “constructive disruption”

• How the economic downturn will affect consumers’ choices and likely move them towards brands that are trustworthy, reliable, and provide value

• Why being a successful insights leader requires curiosity, a growth mindset, and continuous reinvention

It seems impossible: replace the animal-based meat industry with plant-based alternatives by 2035. But that’s what Impossible Foods believes it will do. Why such an audacious mission? Because the animal agriculture industry is depleting the world's natural resources and releasing harmful greenhouse gases into our environment. The key to the fulfilling Impossible’s mission isn’t targeting vegetarians or vegans, but hardcore meat-eaters. Give them everything they crave about meat...just make it plant-based. Impossible Foods CFO David Lee joins the podcast to talk about how the company is taking a product- and market-based approach to solving the climate crisis; and the company's rapid growth in the U.S. and globally, partnering with chains like Burger King and Starbucks, and expanding into grocery retailers like Trader Joe’s and Walmart.

Listen to this podcast to learn:

• Why the plant-based food industry is poised for multi-billion dollar growth over the next decade

• How the animal agriculture industry is contributing to the climate crisis, and why plant-based meat is the solution

• The molecule called “heme” that makes meat taste like meat, and how Impossible was able to recreate it in its cravable plant-based meats

• The difference in marketing to meat-eaters at a restaurant vs. in the grocery aisle

• How support from celebrity chef David Chang and Katy Perry’s “Impossible” Met Gala burger-gown raised awareness and helped create a loyal following

America was founded on principles of justice and equality. Yet, it has never lived up to these ideals in regards to how citizens of color are treated. The same can be said for many U.S. businesses, which, despite investing billions in ‘diversity and inclusion’ training programs, have also failed to truly diversify their workforces and leadership teams. Pamela Newkirk is an award-winning journalist, an NYU professor of journalism, and author of the critically-acclaimed book Diversity, Inc., which examines the efforts over the last 50 years to diversify the American workforce. She joins the podcast to talk about corporate America’s diversity problem, and why she believes we’re living in a “moment of reckoning” where we might be finally ready to confront the reality of racism and start fostering genuinely diverse workplaces.

Listen to this podcast to learn:

• A brief history of systemic racism in America, and why the nation is becoming “post-White,” which makes race more of an issue than ever

• Why the everyday decisions made in our racially homogeneous worlds perpetuate the system of racism and injustice and denies opportunity to non-white people

• Reasons why the most progressive industries like entertainment, academia, and fashion are the least diverse

• How, after a 2000 landmark class-action discrimination lawsuit against Coca Cola, the company embarked on one of the most successful diversity transformations ever seen in corporate America

• The delusion of the colorblind or post-race mindset that many progressives fell into after the election of Barack Obama

• The reasons why diversity programs and mandatory anti-bias training in companies often do more harm than good

• Why progress comes not from having more strategies for change, but rather the will to change

The importance of this moment isn’t lost on Scott Uzzell, the CEO of Converse. “How do I bring the unique experiences of being a Black man in America to help people around me, other executives, society, the consumers that care about and love our brand...to make us better?” Uzzell also recognizes that, as the CEO of a global brand, he has a responsibility to listen and learn from others from diverse backgrounds with different perspectives -- and then, take bold action to create a more diverse and inclusive culture inside Converse and fight injustice and inequality outside of it. Uzzell joins the podcast to talk about what this moment means for him, what he’s learned while leading his company through unprecedented change, and why he thinks we’re about to see way more progress than we've seen before.

Listen to this podcast to learn:

• Why the urgency of this moment demands that all CEOs “get off the couch” and do something

• What Uzzell learned about being “color brave” from Mellody Hobson, Vice Chair of the Board of Starbucks

• Why companies must confront and address tough political and racial issues

• How influencers help shape the Converse brand in local markets and inspire product innovation

• Why the original basketball sneaker is returning to the NBA -- and aligning with creatively-driven athletes like Draymond Green and Kelly Oubre Jr.

• The effects Covid-19 has had on the business and why Uzzell is optimistic about the future