Unilever’s Esi Eggleston Bracey on Leadership, Purpose & Creating Value

Up today, we're gonna be speaking with A.C. Eggleston-Bracey, who is the president of Unilever USA and the CEO of North American Personal Care at Unilever. A.C. was also recently named Marketer of the Year by the Advertising Club of New York in 2022. A.C., great to see you. Thanks so much for joining today.

Ah, thank you for having me. Happy to be here.

Likewise. It, it's great. This is gonna be a great episode. And a, as I was looking at your background, one thing that definitely stuck out to me, and you've had such an amazing career, is that you were previously on the path very early on to becoming a biomedical engineer while at Dartmouth. Why the change of heart? How did you go from there to being in the seat that you're in today?

It's so funny. You just never know what's gonna happen in life. Uh, so first the question is, how did I even decide I wanted to do biomedical engineering? Uh, my father was a math teacher and my mother was an attorney, and I knew I did not want to do what my mother was doing. Thick, thick, thick books all the time studying the law. And she went to law school when I was between 3 and 5 and 6 years old. I remember that. And I love solving math problems. And I think I got that from my dad. But I knew I didn't want to be a teacher. And I loved people. And I like to be challenged. So I just decided, I read somewhere that I wanted to be an MD, PhD in biomedical engineering. Why? People, being a doctor, math and an applied way of using the math, engineering, uh, MD-PhD stretching. And I just decided I wanted to do that, and I knew nothing about it. Like, what is that really? And so I went to school. I had a sense that I didn't want to just do technical work because I liked people. So I went to Dartmouth College and I got a Bachelor of Arts degree in engineering sciences while taking a number of pre-medical courses. And along the way, I did some internships, and I realized I did not like being in the lab. I liked the pencil and paperwork, but I much preferred, you know, working with people, working with teams. And so I said biomedical engineering was not for me. I needed to take a break. I went to an informational session about brand management, and I got super excited. It was about people, learning what made them tick, about problem-solving, working with teams. I was president of my sorority and started a number of clubs on campus. And I thought, oh, that would be fun to take a break. I didn't think it would be a full career, just something fun to do. Right. And so, you know, in '91 I started in brand management and now I've been a CPG executive for over 30 years. You just never know.

Amazing. Yeah. And you didn't just start, you started at P&G, which is obviously sort of the be-all end-all for, brand management, especially for people early in their career. In fact, one common theme we've had at the Speed of Culture podcast is that so many guests have had a stint at various lengths at P&G. Um, what is it about P&G that you think helped prepare you from where you, for where you are today? Like, what are some of the things that you've learned and some of the things that P&G does differently that makes them such an excellent breeding ground for, for talent?

Well, you know, I was there 25 years, so definitely it was more than a stint. I think a couple of things about P&G, it's often viewed as a great place to start and not a great place to stay because it's known for like on-the-ground training. You learn by doing and it's up or out. So it attracts people that like constant advancement. You know, when I do my assessments and what my strong suits are, there's something called Strength Finders and number 1 for me is Achiever. So I'd like to achieve, and I think the culture of P&G kind of breeds that, and so it creates a group of people that like, I'm advancing or I'm out. And I love that, and that was one of the things that attracted me to P&G, and it gives you opportunities. I was an engineering major straight out of undergrad. I knew nothing about business, but I had the opportunity to learn without an MBA. I went to P&G. So, had the opportunity to learn, again, while doing. And so, I think that is something that is treasured, and I think that's what makes it a place that attracts a lot of people that you now see as senior executives because it kind of profiles this achiever mindset. It gives you the opportunity. Of course, it has so many of the big brands in the world, and you learn a lot, and you're able to do a lot.

Absolutely. And, and you definitely did a lot while you're there. I saw that you were also the youngest GM ever in the history of, of, um, P&G. I think that you look at people right now trying to get ahead in their careers, um, what I find is sometimes you have people with a sense of entitlement. They expect to be promoted quickly, but the reality is you have to earn it. You obviously dove in and, and must have done something different than other people that made you advance so quickly in an environment like that. Like, what advice would you give to other people starting off in their careers so they can kind of get on the fast track coming out of the gate, so to speak?

Yeah, I'd say a big part of it was luck. Really? Interesting. You know, you were in the stars, Matt Britton.

Are you just being modest?

Probably, but I do think a lot of it was luck. But the other thing I would say in terms of advice to people that I really believe today is you have to know yourself, be yourself, and then share yourself with others. Because I started at P&G, but it was a few years into it where I really flourished. And that's when I had that aha moment that was like, ah, this is who I am, and the confidence to be myself. So I'll talk— I'm gonna give you some examples because that can sound like a cliché. You know, I joined— I started as an engineer and I joined a company that was a good culture fit. When I see as an engineer, I was very analytical and the company valued data. It wasn't subjective, it was data. And that was a fit because, you know, 1 1 2. Here are the facts with the data. Our industry in marketing would be highly subjective. That was not a company that was a lot of subjectivity. It was fact-based. It was learning how to influence with data. So that was first the culture fit. And so I played that. I used that to my advantage, but that's what the culture expected. Then I realized as I was doing that, I was doing what everybody else was doing. I was good at it, right? I could contribute, and so I did well for a couple of years. But then I realized I was doing what everyone else was doing, and I really wasn't being myself at work. I thought who I was personally was different than who I needed to be at business. I was young. I skipped a grade in school, so I— started working when I was like 20 or something in my first job with a lot of MBAs. So I started young. And so I felt like I had to put on the suit and put on the face and put on the mask to come in every day. And particularly as a Black woman, you know, I had a permed bob and I wore this little neutral suit and I had these little plain glasses and I just kind of had my head down and I was cranking out the numbers, doing my analysis. You know, I did a few things that stood out, did some creative stuff, but I wasn't like, you know, really giving all that I could give. And I went to this training session once, and they were talking about how junior women in an organization couldn't really relate to senior women in an organization. And it's because the junior women, the new hires, were finding the senior women to be almost more male-like than their counterparts. And the trainer was saying, that's because there's so few of them, they have to change to survive. So it's not the fault of these women, it's the organization. And why it's so important, if you believe in diversity to drive organization change, you have to give yourself to the organization. And I remember thinking, those senior women shouldn't do that. And I was like, oh my God, I'm doing that. I'm letting everyone think I'm just like them. And I'm like, and in that moment, like, I decided to make a change. And I did. Within 6 weeks, I had cut off my perm, stopped straightening my hair. I wore a short natural. Went out and bought this convertible red Porsche. It was like used, it was no money, but it was flashy. I would have never done— instead of going out for the shoe shines with the boys, I would say, "I'm going to get a manicure for lunch." And, you know, like, what does that have to do with the workplace? It was like everything. I did that because I was such a diversity advocate, and I thought that if the company was going to embrace diversity, it needed to start with me. It wasn't anyone else's job. It started with me. And the gift I got from that, it wasn't about me helping myself. It was about me helping the company. And the gift I got from that was like a spree. It was amazing. I was so much more of myself. And that's where my career really started taking off. That was not the goal. But I was so much more comfortable in my own skin and I got to practice that. It was really uncomfortable. For the first couple of months because I felt vulnerable, exposed, like I'd been hiding. So that's in the be yourself, like, but it is in knowing myself that I was able to be myself. Like, what were the things that made me tick? And I was being more of that. And as an engineer, what I discovered is I really like creativity. I really like coming up with new concepts. And coming out of that, you know, was creating Febreze, Coming out of that, bringing more of that, let me call it the left brain over the right brain, and knowing that. And then being comfortable sharing my talents, my desires, you know, even some of my soft spots with others who are more senior to me that had more experience that could guide me to, maybe, A.C., you should try this. I remember when I moved from working in soap from soap is what was called laundry detergents, household cleaning products, into beauty. I didn't ask for that. It was someone who knew that I had a personal passion, that I might be a good fit for that. I never asked to get moved to the beauty business. And they moved me to the beauty business, which is where I've really cut my teeth. And that was sharing myself with others. So that's an example of know yourself. Be yourself, share yourself with others. And that really made, in my opinion, the difference in my, you know, my advancement in my career.

I also love one of the things I extracted from what you just talked about, which is be the change that you want to see. So instead of trying to let the change happen to you, if it starts, it starts with you. And I think it's such a great message because you really can't rely on anybody else. But if you start, if you, if you have the discipline to make that happen, Sooner or later, you know, people start to gravitate towards it. And that's how, that's really about leadership, isn't it?

Yeah. It was like, how can I be a champion for diversity if I'm hiding myself? Right. So first, right. The idea is first it starts with you. Look at yourself first, starts with you. What can you do? And that's one of my core values is responsibility, being responsible, taking ownership. So, so thank you for that, Matt Britton.

Absolutely. And so you talked about beauty and, how you really cut your teeth there. And one of the projects you worked on, which is fascinating to me, is that at P&G you led the merger of Coty and P&G Specialty Beauty business. What was that process like for you leading such a large-scale merger? What was the role you played and kind of what did you take out of that experience?

Yeah, so I had spent a lot of years in, uh, beauty and primarily leading the makeup business. And then, um, you know, and leading the makeup business, I was actually a real proponent of, um, P&G selling the makeup business because makeup is a business you can't have as a hobby. It has to be your profession.

It was sort of an outlier to the rest of their brand portfolio, right?

It was an outlier. And so a number of people felt like, oh, why are we being divested? And I was so committed to the business. I, my, my, my excitement and enthusiasm was for the ability to unlock even more growth by being more focused and dedicated. So it was out of that that I was really lucky, after leading the makeup business, to have been selected in what was called the president-designee to run the consumer beauty business for Coty at the time, which included this merger that was a merger of equals, which was formerly P&G's makeup business, brands like CoverGirl and Max Factor, merged with Coty's businesses like Rimmel and several other, Sally Hansen and several others. And so I was selected to lead that joint makeup business plus hair color business, Clairol, et cetera, and then some of the body business, which was like Adidas deodorants and fragrances. And this is a quite big portfolio and it was incredible because there were two companies, formerly P&G and legacy Coty, that were coming together to create a new company. At the time it was called the new Coty.. And it was creating a whole new culture, extracting the best of what P&G had to offer, the best of what legacy Coty had to offer, and then this third culture that would be even more performance-driven, even more innovative, even more agile. And having the opportunity as that president-designee to bring all that together was such an incredible learning experience. The thing about P&G, again, 25 years there, It's such a big company. At the time, the way it was structured, you have a lot of support. You have all this corporate structure. So there are things I came to realize I felt kind of sheltered from the real world. And when I came into this role, the real world was right in front of me. The level of granularity I had of the P&L drivers, granularity and ownership of those.

Really getting your hands dirty almost, right?

Really getting my hands dirty. Things that I just took for granted that were supported and I had to figure out how to get that done. So it was very— you asked like, how was that? I would say it was dynamic, exciting, and personally growthful. It's like I busted the bubble. I got out of that safe haven of all of this support that a big company like a P&G provides, rolled up my sleeves, and and really got to create a new company. You know, as a president-designate—

Almost like a startup, right? Almost like you jumped into a startup in many ways.

That is so astute of you, Matt, because at the time, that's what it was called. We said it was like a startup at scale because it was a startup. It was building the infrastructure, connecting the dots and the wires to make any kind of merger work. Usually when you do an acquisition, you're integrating a company into a platform. This was a merger of equals. So you're creating— there's no predominant culture. So it was really, really exciting. And also, because P&G is promote from within, you're working with a ton of the same people all the time, same kind of cultural values. It's like the sameness, sameness gets recycled from brand to brand, right? Yeah. I mean, there's diversity within that, but it's a lot of the same. This was the first time after all these years I'm working with people from companies all over people that we thought were competitors and like, oh, they're bad because they're like, you get into the real world and like people are people working for all these different companies and different industries even because not only were we merging from the companies and like Cody had a history of people that hadn't just come from Cody, but we hired from other companies. Let's call it a Mars or, you know, a Kraft or not even from CPG. So it also bursted the bubble, if you will, in terms of like working with a whole new diversity of people. And that was also so growthful. And I love people. I love people. So it was personally energizing.

Yeah, I mean, I led a merger of equals before. The other thing that you have to deal with is just there is kind of this element of ego. And well, I'm a VP and you're a VP, and who reports to who, and how do you choose? And oh, you can't just choose the people from, your old company, you have to look at the other people. And it's not easy to manage all that when you're trying to move quick and actually have results at the end of the day.

And my leadership team was probably a third, a third, a third, right? From new people, from legacy P&G and legacy Coty. So we got to frame looking at what was meant to be the new company values, um, how we would work and really get the most out of everyone. And that was such a help for me. And, you know, now working for Unilever, which historically was thought of as a P&G competitor, although in makeup Unilever never played, it has been such a gift because I work with so many different people. I'm not just that P&G person. I'm not— I have the ability to connect with different cultures and use different, you know, not just the P&G framework. Here's a recommendation, the 3 points to support, you know, strategy for— I can flex between that. I can use that and bring that, but I can flex to execution, execution, execution, to collaboration and trust and relationship. So I've learned that in that role to not just use the P&G shtick. And that's the risk when you stay at P&G a really long time. You can get really good at one way, right? And so having enough experience that you're versatile, and you know, the best leaders have versatility in style, some consistency in the core, but some versatility to adapt to different situations. So I loved my training ground at P&G, but I'm grateful for the time that I have spent outside, and it's helped me be a better leader and has been incredible in, you know, coming to Unilever, which has been just probably the highlight of all the places that I've worked. I've probably enjoyed my time here at Unilever the most.

And I'm really excited to dig into your role at Unilever. Before we do so, I just— the one other thing I saw just in terms of your background is there was a gap in, in, you know, in between your 25-year career at P&G and, and Unilever. You decided to take a sabbatical sabbatical for 8 months. Was that a hard decision to take? You know, you mentioned that you have 2 children. Was that, you know, what was driving that decision? And I guess, would you— is that something you'd recommend to other people as they're making a career transition?

I am so impressed, Matt. You have done your homework.

You've been to my amazing team at Suzy.

I would say the short answer is yes, it was a very hard decision to make. And it, uh, there, and it was probably one of the best decisions I ever made in my life. There's two, if I look professionally, incredible decisions I made. One was to live outside of the US. I spent 8 years in Switzerland. Amazing. And I was so scared. And the second was leaving Cody to take a sabbatical and not go straight into another job and take a break. And there's a few things I would say about that, and I'll talk about the sabbatical. I learned from that a distinction that I use of knowing when to say yes and when to say no, which is a really tough thing from— that had been a tough thing for me to do. And I've learned to say yes when I'm scared and to say no when I'm clear. Interesting. And the times when I've said yes, I've been so scared, not knowing what was going to come next. And they have been incredible moving to Switzerland.

That's where growth is, right? That's where the growth is, is going to the unknown. Yeah.

Moving in. You know, I was pregnant. I hadn't told anyone that I was pregnant because I don't think I knew when I said yes to the job. I was expecting my second. I accepted the job before I knew, moved to Switzerland. I had to take a maternity leave. It's like a new country. I have to have a baby. I don't know the language, a new culture to start up. Was so scared. I remember telling my parents and my family that I was moving, holding back tears. Everyone would say, I'm so— you're so— you must be so excited, you're moving to Geneva, oh my God, so great. Oh my God. And then my sabbatical, you know, after having gotten appointed to be into such a big role, which I was surprised that, that I was even selected. I was I was one of two Americans on the leadership team at Cody. I was one of two women, and I was the only American that was a commercial leader. The other American was in R&D. So I just assumed they weren't gonna select me, and when they did, it was a big appointment. And then to leave that appointment and take a sabbatical, like, I was afraid, what would the world think? Maybe they would think that I failed.

That's what I never did, right? You are, you're a high gear professional that's accomplished a lot. Like I can imagine you thinking, well, am I gonna just be disconnected and come back in? It's gonna be hard for me to reenter.

And am I gonna never do anything again? Is that gonna be the end of my— but why I decided to just take a break was because I was on this corporate rollercoaster. I've been doing that for more than 25 years. Go, go, go, go, go. I was living outside of the US. I traveled 75% of the time. I'd wake up sometimes in Tokyo, "Where am I?" Wake up in the Middle East, "Where am I?" I had two children at the time. I'd had my kids. I'd see my kids on the weekend. I just— that was never the plan, but just life happened. And I needed a reset. You know, I needed a reset. So it was a massive timeout. And why it was amazing is I set out four goals, really probably because I was afraid that I would not use my time well. One was I was moving my family to New York that summer. So one was to get my kids settled and launched in New York because one was born in Switzerland, the other moved from the States when she was 3. So they need to get back into being into America. The other was to get to— and run a marathon. So I did that, trained for the marathon, which I think again I did that because I wanted to accomplish something. 3 was to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up, where I would want to work, but not with like the pressure of finding a job. Just the inquiry and the reflection and being— and the part of that was finding my purpose and to figure out what I wanted to do next. I was even open to it being non-for-profit. And then the other was to rest, which was to sleep. And I did all that, which everybody needs, right? I did all those things except for the sleep because it was meant to be an 18-month break, but I ended up coming off of the break because the Unilever opportunity came up and I wasn't looking for an opportunity. I wasn't. And when I talked to Unilever, it wasn't like a job interview. It was more— and when I approached my job interviews, I wasn't being interviewed. I was doing the interviewing because my mission was, what do I want to do when I grow up? Learning about industries, learning about other companies so I could figure that out. And I ended up with an aha when I really went to a workshop to articulate my purpose. I thought, oh, I can do that here. So the first few times I was like, no, I don't think this is going to work. Why would I go to Unilever? I worked for P&G for 25 years. Well, but I do that. Then I had the aha, this is exactly what I want to do, which is use my experience in beauty. My purpose, I articulated, is inspire— inspiring our greatness through beauty, confidence, and well-being. And I saw this amazing, beautiful beauty portfolio with the brand Dove, with Shea Moisture, with brands like Axe, and so many others that I could use to certainly, as a leader, grow the businesses but create more impact. And so I ended up here out of that. Like, that was an intentional choice to have a platform to live my purpose.— and I had never defined or articulated my purpose before that sabbatical.

Absolutely. I mean, one interesting point I just have to just pull back out of what you just said— there's so many great nuggets there— is that when you interviewed for Unilever, you were the one asking the questions. And I often find that the best employees we end up hiring are people who ask me more questions in interviews than I ask them because they really want to work at this company and they want to learn more about it. They're not just looking for a job. They're looking to be somewhere that aligns with their purpose and they wanna know about the culture and so many other things. I just think that's a great point that I never, I never articulate that way in my head is that you should be the one asking questions, not them. If when you're in an interview, if you really know what you want. So I think that's just awesome. I just wanted to say that. Yeah.

And, and I knew Unilever through the lens of P&G and then through Cody. Right. So I didn't know, and I was meeting people, I'm like, these people are amazing. Are they for real? I was high because I had a different view. I got to see all these incredible purpose-driven leaders. Purpose-driven is kind of like, yeah, purpose-driven, but people that were deeply committed to growing the business and having an impact and seeing no trade-off between those two. I saw, wow, this is an incredible platform where I can use my experience in beauty and evolve what was their personal care beauty business into growth pockets of beauty, really driving growth and using that to create impact beyond the products themselves, which in turn creates more product growth. And that's, you know, and there's so many examples of where Unilever does that. One that's kind of timely now, which is the Super Bowl. I don't know if you've seen any of the work on Hellmann's.

I've been reading about it.

I have not seen the work yet, but we'll have to check it out on YouTube right after this. And, you know, and I've been doing beauty work, but I think it just perfectly illustrates what the philosophy is. It's like Hellmann's. You'd say, what is mayonnaise? What is Azie talking about mayonnaise? It's like Hellmann's, its promise is all about make taste, not waste. What that means is we have so much food waste in this country. Like how much stuff do we throw away? Yes, we have leftovers. We overeat. We have so much we throw away. And so what we would love to do is throw away less. But we want to eat food that tastes good. So if you use Hellmann's in the mayo, great tasting. You can make all sorts of amazing things. So there's a Super Bowl ad. You've probably seen it year over year. But out of this promise of make taste, not waste, you find ways to use more mayo, which is sell more, which is what we love to do because you have new uses, help the planet because you're finding new ways to reduce the waste, and build the brand because you do so in a way that's entertaining. So last year—

You're also helping your consumer save money in a market downturn as well.

Oh, I love that. That's another benefit. You're helping people save money. And then you're entertaining people because you see— last year there was Mayo, the football player, like, tackling people who are wasting food. This year, you will see ham and brie that are found in the fridge and then they make a ham and brie sandwich with mayo in a very entertaining ad. So I hope people are able to watch it. Yes.

It's about unlocking a deeper brand purpose. And that's where storytelling lives, right? Ultimately, it's got to go beyond the product or service. Like what is the brand equity pillars, what's the core tenet of it, and what's the story that consumers can sort of associate with coming out of that?

What's the story that drives that, that you have the right to own as your brand? Because not every brand has the right to tell the same story. It's back to your, your promise or your equity in that. How does that drive growth? Because we're creating value for our enterprise, which is a part of what we do. And how are you making an impact on people? You know, you start with this, you know, I'd like to talk a lot about human centricity. Find out what people need and then you match that with the business need and what the planet needs. And then you can create something beautiful when you find what is unique and ownable for that brand. And I use the Hellmann's story mostly because it's timely and it's Super Bowl, so it's top of mind. But it's to illustrate how there's no compromise between growth and impact. And that concept is where I saw, wow, wow, what a candy store or a playing ground to contribute on the beauty and personal care brands, which we've done on Dove, which I've had a chance to do on Shimmer, like so many examples. That's where, you know, Dove co-founding and championing the Crown Act comes from. Like, what are people's needs? What do they need? We all want to feel seen and feel beautiful. But today's society doesn't have us all feel that way, right? Right. If it's because of shape or size, if it's because of gender, or if it's because of ethnicity. And, you know, Black women in particular say this definition of beauty that's in America doesn't look like me. Not my hair, not my skin tone. And by the way, when I'm told that I can't wear braids when I go to school or I have to change my hair to get a job, it just perpetuates that. And so, you know, Dove, one of the brands that I joined Unilever for, where I saw the opportunity, has been championing beauty inclusivity, beauty inclusivity. And it's like, okay, that's incredible. And how can we serve underserved consumers, Black women, more deeply As a part of that beauty inclusivity purpose, Campaigning for Real Beauty, let's understand what they need— what we need, I shouldn't say the— what we need and how can we make a difference in that, that our brand uniquely stands for. And we saw, you know what, we can change. We can be a champion for making it illegal to discriminate against women, men with textured hair saying that they can't— kids can't enter school, adults can't enter the workplace. And that's where the Crown Act came in, creating a respectful open world for natural hair. And just last week, we now have 20 states have passed— who have passed a Crown Act or legislation inspired by it. The first one was passed in 2019. Like, That's the work. That's what gets me excited. And, you know, Dove is one of the fastest growing brands. We've grown high single digits year after year after year through, uh, through this model and philosophy, right, of purpose and impact.

And I think there's a misconception by many people in business that when you, when you delve into the world of purpose, that has to come at the expense of profit. And what I'm hearing you saying is that Purpose and profit are intricately aligned. They're intertwined together if you do it the right way, if you do it coming from a place of authenticity.

Absolutely, and that's why I almost have stopped using the word purpose. Yeah. Because of the people's view that there's a trade-off. And I view it as meeting people's needs.

Right.

We all talk about consumer-centricity. I'd like to talk about human-centricity. You solve people problems. That's what we do. And we solve people problems through product and we solve it through programs that drive impact. And that example of the Crown Act, example of Hellmann's is how we do that. And when we solve people problems, we drive growth. We drive growth. We drive profit. And when we drive growth and profit, we can solve even more people problems.

I think it's so well put. So let's zoom out a little bit. So today, you know, you've been at Unilever now for 5 years and, you're now the president of, uh, USA Unilever as well as the CEO of the North American personal care business. Very big job. But like when you break it down, what does the pie chart of a normal week look like for you? Where are you spending your time and where do you lean in the most, um, in this new wider role?

Uh, I bet you know what I'm gonna say. What I try to do is help people.

That's where I spend my time is help people in your organization, the people who work for you.

Yes, that's how I think about myself as a leader, is how do I help people? And so what do I do? I help people by creating clarity of strategy, meaning where do we go to grow? So in my role in personal care, it's spending time clarifying the choices we will make to grow and then engaging my teams in that to help them understand what success looks like and how to drive impact. And I spend a lot of time doing that. And then I help people identify resources and break barriers to deliver that growth. I help people by being a resource to brainstorm ideas when there seem like there are dilemmas on— I can do A, but I can't do B. I try to find the bridge between A and B to help people because, you know, the longer you've done something like this, the more experience you have to draw from to help people. So a typical day for me looks like a lot of helping people in different situations. And my role as head of the US, it's the same. I help our customer teams, our retailer teams on how to unlock value for our retailers because, you know, growth is about creating joint value, making 1 1 3, understanding a retailer's needs and strategy, understanding ours at Unilever and creating plans and programs that deliver that and drive growth. So I talk to teams and think about what my day was today. I spent time with, you know, two of the teams, the retailer teams in that area, helping people again, spending time with my HR partner who supports people for the US on how we create an incredible employee value equation or proposition at Unilever. Thinking through areas for that, how we reward people. So the thing I do every day is try to help people, and I show up in different parts of the business in helping people. And then I spend time with people like you.

Exactly.

That's not every day, but that's a part. So I do some of that. I'm trying to think what else. I'm reflecting on what I did today. I started at 7. Many times I start at 6, but I started at 7. 7. I've been back to back. My hardest thing is figuring out when to commute back into an office.

Right, right.

Because I started—

a lot of people are struggling with that right now.

Yeah, I start— so let's say today I started at 7. Our office opens at 7. I started at 7. I started before that, worked out. So I took my shower, got ready for 7. I'd intended to, um, commute in for my 8:15 meeting, but there was something I needed to do for someone in between and I lost my commute time. So that's the hard— so I took a meeting while commuting to manage my commute time. And yeah, and that's when I talked to one of our teams. So I hope that answers your question.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. No, it's— I think it's always interesting for people to understand a day in the life. So for sure. So to wrap things up, I mean, we're obviously still very early in 2023. The world is changing so fast. You know, there's all this recent news about artificial intelligence. We're obviously in— it's still an uncertain economic environment. So many things to contend with when you sit on top of a portfolio like you do. So many big brands have so much volume. Obviously there's e-commerce and the shifts that that's happening, private label. What are some of the things that you have your eye on in terms of trends in the categories you oversee that are driving some of the strategies here in 2023?

Yeah, there's so much opportunity is what I would say. And so thinking about how to lean in and expand our business to be fit for those trends. And so there are a number of them. The first one I would say is the wellness trend, the life, the wellness as a lifestyle and how it's evolved. And at Unilever, we think about that expansion in a number of ways. One is the expansion of our portfolio. You'll see it's a lot in the ingestibles, space. You know, we've got brands like Ollie and Smarty Pants and Onnit that are all Liquid IV that we've expanded our— we've created that portfolio over the past 5 years. Then in our core brands, really in our core outside of that, evolving those brands into wellness. You will have seen we've really expanded into bath and body. We co-created a brand with Target called Beloved. It's an extension of Love Beauty and Planet because we know during the pandemic, the bath and the bathroom was an escape.

And so having a sanctuary, right?

Sanctuary and a breath of fresh air, and then the products deliver that experience. That's been an incredible success. So we've really leaned in there, and there are a number of other areas of wellness in our portfolio that we've leaned into in our core. You see it on our brand Dove and how we've We think about wellness in terms of mind, body, and spirit, physical skincare and more. So that's been a big space. Wellness in terms of food. And I talked about Hellmann's as an example. You see vegan Hellmann's, you see so many other healthier, different versions of healthy for Hellmann's. You see it in our ice cream business playing in vegan, et cetera. So, you know, wellness is one of those big spaces. And then the other is community, inclusivity, and connectivity. I mean, that you've seen during COVID and even before that, just a rise of activism and a rise of people wanting to be seen, products that serve.

And have a voice as well.

Have a voice. People having a voice and making sure we have products and programs that service that. Our SheaMoisture brand, beautiful. We don't even call it a brand with a purpose or a mission. We call it a mission with a brand. And deeply serving the Black community and Black female entrepreneurs. There's $11 trillion wealth gap today between— from the Black community and the average. We've invested— we're scratching the surface, but we are leaning in with— we've invested $10 million in Black women entrepreneurs and so many of the programs there. Then so many products, products for textured hair, And when we think about inclusivity, we've done some work on Degree, as an example, to help people with disabilities. You know, we had a product innovation called Degree Inclusivity to help people with physical extremity challenges. You know, deodorant is about confidence, and if you don't have access to deodorant because you have a hard time, physical challenges applying it, so we experimented there. And now actually we have a set of accessories. We found there are different tools you need depending on your physical challenge. We have an accessory kit with 4. You can— if you— to make it easier to twist off a stick deodorant or pull it off. And you can actually go to Degree.com, I think DegreeDeodorants.com, and order the kit. So you asked about growth space. I'd say wellness, inclusivity, diversity, activism are 2 that come to mind. And then obviously the 3rd is tech. You know, tech, tech, tech, tech, tech, the digital revolution. I even hate to say that with AI, tech, data, et cetera. So that's another area that there's a lot that we could talk about there. But those are the top 3 I'd start with.

Amazing. Amazing. Well, we're gonna wrap with that. I mean, the energy that you have, the passion, the purpose is just really inspiring, I have to say. So I'm so excited to have had you on today. To wrap things up, is there one quote that you like to live by? You've captured so many different mantras throughout our conversation today. Is there one that, you know, when your children get older and you're like, mom, what's your one mantra? What would you tell them that, that sort of has driven your career and even your role as a mother?

So when you say mother, that's interesting. And I'm gonna say two, 'cause first what came to mind is trying to be someone else is a waste of who you are. That is my mantra. Trying to be someone else is a waste of who you are. And you know, I believe it's Marilyn Monroe who said that. So, but trying to be someone else is a waste of who you are. So I am a big believer in doing you as you—

and not everybody. Sometimes it takes people a long time to understand that. I think especially in this world of Instagram and, and, and, you know, FOMO and wanting to be other things, you have to get to a certain point of social and emotional maturity to say, you know what, I'm okay with me. And, and that's enough. And the earlier I think people can get there in their lives, I think the more fulfilled they're gonna be personally and professionally.

Do— no one can do you better than you, and that is your superpower. And figure out who that is. And that makes a difference and lean in. The other, my personal mantra, that's what I'd say to my kid. That is like it. But in that, my personal mantra is passion power and it is around passionately making a difference in everything I do from who I am. So those are the— so that's the quote and that's my mantra of passion power.

I love that. Well, we're going to wrap with that. Thank you so much. A.C. Eggleston-Bracey from Unilever. Our guest today. Thanks again for joining us. On behalf of the Susan Attaway team, be sure to subscribe, rate, and review the Speed of Culture podcast on your favorite podcast platform. Until next time, we'll see you soon, everyone. Take care.