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What does it take to lead - and live - when the world won’t sit still?
Hosted by executive advisor and bestselling author Jimmy Allen, Founder’s Mentality: The CEO Sessions is a leadership development podcast that goes beyond the boardroom.
Each episode features a conversation with a prominent CEO—from the likes of Audible, Walmart, and AWS—who reflects on the lessons that reshaped their business and their personal growth. But you won’t just hear from business leaders. Jimmy brings in artists, musicians, comedians, and other unconventional thinkers who explore the same lessons through a completely different lens.
These conversations surface aha moments from some of the world’s most influential leaders and thinkers. Intensely curious and open to new experiences and perspectives, they seek inspiration in unexpected places as they constantly reinvent their businesses and themselves.
In turn, you’ll walk away with a fresh take on how we all grow as individuals, what we are capable of building, and the legacy we leave behind.
So, whether you’re a CEO, a rising executive, or simply passionate about leadership, influence, and business at scale, this podcast will challenge and inspire you—one story at a time.
About the Host:
Jimmy Allen is an Advisory Partner at Bain & Company with over 35 years’ experience advising leading organizations. He’s the author of multiple best-selling books on growth and leadership and the host and founder of Bain’s Global CEO Community Forum. James is a regular speaker at global business events, including the World Economic Forum, and serves on the Botswana Economic Advisory Council. Outside of consulting, James started his own record label (Abubilla Music) in 2008 and supports Singing Wells, a project dedicated to preserving Kenyan village music.
Bain & Company:
Founder’s Mentality: The CEO Sessions is brought to you by Bain & Company, a global consultancy trusted by the world’s most influential business leaders. With decades of experience guiding organizations through growth, transformation, and leadership development, Bain’s executive insights offer what it takes to lead at scale.
- You've gotta run all the processes
and deal with all the shareholder issues,
the various stakeholder issue.
Of course, you know,
that's part of the day job.
But I think it's really
dangerous for a CEO
when he loses sight
of what actually the
company's trying to do.
- All too often, size
becomes a disadvantage.
Outside, insurgents start
to run circles around us.
Inside, the endless meetings
and PowerPoint slides,
well, they start to destroy our souls.
What about those pesky customers?
Well, they feel more like a distraction
from our urgent meetings or
change management seminars.
And of course, horizontal
activities matter,
because that is where the
benefits of scale come from,
but they're not enough.
We must also remain maniacally vertical.
We've got to keep our connection
directly with our customers
and the frontline that serves them.
How?
Well, perhaps the answer lies,
I don't know, in courting
plumbers, patching lightning,
or maybe even putting a man on the Moon.
(cheerful music)
I'm Jimmy Allen,
and this is the "Founder's
Mentality: The CEO Sessions."
And today, we're speaking
with David Haines.
He's CEO of the Flora Food Group.
His career spanned across
founder-led companies like Mars,
fast tech startups like
Vodafone in the early days,
and large companies like Koch.
He then moved into private
equity-backed companies,
first serving as CEO of
Grohe for almost a decade
before taking the helm at Flora.
Across industries and continents,
David has built brands
by staying vertical,
connected to customers in the front line.
And that mindset is something
that he's been working on,
well, since his teenage
career as a cheesemaker.
- So I started my frontline
belief, I suppose, pretty early.
When I was a young teenager
living in Somerset,
I started working in supermarkets.
I worked on the shop floor of a factory
when I was a student
making cheese in Ilminster.
And of course, in my
early days in my career,
I was in sales and learned the
power of talking to customers
and what I would call real people.
But I think the defining
moments really came later,
you know, when I was in my mid-20s,
when I joined Mars, Incorporated
on the pet food side in Germany.
And I had the very, very good fortune
of being in a situation which
was quite unique, right?
I joined in 1989,
and it was just as the
Berlin Wall was coming down.
And so, suddenly, we had
17 million new consumers
that we had to market
and sell our products to,
get distribution with.
Shops in East Germany were not
a great big, large Walmart.
They were a little
50-square-meter, if you were lucky,
mom-and-pop by and large.
So they couldn't take the whole range.
And so there was no
point in us doing stuff
that worked in the West Germany.
We had to do stuff that
worked in East Germany.
And the only way you could
do that was going over there
and talking to people, and
all that to be organized,
we know which products we were gonna sell,
how are we gonna advertise?
I mean, people have been
seen advertising for years,
I suppose, but how are we
gonna focus our distribution,
get our sales forces
there, get it all built?
So it was like very pioneering
to have suddenly this country.
You know, it had the same name,
I was about to say same language,
but it wasn't even
exactly the same language,
and it's certainly a
different cultural history.
So it was just, you know,
through all of that.
And the other thing, right,
was I was very fortunate
in those early days to meet
the owners of Mars, Inc,
John Mars and Forrest Mars.
I remember presenting to
John as a 29-year-old.
Candidly, I was very nervous.
I mean, he was the owner
of one of the largest
companies in the world.
Given that we turned the sales
around of what we were doing,
my brand, which was called
Chappi back in the day,
dog food, it went fine.
A few months later, John
came back for another visit
and somehow asked him to go
for a walk through the car park with me.
And when I came back, my boss asked me,
"So what job did he offer you?"
And I don't know, we just got on.
And I think he also liked the, you know,
the enthusiastic frontline focus
of what we were trying
to do with his friends.
- What's interesting about those stories
is we often sit in boardrooms
and talk about how our
consumers experience our brands.
And then there's the
reality of in the frontline,
the actual experience is very often driven
not by what the brand owner wants,
but what the stores wants,
the recommender in between, et cetera.
You must have taken that
experience to Vodafone.
- Well, when I got hired by
Julian Horn-Smith and Christian,
you know, that my task
was, global brand director,
and my task was to create a
global brand within three years.
And we went about it and
we defined the positioning
and we worked out a vision
of where we wanted to get to,
but we all had to do
with intangible assets.
So suddenly we had to
migrate these 250 brands
under the one Vodafone brand, right,
across basically all parts of the world.
And we had partner markets
and we had direct markets
like here in Germany.
So we created a vision for the brand,
what we wanted the brand to stand for.
We thought about the tools, but of course,
you know, you had to change
the name in the screen,
you had to change the service,
but you had to change the stores.
There were thousands of stores
branded other things across Europe,
and we had to think about things
like with the new phones
that were coming out,
we had to put people in the stores
to get them to put five names
of your friends in the phone
'cause it seems inconceivable today.
But back then, just
getting your friends names
into the phone so you could
talk with them spontaneously
wasn't available.
And Chris and Julian were
inspired, I believe, in many ways
to bring in someone with
consumer goods experience
to try and do this, to create this brand.
And we achieved what we wanted,
but we had some great tools, right?
We had a great simple idea.
Often the best marketing ideas,
or first of all, these global jobs,
you can only win with great ideas.
You don't win with great PowerPoint.
You have to have great ideas
based on a strong strategy and insight.
Ours was ask a simple human question.
How are you? How are you doing?
Because how you're doing
is the beginning of every conversation.
And that simple insight that
we tried to then bring to life
through various, you
know, advertising tools,
the Dandy Warhols, we did the music,
went on to do a number one,
we sponsored Formula
One, sponsored Ferrari.
We tried to make our brand
the most relevant brand of the day.
And I think people would
say back then it was,
we achieved our objective.
- I love this idea of relevance
and the pride you took,
and I totally agree
that at for its moment,
you know, at the beginning
of the mobile industry,
Vodafone is probably
the most relevant brand.
And so I just even love to
go back to that one idea.
How did you get a retailer
to help a consumer put in
five names in a mobile phone?
- The retailers all were
those days interested
in selling handsets.
Their whole raison d'etre
was to sell more handsets.
And so the idea of having
more modern handsets,
and I don't know if you
remember when we came up
with this concept called Vodafone live!
It was the first flip phone with a Sharp.
And we pointed out to
these retailers, right,
the way you sell a new handset
is to offer new services,
services that then did not exist.
And it may seem crazy today in 2025
that the service was to put in five names
so you could talk a bit more,
but everything has to
start somewhere, right?
And it did start with that simple service.
So, you know, it was really exciting,
completely irrelevant in 2025.
So relevance to the consumer
is all about the here and now.
As we say in the world of private equity,
we have to play the ball as it lies,
not how we'd like it to lie.
- If you're not the most
relevant brand in the room,
you're invisible.
Incumbents lose to insurgents
because PowerPoint slides
become more important than customers.
They lose their obsession with
the full customer experience.
That's every retailer, every
gatekeeper, every single hand
between you and the end customer.
What David did was
simple. He brought data.
He showed the retailers
that if they wanted to sell
more high margin handsets,
they needed to help consumers
use all the features on the phone.
One initiative, walk out talking.
Get the consumer to put the numbers
of friends and family in
their phone, and guess what?
They call friends and
family from their phone.
He wasn't just shifting boxes,
he was creating experiences.
And guess what? David did
it again with Vodafone live!
And again, you have to
remember how long ago this was.
Where combining Vodafone's network
with a shiny new Sharp handset
and a suite of services
transformed the mobile industry.
The result, one and a
half million customers
in seven months, and Vodafone went
from just another mobile operator
to the most relevant brand in mobile.
And that's vertical focus.
It isn't just thinking
about how your product
or ad leaves your office.
It is caring deeply about
how it hits the customer.
Now in 2004, David entered
the private equity arena,
this time as CEO of Grohe, and
armed with a vertical mindset
and a frontline focus,
he had a single goal,
revive that brand.
- Grohe was a great trademark
available mainly in Europe,
but it was not a great brand.
It didn't have a brand essence
really other than quality,
a little boring but reliable.
So that was a good platform
off which we could build,
so my predecessors had done a good job.
And we created what we used to
call real relevant innovation
that we thought consumers
would pay a premium for
'cause our big danger was the
Chinese and cheap imports,
which would copy PR designs very quickly.
As you are selling these products
primarily through what we
would call today an influencer,
an influencer could be
a plumber, you know.
You floors, it's broke,
you're having a new bathroom,
the plumber will come around
and recommend something,
or an architect if you're doing it
with an architect or an interior designer,
all three influencers.
We tried to come up with this concept
called Moments Of Truth.
What was the point that
made us different, special,
and better than the alternative
expressed in a consumer friendly way?
So, for example, the core
benefit as it turns out of Grohe
was the what they called the cartridge
in the middle of the tap,
which made it move very
softly and very gently,
and by the way, also,
when it's 30 years old.
This concept of SilkMove was born.
Another one that we
had in our thermostats,
we had cold water run around the outside
so that you didn't scold yourself
on the hot water on the inside.
The moment of truth was called CoolTouch.
And there was a concept
that suddenly, very simply
gave the plumber, the
architect, the designer a reason
to recommend our products to the consumer.
And hey, yes, Grohe may be
a little bit more expensive,
but in the end you're getting
a true relevant consumer benefit.
- The story of Grohe is amazing.
I wanna pause for a moment
to give people context.
There was a massive
influx of Chinese goods
selling often at, you know,
60, 40, 20% of the price
that a good Grohe product would sell.
And a lot of people from the
outside were advising you,
you know, "Buddy, you're at
the wrong end of this market."
It's about to commoditize,
and the CEO has a choice.
I accept that or I fight it
and recommit to the
differentiation, that's our product.
And I think Moments Of
Truth is this great idea
that you introduce that said,
"Let's assert our right to be premium
and help the consumer understand why."
And I think it's so easy
for CEOs at that moment
to give up on their category.
- I went there with the mission.
The private equities industry
was renowned at the time
for the ability to cut costs.
But growth, I think it's fair
to say without offending anybody,
was not one of their strengths.
We wrote the manifesto
to grow and cut costs,
and the only way we could
grow was to reframe the brand,
give the consumer benefits
and reasons to pay the
premium, Moments Of Truth,
and do that over time with great design.
And that's kind of what we did.
And by the way, the plumber in
the end was easy to convince
because the plumber certainly in this
wasn't really interested in
selling cheap Chinese stuff
because he or she knew six,
nine, 12, 18 months later,
the consumer would be calling them back,
asking to break open their
walls 'cause guess what?
Wasn't working or leaking.
And so actually in the end,
there was a consumer insecurity
that we could, of course,
reassure with a quality brand.
As I said, our predecessors did a good job
building a reputation for quality.
We brought design and Moments Of Truth
and reasons to believe into that.
And so we were able to build on that
and create this lifestyle
brand which went truly global.
- What I love about David is
that he's a straight shooter.
Real growth doesn't
come from cutting costs,
it comes from finding
those moments of truth
with the customer.
And someone else who
knew this incredibly well
was Adrian Gore, Founder
and Group CEO of Discovery.
In the early '90s when Discovery mostly
was focused on health insurance,
South Africa faced a
crisis, a lack of doctors,
high levels of disease,
and strict regulation.
Gore's mission was clear,
make people healthier and
safeguard their lives.
But his master stroke was
to flip the insurance model.
Rather than just covering
illness, he set out to prevent it.
He launched Vitality,
a program that promotes healthier choices.
Its promise, if you get healthier
and make it cheaper for us to cover you,
we'll share the benefits.
Eat well, work out, get rewards.
This shared value model,
healthier customers,
equal stronger profits,
became Discovery's growth
engine, and it worked.
Discovery expanded beyond South Africa
and is now in more than
40 markets worldwide.
That's vertical orientation.
Study what your customers are doing
and find out new ways to help.
By the way, my producer's
gonna kill me on this,
but I've gotta tell you guys a fun fact.
So about a decade ago, I
was doing a founder's forum
in South Africa, and Adrian
Gore from Discovery was there,
but so too is Robbie Brozin,
the legendary founder of Nando's.
And it turns out both of them
had gone to the same primary
school at the same time
and took the same bus, bus number four.
And in my calculation,
that bus driver has created more founders
than any other bus driver on earth.
Come on, prove me wrong.
You know, the stories of Vodafone grow
and Discovery are about the same thing.
Understand your customer needs
and make something
insanely relevant to them.
And that's not just a
lesson for telecom or TAPs.
Our next guest, Iona Gaskell
who develops artist
identities at Abubilla Music,
puts it even more starkly.
Before you can connect with fans,
you need to know exactly who you are.
It's a conversation.
At Vodafone, David began
with a simple slogan,
how are you?
For Iona, the starting
point's deeper, who are you?
- My role is head of artist
voice as well as outreach.
So that is both working with artists
when we first sign them to help them
and us figure out who the
hell they are as an artist.
And the first step of
what we're trying to do
is build their, like, artist manifesto.
So we try and create a
kind of keystone document
that articulates a mission
statement and their values
and, you know, the characteristics
that feel most core to them,
that they want to
communicate with the world,
and also the interesting
frictions within that personality
that are actually what makes them unique.
- You're talking about
what are conflicts inherent
with them, or what did you mean by that?
- In that initial discovery phase,
there is often a pattern emerges
that there are a few conflicts
and tensions within their character.
If as a label we came along and said,
well, you can't be both a sort of,
like, really thoughtful,
intellectual activist artist
and also a goofy, playful nerd.
And we might say you have
to pick one or the other,
smooth out those contradictions,
but in doing so, you flatten the surface
and you create something
too smooth and impenetrable
that doesn't have the
eccentricities and quirks
that actually make interesting
people and interesting art.
- You know, in business we'd say,
where does the customer come
into all this brand development.
In your artist voice work, you know,
kind of where do the fans come in?
- Well, fans are obviously
so important to artists,
but you can't make art via focus group.
What I think is really important
is starting with them figuring
out so strongly who they are
and then what is the world
that they're trying to
build around their art.
And it's into that world that
we wanna invite people in
and find the people who
are going to love it there.
It probably means
that there are gonna be
other people who hate it.
You don't want to build an artist world
that everybody thinks is kind of fine
because that way you are not going
to really find your people
that you really want
to be in dialogue with through
the music that you're making.
- What has been your learning
once that artist actually
starts creating music
and releasing it into that world?
- We have found that it tends to be
that you then need to start adjusting.
An example I can give is, an
artist that I've worked with,
they had an idea of
everything they put out
being incredibly highly
curated and intentional
and kinda high production
value, very glossy.
And so for the first set of releases,
that's what we went with.
We sort of planned those kinds
of pieces of storytelling,
and they did okay,
but the thing that landed
was a three minute video
that they just recorded on their phone
when they were kind of
mad about something,
like they'd seen something
that pissed them off
and they just recorded a reaction it
that through which their
real character came through.
It was speaking to these topics
that they really felt
were underrepresented,
but there was an immediacy in it
that is what really resonated with people.
So much work has to go into
laying that groundwork.
Then it's kind of like catching lightning.
You cannot predict the moment
that the lightning bolt
is going to strike.
You just have to be really prepared
so that when it happens you can respond
with your full authentic self.
And that is what will make that moment
be the catching lightning
or the moment of truth.
That's what will make it be real.
- You know, it's that phrase
again, moments of truth.
For Iona, it's when an artist's music
not only reaches the audience
but truly resonates with that audience.
And for David it's when a product
proves why it's different,
why it's special, why it's
better, and does so in a way
that the customer really understands.
Different worlds but same concept,
it's kind of the moment people get it.
But, you know, once you spark that moment,
the hardest act of leadership
is keeping it alive
because your success means you grow,
and that grow means the pole of horizontal
starts taking you outside the window
where you're looking at customers
and back into those internal meetings,
back into the endless seminars.
So the question for David was,
how do you stay vertical,
connected to the customer
when the pole of complexity
keeps dragging leadership sideways?
- I've always worked since I've
been in leadership positions
with these manifestos,
and you've seen over the
years manifestos that grow.
You've seen them for Flora
Food Group, various versions.
What is a manifesto?
A manifesto tries to say,
what is our true vision?
What is our purpose? What is our mission?
What are our annual targets?
What are our values?
What are we good at?
What are we not good at?
And what are our key imperatives
broken down into actions?
I try and always ask the question,
what's the equivalent of the
Kennedy put a man on the Moon
and bring him back safely
by the end of the decade
when he went to NASA in 1963?
And so I've always tried to do that,
create a very clear purpose
for our organizations,
and at the end, the consumer
is always in the middle,
because what's business about?
It's about selling more stuff
to more people more often
at the end of the day.
And so as a CEO, I think
it's very important
that you stay on this vertical focus,
have the voice of your customer
in discussions that you're talking about.
And yes, of course, you've
gotta run all the processes
and deal with all the shareholder issues,
the various stakeholder issues.
Of course, that's part of the day job.
But I think it's really
dangerous for a CEO
when he loses sight
of what actually the
companies are trying to do.
I pilgrimage over regularly
to Bentonville in Arkansas
to talk to the guys at Walmart
or talk to the German retailers.
I was down in Cologne
recently talking to Ava.
Yes, of course, I still do that
because I learn so much, right?
And we invite our customers
to our customer experience center
where we show them our culinary products
and we try and point out
how relevant they are
and how this is not just
a simple then tap company,
now margarine company.
What we're offering is
solutions to problems
with Moments Of Truth,
with relevant brands,
with relevant products,
with relevant ideas.
And so there is a red thread
through these manifestos
of relevance, purpose, vision, mission.
I'm a big believer in values.
And again, at Flora Food Group,
you know, we have three values,
performance, passion, and care.
Clearly we're a
performance-driven organization,
but we're also a caring organization.
You know, we saw that
how important that was
through COVID and the like.
And I think as you get older,
you learn a bit, right, hopefully.
When you hang around good people,
if you're not stupid, you
do pick up the odd thing.
- What do you want the
new 25-year-old David
to get from the manifesto?
- If I think back to the mid-1980s,
I was inspired by John Forrest Mars,
and in fact many of the other Mars leaders
with whom I'm still friends.
And why was I inspired?
I believed in what the
company was trying to do,
I believed in their values,
I believed in the bigger picture.
And if my manifestos, our
Flora Food Group manifestos
can deliver the same inspiration
with where the company's trying to go,
with what we're trying to do,
if I can inspire young men and women
to sign up and come
with us on that journey
and they can find their home
in that environment, right,
which is a performance-driven one.
And let's be clear about it.
A performance-driven organization
is not for everybody.
And by the way, I'm also
very clear about that.
It's not a judgment of someone
if they don't want to go for it,
but, you know, frankly, we like people
who wanna play the top
of the champions league,
and if you don't want to, that's fine,
but please go and play
somewhere else, that's okay.
- How do you connect with
those young men and women
that you're trying to inspire?
What's the process by
which you talk to them?
- Well, still I try and
walk the talk, right?
I mean, I still visit shops
and I still do what is
called a red is good call
where the people down in the organization
are invited with myself
and our HR director.
Once every quarter,
there's groups of eight
to tell us what they think
about the company that's not working.
We're not interested in
the stuff that is working.
That's easy. But what would they improve?
What's their advice? And
it's quite hard, right?
'Cause a lot of people
don't wanna open up,
they don't wanna bring bad news.
But I mean, I'm very fortunate
to work with an outstanding
chief financial officer
at Flora, Florence Naviner.
And she's always on the
case and requesting,
"Hey, you know, bad
news does not age well.
Let's get it out on the table.
We got a chance of fixing it."
And so we have all the formal stuff,
but I think the informal stuff
where you just talk to people
is even more important.
By the way, having two kids, you know,
are in their early 30s and
in their business world
doesn't do any harm either
and get their pretty honest feedback,
which they both love
to give me frequently.
- I bet. Yeah.
- So stay connected,
right, and stay humble.
There's one thing over the years I suppose
is to stay down to earth.
Stay humble, stay on the
ground, talk to people,
stay normal, and create an environment
where people are okay
to tell you the truth.
- So David, this vertical orientation,
this time that you're
committing these red is good,
most CEOs will also say,
"God, if I only had the time
and energy to do that stuff."
So what gets in the way of
your vertical orientation?
What do you have to fight?
- You have to fight the calendar,
you know, where everyone's
trying to get in the calendar
of all the various stakeholders
that I'm involved with.
I mean, as you mentioned,
I've been CEO now in private
equity finance organizations.
The shareholder management
is a big part of it in PE,
setting expectations, reporting,
discussing issues, getting advice.
I'm also very fortunate I've
got an outstanding chairman
and a gentleman called Sir Roger Carr,
a veteran of British industry.
There's the shareholder management,
there's the other stakeholders,
the organizational processes,
this permanent reviews,
but they are all part of the day job.
But what I do is try and spend time,
I think you would call it
deep work in Bain-speak,
thinking about how we stay true north
of what we're trying to do,
this vertical thing, consumer orientation.
And for that I often get accused
of being the optimist in the room, right?
But I think you have to in the CEO role,
where are we trying to
go? What's our vision?
What are we gonna do in the
next three months, six months?
But what are we gonna do in three years?
Because, you know, if I don't
do that, then it won't happen
'cause everyone else is getting consumed
by delivering this week's, this month's,
next quarter's numbers,
which is right by the way.
I mean, that's our job.
And we had a world global
call only yesterday
with our top 100 leaders.
And there I was preaching, of course,
deliver our FCO 6 for 2025,
'cause now's the time, you have
to remind everybody of that,
now is not the time
for fancy vision stuff.
You know, there's also, let's be honest,
there's a time and a place for everything.
So in the end, what are the crown jewels
of an organization that I work in?
I always think there are two.
There's of course the brands
which you inherit in
whatever state they are
and you try and leave whenever you leave
in a better state when you pass the baton.
But the older I get, the more you realize
it's actually all about
the other crown jewel
as well the people.
And I know this is an old
cliche, so forgive me for it.
Surround yourself with outstanding people.
And I have an optimistic
disposition, thank God.
I didn't choose it. It kind of happened.
And I do think in these roles,
'cause they are, the other
thing I would say, right,
these CEO roles, and I try
and point it out at home,
they are seriously lonelier.
- Why is it lonely?
- You know, you're making tough decisions
that affect thousands of
peoples lives at times.
In Grohe the restructuring
that we had to do when we walked in.
We had to let a lot of people go.
It was front page news in the German press
for the whole locust debate, you know.
It's pretty lonely when you death threats,
when you have a book written about you,
which is still published,
by the way, in Germany to have you killed.
That's pretty lonely.
When you're dealing with
very deep personal issues
of your colleagues
that you know about in
their personal lives.
Over the years together we've
seen many tough situations,
whether it's health issues,
personal issues, career issues,
and to stay focused and
optimistic in the organization
when everyone's looking
at you all the time
and looking not at you,
but, you know, what you do,
what you say, how you act, how you behave.
You know, you're always on.
That's where you need to be
surrounded by also at home
and in your personal life
hobbies, activities, and an infrastructure
that has nothing to do
with your business card.
- I think this is the most underrated
yet vital trait of great leaders.
It's the courage to be
authentic, to be vulnerable,
to talk about the things that
no one else dares mention.
David said it. The CEO job can be lonely.
I mean, you know a lot of
things you can't share.
There are a couple decisions
that only you can make.
And everybody wants your energy,
but very few feel it's important
to give you their energy.
You know, I love that
David walks the talk.
It's his openness and honesty
that then can spark
real adult conversations
in those red is good meetings
and it's what turns a manifesto,
which could so easily
just be words on a wall,
into something people can live by.
And if you want more stories
of CEOs really telling it like it is,
check the link in our show notes.
And now back to David with
some rapid fire questions.
What brings you energy?
- I love to build brands.
Take a brand, whatever
state it's in, sort it out,
move it forward, and get it healthy.
I love it. It's a real kick.
- So what drains you of energy?
- Yeah, shareholders
who have what I call master
of the universe-itis.
- I know what you're talking about.
Do you have energy vampires in your work?
- You always have some energy vampires,
and it's often difficult to find them,
but you gotta find them.
And I use a simple methodology,
what I call a Skill Will Matrix.
HR gang hate it 'cause they
think it's far too simple,
but it's, you know, skill on
the X-axis, will on the Y-axis,
and just plot where everybody is.
And clearly bottom left
hand corner, frankly,
no point in having a long conversation,
deal with high skill, but
low will serious conversation
and actually the most dangerous.
So you either need to
get them on board or out.
Low skill, high will, train.
High skill, high will, let 'em loose.
- What's the best advice
you've ever received?
- It's a simple one,
given to me by a French,
very successful businessman
when I was 28 years old
and was having my first child.
Take your family out
for lunch every Sunday.
Your kids can't run off to the bedroom
when you try and have a conversation.
Your wife doesn't have
to spend the morning
or you have to have done,
have to spend the morning
in the kitchen cooking and you
actually get some good food.
- Okay, let's recap some
of our key takeaways
from today's episode.
- You don't win with great PowerPoint.
You have to have great ideas
based on a strong strategy and insight.
Ours was ask a simple human
question. How are you?
That simple insight that we
tried to then bring to life
through various, you
know, advertising tools,
we tried to make our brand
the most relevant brand of the day.
- No matter how big the organization,
great leadership still
comes down to one thing,
never losing sight of the customer.
I mean, do you measure your day in slides
or conversations with customers
and the people that serve them?
- The moment of truth
was called CoolTouch.
And it was a concept that suddenly,
very simply gave the plumber,
the architect, the designer
a reason to recommend our
products to the consumer.
- You know, you've gotta win
across the whole ecosystem.
Guess what?
Doesn't actually matter how
ideas leave your office.
What matters is how they hit the customer.
- I've always tried to do that,
create a very clear purpose
for our organizations.
And at the end, the consumer
is always in the middle,
because what's business about?
It's about selling more stuff
to more people more often
at the end of the day.
- To stay vertical, David
keeps returning to the mission,
to the manifesto, to the
relentless customer focus.
It's connection with the frontline,
but it's also how you act every day.
Are you humble? Are you normal?
And do you create an environment
where people are empowered
to tell the truth?
You know, it's easy at the beginning.
Every new customer is a huge victory.
Every sale is a reason to celebrate.
But as our businesses scale,
these events aggregate into numbers.
The millions of conversations
that lead to millions of dollars in sales,
well, they happily live in spreadsheets
and stop echoing in our hallways.
You know, your success is the
result of you being relevant,
of being edgy, of
mattering to the customer
more than any other offer.
But it's that very success
which creates complacency
and a slow drift towards irrelevancy.
So how does a company keep its edge?
And how do you find the
energy to stay relevant
year after year after year?
Well, in our next episode,
we're gonna talk to Pedro Arnt.
He's CEO of dLocal and
former CFO of Mercado Libre.
And he's gonna be talking
to us about what it means
to stay relevant through
a period of hypergrowth.
So we'll see you in the next episode,
and until then, stay curious.
(upbeat music)