Spotlight On Podcast
Spotlight On Podcast
Spotlight On with Ari Labell, former President of North America for Hain Celestial
On this episode of Spotlight On, Elaine Bermudez sits down with Ari Labell, an independent consultant and strategic advisor to the consumer goods industry and former President of North America for Hain Celestial. Ari shares valuable insights from his illustrious career, revealing the essence of building authentic brands that resonate with consumers.
We also discuss how forward-thinking brands can balance purpose and profitability, strategies for enhancing supply chain resilience, and how AI could revolutionise data usage in FMCG.
Welcome to Spotlight Up, the must-listen podcast series where visionary leaders, global executives trailblazing entrepreneurs and top-tier experts come together to share inspiring stories and tackle the hottest issues facing businesses today, brought to you by the Barton Partnership, an award-winning global talent solution organization we specialize in executive search, independent consulting and consulting services from strategy through to execution.
Speaker 2:Our mission.
Speaker 1:To help businesses accelerate their growth by connecting in with world-class strategy and transformation talent. Tune in and join us as we shine a spotlight on the game changers and thought leaders who are shaping the future of business.
Speaker 3:Hello, my name is Elaine Bermudez-Walsh, Head of Corporate Recruitment for North America at the Barton Partnership. On this episode of Spotlight On, I have the pleasure of being joined by Ari LaBelle, who most recently was president of North America for Hain Celestial. Here he was responsible for a $1.2 billion P&L and around 1,300 North American employees. Hain is an approximately $2 billion revenue CPG company specializing in natural and organic products such as celestial seasonings, tea, terra chips and Earth's best snacks. Ari also spent over 20 years at Unilever across a variety of commercial roles with the FMCG giant, most recently as senior director of channel and customer strategy, where he was head of sales for the ice cream and refreshments business unit. Ari, I'm sure that made you quite popular at parties and it's great to have you with us today.
Speaker 2:Thanks, lane, it's great to be here.
Speaker 3:Let's jump into the first question. Can you give us an outline of your illustrious career to date, from your time at Penn State to your current role?
Speaker 2:Sure, I'd be happy to. I'm not sure how illustrious my career has been, necessarily, but I'm happy to walk you through the highlights of my journey. For me it starts with my dad, who was a big role model for me. He was a successful entrepreneur and someone that didn't graduate from college, and so that entrepreneurial spirit and mindset has always been with me and kind of how I think about business, and my plan was to follow in his footsteps. After I graduated from Penn State, through a family friend, I landed a job at Unilever as a retail sales rep on the sales team, and my plan was that I would stay at Unilever for four or five years or so and then follow in my dad's footsteps and go do something on my own. But almost every time that I got the itch to do something new while I was at Unilever, I got the opportunity to take on another role and therefore another learning opportunity and experience, and so it kept me there for much longer than I had originally planned.
Speaker 2:In the late 90s, when the internet was really starting to become popular and that internet boom was happening, I started looking outside of Unilever to the startup world. Through that process I found actually an internal startup within Unilever called the Interactive Brand Center, internal startup within Unilever called the Interactive Brand Center and I went to go work for that group. Which was the remit of that group was to think about how could the internet create new opportunities, new ways, more efficient ways for Unilever to reach consumers than just traditional media at that point. This group ultimately became the very early days of digital media and was my first role in marketing. Up until that point they had all been sales roles. From there I went on to another marketing role, again another startup there were multiple Unilever companies at the time and I moved over to the foods business business where I was part of a team that was starting up shopper marketing what would now be referred to as retail media and create and building that and creating that. And then from there I moved back into sales and kind of moved into more sales leadership and commercial strategy roles.
Speaker 2:And then, as you mentioned, that culminated with my last role at Unilever, where I was the head of sales and commercial strategy for the ice cream and refreshments business unit. That was the ice cream portfolio that Unilever owns, as well as, at the time, lipton and Slimfast, and it was around that time that I really started thinking about if I should stay at Unilever or if I should leave at Unilever or if I should leave. Ultimately, I decided to leave because I felt as though if I did stay at Unilever, I didn't think I would reach what I felt was my full potential. So I made the decision to leave.
Speaker 2:And my first stop after Unilever, after almost 20, just over 21 years was at a company called Sapphalo Group, which is the second largest eyewear manufacturer in the world, and I went there to run sales for North America. That was a really interesting opportunity for me to lead a whole sales team but also really to learn a completely new industry. At that point all I knew was CPG or FMCG and Unilever, and so this gave me the opportunity to really get into a whole different industry and learn that, as well as different route to markets and go to markets and different compensation schemes and so on and so forth. I was there for a few years.
Speaker 2:At that point I decided to go back into the FMCG space and that's when I moved to Hain Celestial and I joined Hain to build their first sales and commercial strategy team. I did that for the first couple of years or so that I was there out of about seven, and then that led into multiple different roles. At my time at Unilever and for the last year and a half or so of my time, of the seven years that I was at Hain, I was president of the North American region, which is about 60% of their total business. So that's a little bit about my journey.
Speaker 3:Appreciate that answer. I actually had recently listened to you on a I think it was a 2024 podcast by Brave Commerce. Could you maybe talk us through a concept of building purpose-driven brands?
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah, that was fun to do the Brave Commerce podcast with those guys. I think they do a really good job with that show. And for me, I think the concept of purpose-driven brands is somewhat overcomplicated, which I think sometimes ends up being the case with some marketing principles and concepts Really smart people tend to like to overcomplicate things. Principles and concepts Really smart people tend to like to overcomplicate things. For me, simply put, a purpose-driven brand is just a brand that solves a need that a consumer has in their life, and it can be and often is, something really simple, like maybe it's a better for you snack or a snack that is better for you, my kids like to eat it and I feel good about letting them eat it. Or it's a household cleaning product that cleans well but isn't bad for the environment or for my family and what have you. It can also take on the form of something at a much higher order.
Speaker 2:I think Dove has done an amazing job of helping girls and young women build self-esteem. But ultimately, I think it comes down to what is the distinctive role a brand plays in the consumer's life, and that often is very simple, but I think sometimes people feel the need to search for some sort of much bigger idea, and oftentimes when you try to do that, it feels forced and disingenuous. So for me I kind of like to think about regard, whether it's purpose driven brands or just kind of everything in my life. How do you keep it simple? And and and purpose driven brands is just one of those examples where I think it can be really, really simple and just does it meet a need in a consumer's life? And if it does, that's the brand's purpose and that can be. It doesn't have to be anything bigger than that.
Speaker 3:Appreciate that answer and I completely agree with you. Simple is, 99% of the time, the better way to go. And we mentioned earlier, you've worked for both Unilever and Hain Celestial, both of whom believe really strongly in sustainability. So I'm wondering how can companies make genuine and meaningful progress on sustainability and, along with that, how can they best communicate those efforts to their consumers?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think this is an interesting one, especially in the polarized world that we live in now. I do think that there is a place for sustainability or sustainable brands and products, but I again think it's like purpose driven brands that it can be often over complicated and lack common sense. For me, it starts with two things. The first one is what is the best thing for the business? And the second thing is is it the right thing to do or not? And it should always come down to those two things. How am I going to move the business forward and by doing so? Am I doing anything wrong by doing so? And, of course, if you are, then you shouldn't do that.
Speaker 2:Oftentimes, those two things can come together, but I don't think that we need to force sustainability on every brand. There have been many examples of that, and whether it be on individual brands or in certain companies or even investment portfolios and I don't think we need to do that and therefore we don't need to communicate sustainability to consumers. In all cases when there is a genuine sustainability or a sustainable initiative or agenda that is true to the brand's core, it's what the brand is about and it's something that consumers will value, then I think the messaging becomes easy. It's what the brand is about and it's something that consumers will value. Then I think the messaging becomes easy because it is that it is the brand message and it's not something that is tacked on or forced, like I was saying a minute ago.
Speaker 2:Two examples that I would give in this and I think do great jobs of this one is Patagonia and the other one is Ikea. Both of them, they don't necessarily trump. It is Patagonia and the other one is Ikea. Both of them, they don't necessarily trump it. Maybe Patagonia does a bit more than Ikea, but they don't necessarily trump and sustainability over and above everything else. It's just part of who they are as brands, and so that's why I think those are really good examples of how sustainability can come to life and be messaged to consumers.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think. Great answer. A lot of the things that we talk about in sustainability is also specifically supply chain. So I'm wondering you know how are leading companies proactively redesigning their supply chains for not only sustainability but also resilience in the face of very much increasing global disruptions, and what best practices are emerging?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it certainly has become a really important part of the FMCG space over the last several years. I should say that I'm definitely not an expert in supply chain. However, as a P&L owner, I definitely have to be knowledgeable about the impact that supply chain decisions can have on the business. Also, when I was at Penn State, my major was actually business logistics, which would now be referred to as supply chain management, and it was around that time that I was a student at Penn State that the concept of just-in-time inventory was really just starting. In fact for I think it was my last two years at school I was a teaching assistant for a professor named Dr John Coyle, who literally wrote the book, or at least one of the books, on just-in-time inventory management, and so what I think has happened is CPG companies are excellent at finding efficiencies throughout the business, are excellent at finding efficiencies throughout the business, and the supply chain is one of the most important areas to find fuel to grow the overall business.
Speaker 2:However, I think in some cases, companies have become overly efficient to the point of not being able to react quickly enough to demand spikes, and that's what happened during the pandemic, and some of those areas were really highlighted during the pandemic. So there's a few things, a few areas that I think have emerged since, and those are things like having balanced inventory throughout an overall distribution network. That allows you to still be efficient in terms of inventory management but also be able to react better to demand spikes, especially on A items or the most important items. Another one would be strategically using unique distribution providers, like retail consolidators, for select customers. We had a lot of success with that with one particular customer in my last company. That was really helpful for us and dramatically improved our ability to serve the customer and, ultimately, the consumer. And then some other ones would be ensuring redundancy around key ingredients that you want to make sure that you always have on hand, or the ability to get quickly, and then also a redundancy within manufacturing of certain key items as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I know the cocoa crisis definitely caught a couple of people off guard last year or so.
Speaker 2:For sure.
Speaker 3:Thinking now about culture, team development. I'm wondering how organizations can build their operational excellence but also enhance their culture and team development, and I think those are probably two of your core strategic companies, personally, yeah, I like to think that they are, but to me they're not two different things, they're sort of one in the same.
Speaker 2:I'm a big believer that everything we do in business needs to start with culture, because companies, ultimately, are about the people. If you ever ask anybody about what's your favorite thing about this company or what are you going to miss the most, every single person always says the people. And so people are at the heart of what we do, regardless, I don't care what kind of business it is, people are always at the heart of that, and people who are engaged and excited about what they're doing and happy are more productive than people that aren't engaged and aren't happy and so forth. And so creating a culture that drives that kind of spirit, I believe, is paramount. Personally, I try to do this with a very authentic leadership style, very transparent about kind of who I am and what makes me tick and so forth.
Speaker 2:Some other pieces of that are accountability.
Speaker 2:Oftentimes, I think accountability is thought more of as a negative thing, where it's you hold someone accountable for not doing the right thing or what they were asked to do, or doing it well and whatnot.
Speaker 2:But accountability can go, can be very positive too, and when someone does a great thing or does, goes above and beyond holding people accountable that way, empowering people, empowering people to make decisions and then helping them along the way, and if something goes wrong, well then course correcting, and that's how people learn. And then the other one is fun, and I think this one gets way overlooked. It doesn't have to be everything you do, has to be fun and forcing fun, but having enjoyment in what we do. We all spend way too much time, or so much time of our day and our life working. If you're not having fun, well then you know, frankly, why do it. And so those are things that are really important to me. That, then, to me, drives a great culture, and that kind of culture creates high-performing teams. Those high-performing teams are the ones that then drive operational excellence. So that's what I mean by those two things both culture and operational excellence go hand in hand, and again, I believe it really starts with culture.
Speaker 3:I'm curious in terms of emerging trends. What are trends, or maybe even challenges, in the global retail world that you see as priorities for both companies and investors?
Speaker 2:The first one that comes to mind. For me, I don't think it's emerging. I think it really has emerged at this point, and that's what I like to refer to as unified commerce. Unified commerce is often referred to as omni-channel, but to me, it's bigger than just multiple channels. It's really the idea of, or the concept of, being prepared to meet the consumer wherever and whenever they want to buy.
Speaker 2:That could be someone on their phone on Amazon or Walmart or Kroger at three o'clock in the morning filling up their cart because they can't sleep, or it could be in their local shop right during the weekend on their normal grocery run.
Speaker 2:Or it might be on Wawa on their way back from watching Penn State beat SMU in the first round of the football playoffs I had to get that Penn State football thing in there or it might just be someone doing research on TikTok or on Google or using one of the AI tools. Now, regardless, to me, the opportunity for manufacturers is really to think about is to think beyond the traditional marketing mix and develop solutions that enable unified commerce to take place with their retail partners, and these could be solutions that take all kinds of different shapes, but a couple that come to mind are messaging and marketing and really socially driven or derived messaging and marketing and maybe different packaging options or kind of some custom variety packs, if that's possible, and then also some unique distribution models as well that fit better for that unified commerce opportunity. That to me is a really big one that I think the industry is getting better at, but there's still a lot of room to improve there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I can definitely think about the early mornings of can't sleep and we're scrolling on the phone and finding things to distract ourselves with further.
Speaker 2:I think we all can.
Speaker 3:And for my last question, hopefully a fun one, and I'll preface this by saying you definitely get bonus points for a ridiculous but plausible answer. If you could predict the next big FMCG fad, what would it be and why?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm sorry for not trying to make this more fun, and I don't think that this is really a fad, but I think the biggest opportunity for the FMCG space is artificial intelligence, and what I mean by that is there is so much data and information within the FMCG industry and oftentimes it doesn't get used, or it gets used sparingly or maybe incorrectly, or human bias gets in the way, and so what ends up happening is an overall industry.
Speaker 2:We spend way too much time on cleaning data, reporting on that data, reviewing reports, trying to find insights and interpreting what the reports may mean and all that sort of stuff, and not nearly enough time taking actions against those insights and what I think AI could do and I'm sure it's happening in certain pockets, but I have not seen this, at least in my experience yet in any type of really meaningful big way and work as a productivity initiative and we can then take that information and find the most important insights and then go after those insights and really drive them into mutual growth opportunities with our retail partners, because today there's so much time spent on the reporting and the reviewing of the data and not nearly enough of actually taking that information and driving it into action. So maybe not fun necessarily, but I do think it's a massive unlock for our industry and for the future growth.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, listen, I think, like everybody, if we had a nickel for every time we heard somebody say AI is the future growth yeah, well, listen, I think, like everybody, if we had a nickel for every time we heard somebody say AI is the future, none of us would need to be working anymore. Well, ari, thank you again so much for making the time today. It's great chatting with you and hope we can do this again.
Speaker 2:Have a great rest of your day. Thanks, lauren, you do the same.