在执掌英国的消费品巨头利洁时(Reckitt Benckiser)期间,出生于印度的拉什曼·纳拉辛汉设定了一个简单的目标:把公司的产品卖到半个地球。
如今,他从过去相较而言的不够出名,一跃成为全球最知名品牌之一星巴克(Starbucks)的掌门人。星巴克在全球80个国家开有3.2万多家门店,其“一次一个社区”的扩张战略驰名全球。
“能够在如此关键的时刻加入这家标志性公司,我深感荣幸。”他在9月1日的一份声明中表示。他还补充道,长期以来,星巴克都因为改变了人们的咖啡社交方式而备受推崇。
纳拉辛汉持有著名的宾夕法尼亚大学沃顿商学院(University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School)的MBA学位和德语研究生学位。他希望在今年10月上任时,和一些前任相比,可以留下更耐久的遗产。他将于明年4月正式接替霍华德·舒尔茨,正是舒尔茨将星巴克变成了今天的全球现象级品牌。
舒尔茨于1987年收购了星巴克,后来又多次重新从继任者手中接过“帅印”——第一次是在2008年,后于2018年退休,在今年早些时候再次临时接管。“星巴克需要一位比霍华德·舒尔茨更好的领导人。”美国有线电视新闻网(CNN)在今年3月调侃道。
纳拉辛汉的商业头脑培养于素有高管孵化器美名的麦肯锡(McKinsey),他在那里当了长达20年的顾问。2012年,纳拉辛汉凭借百事公司(PepsiCo)的拉美业务崭露头角。
三年前,纳拉辛汉加入利洁时担任首席执行官。利洁时是一家老牌英荷合资企业,以消毒剂来苏儿(Lysol)、祛痘水可丽莹(Clearasil)以及杜蕾斯(Durex)避孕套等产品闻名,那时的利洁时“失去了优势”,他在回忆今年的一次行业会议时表示。他提出了到2023年年底省下20亿英镑(23亿美元)的四年计划,出售了该公司在华婴儿配方奶粉业务,确保公司的大部分产品以5%的健康速度增长。在四年计划过半时,该公司在不考虑收购、出售和其他影响的情况下,同比增长了8.6%。
纳拉辛汉还以“保护、治愈和培育”的宗旨作为利洁时旗下各类品牌产品的定位,推动数字化变革,设定了营收增长在21世纪20年代中期达到个位数中位的目标。
“非常人性化”
新冠疫情爆发后,没过多久他就被困在了伦敦一套两居室小公寓里,和80岁的母亲同住,与在美国的妻儿分隔两地。与此同时,他还掌管着一家公司,而且无法继续依赖多年商务旅行所积累的模式识别能力。
“我们的力量和肌肉都变了。我们必须远程领导,这意味着你必须给予身边的团队及前线人员充分的授权和信任。”他向美国消费者新闻与商业频道(CNBC)的印度分支机构表示,“这是非常人性化的。”
今年,由于竞争对手雅培公司(Abbott Laboratories)召回奶粉,引发美国婴儿配方奶粉出现短缺,在此期间,利洁时旗下品牌美赞臣(Mead Johnson)的市场份额迅速从此前的37%增长至54%,部分原因是甚至不等卡车装满就快速将奶粉送到零售商手中。
“因为我是新人,所以不带任何情绪。我只是看着它,问自己,‘我应该把钱投到这个地方,还是投到我能够创造真正价值的其他地方?’”今年2月,他在接受彭博社(Bloomberg)采访时表示。
纳拉辛汉赞助了去年在格拉斯哥举行的联合国气候变化大会(UN Climate Change Conference),他还同样关注社会平等议题。星巴克在社会平等成为热门话题之前,也已经开始关注该领域。
新冠疫情期间,利洁时开始资助传统黑人大学的学生。
他在接受美国消费者新闻与商业频道采访时说:“我们发现黑人社区受到了不成比例的影响,原因是没有哪个公共卫生主管部门是真正关注和帮助黑人社区的。”
纳拉辛汉在欧洲的经历或许有助于解决星巴克的工会争议。在欧洲,工会深深扎根于这片土地的后工业革命时期。
根据利洁时的数据,在他任首席执行官期间,该公司工会代表性和集体谈判的参与率有所增长,从2019年年底占员工总数的20%增至今年1月的23%。
舒尔茨说,纳拉辛汉认同公司以社区为导向的理念,称赞他是“带领星巴克进入新篇章的正确人选”。
这一次,纳拉辛汉希望故事不会重演舒尔茨再次复出取而代之的结局。(财富中文网)
译者:Agatha
在执掌英国的消费品巨头利洁时(Reckitt Benckiser)期间,出生于印度的拉什曼·纳拉辛汉设定了一个简单的目标:把公司的产品卖到半个地球。
如今,他从过去相较而言的不够出名,一跃成为全球最知名品牌之一星巴克(Starbucks)的掌门人。星巴克在全球80个国家开有3.2万多家门店,其“一次一个社区”的扩张战略驰名全球。
“能够在如此关键的时刻加入这家标志性公司,我深感荣幸。”他在9月1日的一份声明中表示。他还补充道,长期以来,星巴克都因为改变了人们的咖啡社交方式而备受推崇。
纳拉辛汉持有著名的宾夕法尼亚大学沃顿商学院(University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School)的MBA学位和德语研究生学位。他希望在今年10月上任时,和一些前任相比,可以留下更耐久的遗产。他将于明年4月正式接替霍华德·舒尔茨,正是舒尔茨将星巴克变成了今天的全球现象级品牌。
舒尔茨于1987年收购了星巴克,后来又多次重新从继任者手中接过“帅印”——第一次是在2008年,后于2018年退休,在今年早些时候再次临时接管。“星巴克需要一位比霍华德·舒尔茨更好的领导人。”美国有线电视新闻网(CNN)在今年3月调侃道。
纳拉辛汉的商业头脑培养于素有高管孵化器美名的麦肯锡(McKinsey),他在那里当了长达20年的顾问。2012年,纳拉辛汉凭借百事公司(PepsiCo)的拉美业务崭露头角。
三年前,纳拉辛汉加入利洁时担任首席执行官。利洁时是一家老牌英荷合资企业,以消毒剂来苏儿(Lysol)、祛痘水可丽莹(Clearasil)以及杜蕾斯(Durex)避孕套等产品闻名,那时的利洁时“失去了优势”,他在回忆今年的一次行业会议时表示。他提出了到2023年年底省下20亿英镑(23亿美元)的四年计划,出售了该公司在华婴儿配方奶粉业务,确保公司的大部分产品以5%的健康速度增长。在四年计划过半时,该公司在不考虑收购、出售和其他影响的情况下,同比增长了8.6%。
纳拉辛汉还以“保护、治愈和培育”的宗旨作为利洁时旗下各类品牌产品的定位,推动数字化变革,设定了营收增长在21世纪20年代中期达到个位数中位的目标。
“非常人性化”
新冠疫情爆发后,没过多久他就被困在了伦敦一套两居室小公寓里,和80岁的母亲同住,与在美国的妻儿分隔两地。与此同时,他还掌管着一家公司,而且无法继续依赖多年商务旅行所积累的模式识别能力。
“我们的力量和肌肉都变了。我们必须远程领导,这意味着你必须给予身边的团队及前线人员充分的授权和信任。”他向美国消费者新闻与商业频道(CNBC)的印度分支机构表示,“这是非常人性化的。”
今年,由于竞争对手雅培公司(Abbott Laboratories)召回奶粉,引发美国婴儿配方奶粉出现短缺,在此期间,利洁时旗下品牌美赞臣(Mead Johnson)的市场份额迅速从此前的37%增长至54%,部分原因是甚至不等卡车装满就快速将奶粉送到零售商手中。
“因为我是新人,所以不带任何情绪。我只是看着它,问自己,‘我应该把钱投到这个地方,还是投到我能够创造真正价值的其他地方?’”今年2月,他在接受彭博社(Bloomberg)采访时表示。
纳拉辛汉赞助了去年在格拉斯哥举行的联合国气候变化大会(UN Climate Change Conference),他还同样关注社会平等议题。星巴克在社会平等成为热门话题之前,也已经开始关注该领域。
新冠疫情期间,利洁时开始资助传统黑人大学的学生。
他在接受美国消费者新闻与商业频道采访时说:“我们发现黑人社区受到了不成比例的影响,原因是没有哪个公共卫生主管部门是真正关注和帮助黑人社区的。”
纳拉辛汉在欧洲的经历或许有助于解决星巴克的工会争议。在欧洲,工会深深扎根于这片土地的后工业革命时期。
根据利洁时的数据,在他任首席执行官期间,该公司工会代表性和集体谈判的参与率有所增长,从2019年年底占员工总数的20%增至今年1月的23%。
舒尔茨说,纳拉辛汉认同公司以社区为导向的理念,称赞他是“带领星巴克进入新篇章的正确人选”。
这一次,纳拉辛汉希望故事不会重演舒尔茨再次复出取而代之的结局。(财富中文网)
译者:Agatha
At Reckitt Benckiser, the U.K.-based consumer goods giant, Indian-born CEO Laxman Narasimhan set out a simple goal: to reach half the world with his products.
Now he’s been plucked from relative obscurity to lead one of the world’s most recognizable brands,Starbucks, with more than 32,000 stores in 80 countries around the globe, famous for its strategy of expanding “one neighborhood at a time.”
“I am humbled to be joining this iconic company at such a pivotal time,” he said in a statement on September 1, adding the brand has long been admired for transforming the way people connect over coffee.
Narasimhan, who earned an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s prestigious Wharton School as well as a graduate degree in German, hopes to leave a more lasting legacy than some of his predecessors when he arrives in October, before officially taking over this coming April from Howard Schultz, the man who more than anyone transformed it into the global phenomenon it is today.
Schultz, who purchased the company in 1987, has returned repeatedly to take over the helm from his successors—first in 2008 until a retirement in 2018 and and then again earlier this year on an interim basis. “Starbucks needs a better leadership plan than Howard Schultz,” quipped CNN in March.
Narasimhan honed his business acumen during a two-decade–long career as a consultant at McKinsey, a popular breeding ground for future C-suite executives, before making a name for himself at PepsiCo’s Latin American operations starting in 2012.
Upon his arrival three years ago as CEO of Reckitt, a venerable Anglo-Dutch company best known for products like disinfectant Lysol, acne remover Clearasil, as well as Durex brand condoms, Narasimhan found a company that had “lost [its] edge,” he recalled an industry conference this year. He introduced a four-year plan to save 2 billion pounds ($2.3 billion) by the end of 2023, sold off its Chinese baby formula business, and oversaw growth in the bulk of its portfolio at a healthy 5% clip. By the end of the first half, the company had expanded by 8.6% on a like-for-like basis independent of acquisitions, disposals, and other effects.
Narasimhan also positioned Reckitt’s diverse group of branded goods around the motto “protect, heal, and nurture,” pushed digitalization, and set a goal of revenue growth in the mid–single-digits with a margin in the mid-20s.
“Very humanizing”
Then the pandemic struck, and he soon found himself stuck in a small two-bedroom London apartment he was sharing with his 80-year-old mother, separated from his wife and son in America, and running a company where he could not rely on the strength of pattern recognition that he had from years of business travel.
“The powers, the muscles we had changed. We had to lead from a distance, which meant you had to empower and trust the team around you, the people on the front line,” he told a CNBC affiliate in his native India. “It’s very humanizing.”
During this year’s U.S. baby formula shortage, sparked by recalls from rival Abbott Laboratories, Reckitt’s Mead Johnson quickly grew its share to 54% of the market from 37% previously, in part by shipping formula to retailers before trucks were even full.
“Because I’m new, there’s no emotion there. I looked at it and said, ‘Do I put money into that or do I put money into other places where I can create real value?’” he told Bloomberg in February.
Narasimhan, who helped sponsor last year’s UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, also shares the concern for social equality that Starbucks embraced long before it was fashionable.
Reckitt began sponsoring students at historically Black colleges amid the pandemic.
“We found the Black communities were being disproportionately impacted, and the reason is there weren’t really public health authorities that would go after and help the Black communities,” he said in the CNBC interview.
Narasimhan’s experience in Europe, where trade unions are deeply rooted in the continent’s history post–industrial revolution, might also help with Starbucks’ controversial approach to organized labor.
Union representation and participation in collective bargaining actually grew during his tenure as CEO of Reckitt, from 20% of the workforce at the end of 2019 to 23% by this January, according to the company.
Schultz said Narasimhan shared the company’s community-oriented ethos, praising him as the “right leader to take Starbucks into its next chapter.”
This time, Narasimhan will hope the epilogue doesn’t involve the veteran CEO returning from retirement once more to replace him.