Douglas Conant of Campbell Soup

Company

Submitted by:

BSIT-101

Submitted to:

December 2021

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B. Table of Contents

Introduction______________________________________3
Discussion proper: Contributions and Key Takeaways_____4
Leadership experience______________________________6
Conclusions_______________________________________7
References________________________________________8

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C. Short Introduction/Background

Douglas R. Conant is a globally recognized business leader, bestselling author for the
New York Times and Wall Street Journal, keynote speaker, and social media influencer
with over 40 years of experience leading world-class multinational enterprises. He has
spent the last 20 years of his career honing his leadership skills at the highest levels,
first as President of Nabisco Foods, then as CEO of Campbell Soup Company, and
finally as Chairman of Avon Products.

In 2011, he launched Conant Leadership, a mission-driven community of leaders and

learners dedicated to advancing 21st-century leadership. Doug's first major
organizational challenge came at Nabisco Foods Company, where he established a top-
notch leadership team and led them to five straight years of sales, market share, and
double-digit profitability growth while navigating a period of significant instability. He
would also consolidate the building pieces of the effective 6-step BLUEPRINT method
at Nabisco Foods Company, which would propel him to enormous success in the CEO
office and beyond. Doug faced severe hurdles as President and CEO of the Campbell
Soup Firm, a struggling company with dwindling sales. He transformed the global
leadership team, reconfigured the portfolio, slashed expenses, revolutionized the
culture, and made critical strategic investments throughout the firm, leveraging his many
years of leadership experience and research.

As a result of these efforts, cumulative shareholder returns in the top tier of the global
food business have been achieved.

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D. Discussion Proper: Contributions and Key Takeaways

In 2001 Doug Conant became CEO of Campbell Soup Company-he was the eleventh
man to hold the title in the company's 132-year history. He inherited the legendary
American company, but at that time it was overshadowed. Campbell lost half of its
market value last year. Even the exterior of the headquarters reflected this dark
atmosphere, down to the rusty barbed wire fence that marks the boundaries of the site.
Conant recalls the staff who said, "This place seems to be the biggest prison." Conant
knew that the company had to be reformed at almost every level.

When Campbell arrived, his observations needed to get the culture back on track, as
without a high level of commitment and a high level of trust, it would not be possible to
have a consistently innovative organization. People do not miss a chance. And they had
an incredibly low culture of trust based on what happened. To get there, they realized
they needed to change the company's leadership profile and replaced 300 of the
organization's 350 top executives in the first three years. This is unprecedented in the
consumer goods industry, as far as I know. Of the 300 employees they assigned, 150
were promoted from the inside and 150 were hired from the outside: high-character,
high-quality people. They also created an organization-wide Balanced Scorecard
mechanism and associated it with performance evaluation and bonus plans to ensure
that the organization is aligned with proper organizational activities. So, they reinvented
the scorecard within the organization. This included changing everything from the taste
of V8 vegetable drinks to the creation of more functional display shelves. Campbell's
sales have grown for eight consecutive years before hitting a wall last year. Abram
Brown of Inc.com, who resigned as CEO in July, spoke to Conant, who regularly heats
a can of his favorite soup (chicken sausage gumbo).

He was the company's 11th CEO in its 141-year history, and he was charged with
reversing a sharp decline in market value. Conant was able to achieve this by
dramatically overhauling the company's global leadership team, reorganizing its

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portfolio, cutting costs, and investing strategically in Campbell's goods, marketing
campaigns, innovation pipeline, and infrastructure.

Conant joined Campbell with 25 years of experience at three of the world's leading
food companies: General Mills, Kraft, and Nabisco. In 1976, he began working for
General Mills in the marketing department. After ten years at PepsiCo, he moved to
Kraft, where he oversaw senior marketing and strategy. Prior to joining Campbell, he
was president of the $3.5 billion Nabisco Foods Company, where he led his team to
enhanced market performance and double-digit profit growth for five years.

Conant and Mette Norgaard co-wrote "Touchpoints: Creating Powerful Leadership

Connections in the Smallest of Moments," a New York Times bestseller, and are
currently working on a second book that will serve as the definitive resource for
empowering leaders to serve with greater impact in the twenty-first century. He is a
frequent contributor to Harvard Business Review Online and writes about leadership for
the Conant Leadership blog, LinkedIn, and other print and digital publications. He is
committed to assisting leaders from all walks of life in achieving outstanding results
using effective leadership approaches. He uses his unique skills and broad perspective
to provide keynotes on long-term leadership strategies for the new millennium for this
goal. At his flagship leadership development course, the Conant Leadership Boot
Camp, he also teaches leaders how to win in the marketplace and at work.

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Leadership Experience:
Doug is a devoted leadership practitioner whose 40-year career has been defined by
a commitment to studying, practicing, improving, and teaching the tenets of leadership
that works. Before ascending to c-suite executive positions at the Nabisco Foods
Company, Campbell Soup Company, and Avon Products, he began his career in
marketing at General Mills and held leadership positions in marketing and strategy at
Kraft.

As President and CEO of the Campbell Soup Company (2001-2011), Doug again
faced significant challenges in a beleaguered company with declining sales. Leveraging
his many years of leadership practice and study, he made dramatic changes throughout
the organization—transforming the global leadership team, reconfiguring the portfolio,
cutting costs, revolutionizing the culture, and making integral strategic investments.
These efforts resulted in cumulative shareholder returns in the top tier of the global food
industry.

When Doug retired as CEO of Campbell Soup Company in 2011 and founded Conant
Leadership, he still felt anchored to his purpose and was called to contribute his
leadership expertise to another iconic organization that was in the midst of a period of
unrest. Serving as Chairman of Avon Products from 2013 to 2016, he helped steer the
company through the most challenging time in its history, ultimately overseeing the sale
of its North American business to private equity, and the establishment of a new Avon
Headquarters in London responsible for managing the business in the rest of the world.

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E. Conclusions
Doug again faced significant challenges in a beleaguered company with declining
sales. Leveraging his many years of leadership practice and study, he made dramatic
changes throughout the organization—transforming the global leadership team,
reconfiguring the portfolio, cutting costs, revolutionizing the culture, and making integral
strategic investments. These efforts resulted in cumulative shareholder returns in the
top tier of the global food industry.

We created a balanced-scorecard mechanism for the entire organization to work off

that was linked to their performance-evaluation plan and their bonus plan, which made
sure the organization was aligned and focused on the appropriate organizational
activities. So, we reinvented our score-carding in the organization.
There was a lot of management turnover and a lot of downsizing, and the work
environment had become a little dysfunctional and chaotic. We just had to come back in
and bring some structure to it, get the right people in place, and get it back on its feet. It
wasn’t’ rocket science. It was just a response to a difficult period in the company’s
period.

When the CEO of Campbell Soup Co take over as a president, he realized he had to
break out of his comfort zone, get in front of his staff, and make some bold declarations
from the get-go.

"As introverts, we assume everyone knows what we're thinking. But people aren't
mind readers," Conant told a roomful of CEOs during the second Higher-Ambition CEO
Leadership Conference, held at Harvard Business School in January. "I had to go out
on a limb and talk about my vision for going forward in an uncomfortable way. I needed
to get out there and tell them that we were taking the company to higher ground. We
were going to get the workplace and the marketplace right. I think every CEO needs to
do that in a smart way. Douglas R. Conant is a great leader when it comes to business,
he does what he wants and he did a great job doing that, there are many challenges
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Douglas went but he didn't give up. This experience helps him to improve and to gain
knowledge or information to know where he can be better. His ideas were brilliant and
because of those ideas he became a famous business leader. Don’t give up on a
problem because every problem has a solution. Find different ways to solve a problem.
Be aware of what is going on around you to know what needs to change.

F. References
Doug Conant. ConantLeadership. (2021, February 10). Retrieved December 12, 2021,
from https://conantleadership.com/about/doug-conant/.

https://ourpublicservice.org/staff/doug-conant/

How Campbell's Soup Went From Stale to Innovative (SEP 14, 2011) By: Brown,
Abram.Retrieved December 12, 2021, From
https://www.inc.com/articles/201109/former-campbells-soup-company-ceo-doug-
conant.html