Paul Polman has gone earlier than everyone quite expected. A good six months. Perhaps he chose to play the fall guy: wanting to ensure that talented executives such as CFO Graeme Pitkethly, to whom he had delegated selling in the disastrous ‘Retreat to Rotterdam’ (while he hung out with politicians and NGOs at the United Nations in New York), were not dragged down too. And if he blotted his near flawless copybook with his final move, he will not be the last business figure to be brought down by his decisions around Brexit.
But there’s no doubt he leaves a strong legacy. Polman is an industry titan. A charismatic business leader, he once declared that Unilever was “the world’s biggest NGO”, and if some felt he spent a bit too much time trying to save the world, it has certainly worked in terms of Unilever’s share price: up 175% since he arrived, while his former stomping grounds, Nestlé and Procter & Gamble, have grown 100% and 50% respectively.
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It’s also instructive to compare his leadership style (and pay package) with the greed-is-good approach of other industry giants of his era, like Sir Martin Sorrell and Bart Becht. He ran the FTSE’s second-biggest company without milking it for all he was worth.
Above all, Polman’s brand of compassionate capitalism has given Unilever a true purpose. When he arrived Unilever was obsessed with its own structure, as if how it organised itself was somehow more important than the impact it could have on the world. He changed that. He looked outwards. He thought about bigger issues than detergents and forecasts. And in doing so he has galvanised a huge workforce and delivered impressive growth (even if it hasn’t hit all its ambitious targets).
To put it another way: when Unilever acquired Ben & Jerry’s in 2000 it was a real anomaly. Under Polman its values fit far more comfortably with the parent company, one of a stable of brands now with a cause of some sort at its heart.
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Of course, Unilever is still a giant corporation. And it flirts with hypocrisy every day as it pursues its agenda while consuming vast quantities of petro-chemicals and plundering the world’s rainforests for palm oil.
But it gets away with it because its actions have made a difference and are better than doing nothing.
Among the many highlights of his time at Unilever, including some smart acquisitions, lucrative disposals, successful new launches and innovation, in terms of products and marketing, fighting off the Kraft-Heinz bid was arguably Polman’s finest hour. In winning support from investors it was a triumph for long-term thinking, and the idea that doing good can pay dividends. Its soaring share price since that deal was crushed (it’s up 27%) is a ringing endorsement for his vision – while the 41% crash in the Kraft-Heinz share price since then speaks volumes too.
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