In this interview, Anuradha Chugh discusses leading purpose-driven brands and balancing profit, people, and planet. She also explores how businesses can create cultures of empowerment, foster continuous learning, and align governance with societal impact, offering practical tips to help organizations’ leaders be a force for good and to have a positive societal impact.

As the former global marketing director of ice cream at Unilever; managing director Europe at Ben & Jerry’s; and CEO of Pukka Herbs, Chugh also talks about making the transition from a C-suite executive to a full-time board member, building a portfolio of board roles in businesses with different governance models. She is now a board member of Toms Group A/S, F&C Investment Trust, Routes Collective, and B Lab UK.

Below is a full transcript of the episode, which has been lightly edited for clarity. 

Welcome to The Heidrick & Struggles Leadership Podcast. Heidrick is the premier global provider of senior-level executive search and leadership consulting services. Diversity and inclusion, leading through tumultuous times, and building thriving teams and organizations are among the core issues we talk with leaders about every day, including in our podcasts. Thank you for joining the conversation.

Aleid de Boer: Hello, I am Aleid de Boer. I'm a partner in Heidrick & Struggles’ Amsterdam office and a member of the global Consumer Markets and Healthcare & Life Sciences Practices. In today's podcast, I'm excited to speak to Anuradha Chugh, a former Unilever marketeer who went on to lead Ben & Jerry's as managing director Europe, as well as Pukka Herbs as CEO. She's now a board member in a number of organizations. 

With over 27 years of experience in leading businesses to be sustainable value creators in society, she's now transitioning from being a C-suite executive to a full-time board member, building a portfolio of board roles in businesses with different governance models. 

Anu, welcome, and thank you for taking the time to speak with us today. I'm really excited to have you.

Anuradha Chugh: Thank you for having me. 

Aleid de Boer: So Anu, perhaps you could start us off by walking us through your career path and what it is like to be involved in companies going through significant transformation, like Pukka and Ben & Jerry's.

Anuradha Chugh: I'll cover a few stepping stones on the path rather than go through the whole thing. But I started as a trainee in Unilever, in India actually, and Unilever has always been a really good training ground for marketeers, an excellent place to learn the proper art of communication, brand development, brand marketing, both at a local level but also at a regional and at a global level. So I took complete advantage of this at Unilever a chance to really explore and practice marketing across with large-scale brands. 

Dove was one of my pivotal stepping stones. When I worked on Dove, it was almost 20 years ago, just as we were starting the Dove Real Beauty campaign, and that was very pivotal because I really saw from that very early stage how brands can really influence society and be a power to change and shape society. Because what we were doing at that time was redefining the definition of beauty and changing the stereotypes of what beauty is meant to be for women. Another pivotal role was with Lipton—Lipton Iced Tea, a joint venture with Pepsi—and that's when I saw that Unilever has so much to offer in terms of really stepping out of the normal Unilever and there are speedboats on the side and there are joint ventures in other areas and I absolutely loved having fun with those very different organizations, where you could really be transformational in what you do. 

You know, Ben & Jerry’s is another example, which was a speedboat within the large organization, pretty much, you know, by itself reporting to an independent board with a separate CEO. But also I was in charge of launching that beautiful brand and spreading and expanding its scale across many markets in Europe, and that was very transformational because you take something that's very American and then bring it as a relevant proposition in different countries. Of course, my most transformational piece would be, like you rightly said, Pukka, where I was CEO at the time when Unilever was carving out the tea business, including Pukka. And it was sold to private equity and therefore I did the carve-out and the integration into this new entity which, as a founder-led organization, one had to adapt to the large Unilever and again very quickly had to adapt to a private equity organization.

So a lot of change for the employees, for the structures, for the systems within Pukka, and I absolutely relished the learning experience, as well as leading the team through all the transition. So yes, as you said, these are the few stepping stones that took me all the way from a trainee to a CEO and really learning along the way, but also contributing to society, because these brands like Ben & Jerry's and Pukka are deeply purpose-driven brands. And that's a privilege to be able to work and lead these brands. 

Aleid de Boer: And now that you've entered into board roles, what surprised you most, and has your view on Exec life changed?

Anuradha Chugh: My first large board role was with an investment trust company, a FTSE 100 company, and I'm coming with no finance experience as such, so there's a lot of learning for me to do, but what surprised me is that the others saw me as having real-world experience, which I found quite interesting because finance sometimes is so elevated, that someone with real-world supply chain, people management experience was seen as a massive asset, and I think that that's true. We come as executives with a lot of learning behind us, lots of things we take for granted, and all of this is really valuable in a nonexecutive career because in a way it's not just we've done it but it's in our breath. We breathe some of the executional elements that can be very useful when you're now looking at it from a holistic perspective. And I thought that was quite encouraging because then you're using all what you've learned to start building your next up-skilling, your next phase of your career. 

Aleid de Boer: As you know, Anu, I'm passionate about the topic of healthy leadership and I see it as an emerging and crucial factor in driving success in an ever-faster changing and interconnecting business world. And as leaders are called, I think, to positively impact people, business, and society, they really must balance achieving results with caring for the wellbeing of their teams and contributing to broader societal goals. This shift reflects, to me, a growing awareness that leadership effectiveness is measured not only by business outcomes but also by the ability to inspire, nurture and elevate others. 

So, delving a bit deeper into that topic, which we already did when we first spoke, we spoke a lot about your discovery that brands could be a force for good. How did you discover this and how has that been reflected in your leadership style?

Anuradha Chugh: I think there are two aspects when it comes to working with a large team or a small team and having impact, right? The starting point is the purpose: That there's something greater than earning money nine to five that really drives everyone coming into work. And again, as I said, I was very fortunate to work with brands that have real deep meaning and were not scared to leverage their voice. Brands also are a person, brands also have a voice, and to leverage this voice to do something bigger than just sell. Ben & Jerry's could have been just selling ice cream, but that's absolutely not what Ben & Jerry's does. We, who work in Ben & Jerry's, use our voice, use our platform, use our fame to talk about issues like LGBTQI, like Black Lives Matter. And these are, you know, sometimes people say why, you're selling ice cream, just sell ice cream. Yes, we could do that. But what I've seen through the businesses that really drive motivation are very inspirational, is that they see the world as a much larger sphere and they see their role within it as having significance and being able to shape the world the way they want to see it. Not just Ben & Jerry's, but even Pukka. 

You know, at Pukka everything starts with purpose, there's a real belief that people should take care of their health in their own hands by having herbs and understanding herbs, and that drives everything. So the starting point is the purpose and a really deep-held belief about the purpose, but the second, and the real power, is people. Because I've seen through my own experience that you can have purpose, you can have strategies, you can have all the blah, blah, but it is the culture within the organization that makes it happen. And if you really believe that everyone comes in or you create the culture in such a way, you create the soil in such a way that everyone comes in wanting to do their best for that goal of the organization, then that's empowerment. Because I am not able to bring around best practice organic in every single farm that I have supply chains in, it is the employees who deal day to day with the farmers who are able to do that. 

So my point essentially is that purpose has to live in each employee and each employee is actually the one—each person within your value chain—is actually the one who can create differences. And I've seen this time and time again, especially when we have massive challenges like, climate and getting to net zero, and at the same time delivering profit and delivering wellbeing, higher living wages, for example, these are all clashing. Higher profit, higher margins, better net zero, you know, all of these clash with each other. And the only way to solve them is because someone down there at the point of the clash, at the point of inflection, has the ability to find a solution, and that comes from the bottommost layer of the organization. That's a very strong-held belief that good purpose and creating that soil, that culture in which every employee is able to live that purpose through their work, is essentially where you start to see real change happen.

Aleid de Boer: Looking at a wider angle, how do you apply these ideas around healthy leadership to your role now as a board member? How much do you feel that businesses have a responsibility to meet societal needs?

Anuradha Chugh: It's a very good question; I like the question a lot because it is where I spend most of my time as an executive. So you know, I speak very firmly and quite confidently about where, you know, the executive power sits. But actually, if you look at it, especially in smaller organizations, the nonexecutive—but not even small, even large organizations—we've seen from, you know, Unilever's story right now, from Danone, various other companies, the nonexecutive power can really pave the direction. It can really pave what gets measured, it can really pave the way in which performance is valued, right? So is it performance on impact, or is it performance on short-term profit, or is it performance on long-term sustainability and resilience? So these are extremely important directions that comes from the nonexecutive side. So more and more I think while now I'm sitting in the nonexecutive, I see how board conversations can really change the direction of a company. And that’s a lot of power in eight peoples’ hands—or, you know, depending on how many people are on the board—that's eight people really being able to navigate and shift the direction of a company. That's quite immense.

Aleid de Boer: Following on from that, do you have any practical tips to help organizations’ leaders to be a force for good and to have a positive societal impact?

Anuradha Chugh: I think what's really important is what you measure and what are the focal points of what you talk about. So both are equally important. If you have senior leadership executive or nonexecutive that's only talking about short-term profit, then that's what goes down the culture of the company. And what you measure is equally important. You could be talking about net zero transition, you could be talking about purpose and you could be talking about all those good things, but you might be measuring and rewarding on very, very short-term metrics and different metrics to what you're talking about, and that as well is bad. So it's both of these. The practical tip is measure impact, measure what's important that you believe will change society, given your brand, your business, and talk about that. So don't be split-faced in what you measure and what you talk about.

Aleid de Boer: So in today's fast-paced world, Anu, leaders are expected to deliver results now while also preparing their organizations for the future. How do you balance the immediate needs of an organization with that long-term strategic vision, especially given rapid changes in technology and customer expectations?

Anuradha Chugh: This is the eternal topic that, you know, I spend a lot of time talking about, which is balancing and delivering on profit, people, and planet, right? They're all and, and, and. It is important to deliver on all because if you're not profitable, you're not going to be able to make any impact in society because your business is going to be bound up. 

You know, we've seen companies that are not profitable, like The Body Shop or All Plants, which is a recent example. It's unfortunate because they were doing a lot of good, but they can't continue to do that good, right? So profit is extremely important. So the only way is coming back to the question that you had asked earlier, which is there has to be a massive ability in the organization to be able to innovate, to be able to have resilience at the core of its structure, to be able to really look at a long term with the purpose that drives forward to a large vision, but at the same time having empowerment at the very local, very personal level, to be able to incentivize everybody, inspire everybody to find ways around the points at which there is a clash. 

There will be clashes. There will be times when if I have to deliver on net zero, I have to take a marginal hit, for example, because I've got to invest in some areas. And at that point of inflection, at that point of clash, the way in which the leaders choose becomes very important, because if they always choose for the short term, that's a very clear message that they'll be giving downwards.

Aleid de Boer: I was intrigued by what you said about the soil of an organization being so important. So with increasingly diverse and global workforces, how do you ensure that every team member feels valued and empowered? And what are some of the practices you use to foster a culture where people feel comfortable sharing ideas and collaborating across boundaries?

Anuradha Chugh: The couple of things that I've learned on how to make sure that this culture is nurtured, the soil is nurtured, are quite simple actually. It's one: Treat everybody as adults, so have honest conversation. If things aren't going well, talk about that so that everyone knows and there's no one assuming there are hidden motivations anywhere within the organization. Even when I was going through redundancy with the organization, with Pukka, with part of the integration, it was a very painful time, but the one thing that the employees said is to treat us as adults, tell us what's happening. So keep the conversation honest, you know, don't try to hide stuff, good or bad, because then that does not create the space for trust and for everyone to give in their best points. 

And to do something like that, to create this environment of trust, you need lots of tools. You need many, many, many communication forums. You need those that are anonymous, you need those that are employee representatives. 

So there's a lot of different communication forums that are needed to have space for adult conversations, which means also space for disagreements. But building trust is the most important resource that a company can have during these times when rapid change is needed, rapid change in direction is needed, rapid innovation is needed in order to be able to withstand and meet and react to what is coming from the outside world.

Aleid de Boer: In our earlier conversations, Anu, we discussed the importance of a learning mindset in an environment of constant change, a learning mindset is essential. So how do you encourage continuous learning within your teams and how have you adapted your own approach to leadership to stay relevant and open to new ideas?

Anuradha Chugh: Yes, I mean look, for me that comes from my blood. You know, growing up in India, my father was in the Navy and we moved places very, very often. so I moved every one and a half years to new schools, new languages, new curriculums. So for me, learning is like almost breathing air. So I learned to learn, yes, and I learned to always desire learning. 

And every time I was comfortable, it was like, “Oh God, I need to change, I need to do something because I'm getting comfortable.” So it's almost in my DNA to want to go to the sides and be uncomfortable, you know. So, and also this nonexecutive career is because of that, I want to learn governance. I could be doing another job as an executive, but what I want to learn is OK, like I said, those eight people can be very powerful. Well, how can I learn what is good governance? I've seen many organizations that don't work well despite being really good and really having good, talented teams, because they don't get two things, especially good businesses, they don't get good governance, and they don't get aligned finance. So, finance that is matched with the purpose of the organization. 

And that's fine for me to think that that's the problem, but I actually want to jump in there and learn how to do good governance and I want to jump in and learn what does it mean to get aligned finance, mission-aligned finance. So this is my example, you know, how for me learning is absolutely the core. And I call it regeneration, so I call it personal regeneration, organizational regeneration, and societal regeneration. 

So, if we want the society to be a learning society, we as an organization need to be a learning organization, and as individuals, we need to be learning. Look, my lesson is even with your own kids, right, you can only inspire. So you can only be a role model and you could hope that your children will pick that mindset from you. And the same really also applies to employees, because you have to create the right structures, you have to give them space to learn, you have to provide some amount of money for them to be able to learn. So those things are extremely important, but you also have to lead from the front and show that role-model learning. 

Aleid de Boer: More generally, Anu, as society's expectations for businesses continue to expand, what skills and capabilities do you expect business leaders generally to need to lead their organization successfully and healthfully?

Anuradha Chugh: I think what's happening is that everything is going into a little bit of a monoculture. Everyone is assuming there's only one way. If you take businesses, it's all coming to one way of an equity-only model, whether it's private or public equity. However, I think if we challenge ourselves more, we see that there are many different models out there. And even when I'm talking about business, monoculture is really not good, it does not help us to prepare for the future that's already here. 

So the same conversation about a healthy ecosystem applies to healthy business styles as well. So there needs to be more attention paid to employee ownership models, stewardship models, foundation-run companies, family-run businesses. These exist in Europe, but a lot of the US and the western world assume that it's all an equity model. The reason I'm saying this is that leaders need to, whenever they see monoculture happening, they really need to push back and then they need to question and say why is monoculture happening here and is this the right thing for the future?

Because resilience will not come from monoculture and what we need more than anything else in the future is resilience, and resilience comes from a holistic approach to the ecosystem.

Aleid de Boer: Thank you, Anu, for sharing such great insights around healthy leadership, and thank you for making the time today to speak with us. 

Anuradha Chugh: Thank you.

Thanks for listening to The Heidrick & Struggles Leadership Podcast. To make sure you don’t miss more future-shaping ideas and conversations, please subscribe to our channel on the podcast app. And if you’re listening via LinkedIn, Twitter, or YouTube, why not share this with your connections? Until next time.

About the interviewer

Aleid de Boer (adeboer@heidrick.com) is a partner in Heidrick & Struggles’ Amsterdam office and a member of the global Consumer Markets and Healthcare & Life Sciences practices.