Jess Gaedeke (00:00)
Welcome to the Dig In podcast. I am joined today by a friend of Dig's, but also I think a friend of mine. I feel like Liz, we've been able to kind of bond and spend some time at some events. So I'm so glad that you were able to join us today. I have Liz Ackerley, Senior Director of Strategic Insights and Analytics from Danone with us today. So welcome, welcome. I'm thrilled you're here.

Liz Ackerley (00:20)
Yeah, thanks. I'm so excited to be here. I do consider you a friend as well.

Jess Gaedeke (00:24)
thank you. Thank you. Thank

you. You give the best renovation advice. So, you know, I'm taking that to heart.

I'm going to toss an impromptu question at you. What's a job you would be terrible at?

Liz Ackerley (00:33)
In my office, I think the idea of keeping the budget is one that, that while I am very conscious of our budget, I'm also one that is like, isn't there a little forgiveness we can have? You know, we need a little, don't we have to throw a little bit of money at this? So I think the finance organization is, they, they, they love me, but they also hate me. So I think I would, that's not one that I would be the first person to be, to be asked to join.

Jess Gaedeke (00:55)
Yeah.

Yeah,

we all have gifts and that's okay that you have other gifts. ⁓ Let's talk about some of those gifts. Walk us through your background and your current role at Danone.

Liz Ackerley (01:00)
you

Yeah, so I have been in the insights world for a very long time and kind of my in my whole career, starting out as a young young person right out of college in the agency side of market research, but quickly realized that I wanted to spend more of my time with brands and you know, really in the day to day so I moved to L'Oreal loved my time in beauty, beauty is a great category to work in.

but also knew that it would be important for me to think of another, what is the next industry I might kind of jump into. So I moved from L'Oreal, which is where I worked in beauty, to Danone, which I keep my French companies very close, ⁓ have been with Danone for the last 12 years with a number of different roles ⁓ within BU's. I worked in the Yoghurt BU for probably eight of these 12 years. And then most recently working a very fun, agile,

enterprise view of in our strategic insights and analytics team, which has been a really fun and interesting new exploration of kind of how do we think about portfolio? How do we think about growth? How do we think about those larger strategic kind of,

growth engines that we need to think through as a company that really sit with my team? So we also do a lot of capabilities in my team to make sure that we're staying best in class. So

just another view in the world of insights in the last few years.

Jess Gaedeke (02:25)
Yeah, well, that's a fun place for you to be. And I think that's the place we're going to dig into a little bit because you have a really great story to share about a capability that you have developed in that world. our listeners do crave inspiration from other leaders. And I think one of the best ways to inspire is to tell a story. you know, talk to us about this development of the consumer love program and globally, what does that mean at Danone? Where did it start? How did that idea originate?

Liz Ackerley (02:50)
Yeah, I think it started with a bit of self-reflection or organizational reflection. And I think it was at a time where it felt like we'd lost a little bit of that consumer centricity. And obviously as insight professionals, we know how critical that is, but it's also critical to understand when you feel that there's something gone wrong. And I think part of it had to do with COVID, right? Not getting out and doing as much work in the same ways that we had done it before.

of it was budget, some of it was transformation. We'd gone through a lot of change. And I think just in that reflection of how important building consumer empathy is across the organization, we also had new leadership who kind of gave us this, know, kind of in their reflection of us as we were, really challenging us with that ask,

we have the consumer empathy muscle that we thought we did?

So it really started there with that self-reflection. And we've built a program globally because this was not just one region's issue. was definitely one that was something we wanted to tackle across the globe. And so building that capability has been something I've been personally really excited to be a part of, but also very close at hand in kind of developing in tandem with our global organization.

Jess Gaedeke (04:05)
Yeah. So what does the program entail? And did you have to kind of approach it in a new differentiated way?

Liz Ackerley (04:11)
Yeah, I I think you can imagine as anything that when we say a global program just comes with a lot of baggage. There's always a lot of hardships that can go there. But I think the program, because it was so meaningful to this group of people, i.e. the Strategic Insights and Analytics Organization, and we knew what it meant if we could pull this off, was one of those. was a passion project more than it was a, you know, this like, gosh, this thing we have to do or implement or take from global and kind of do.

It really was cross collaborative. And the biggest thing was the fact that we had such strong advocacy

and our highest leader,

global CEO. So it doesn't hurt when you have that because it opens up doors for, know, maybe from that budget that I'm not so great at keeping track of, from a budget perspective, from a time perspective, and just from that creating that sense of importance of this program. So

Jess Gaedeke (04:49)
Yeah.

Liz Ackerley (05:01)
I would say that one of the first things that was critical was kind of finding the kind of partner and the tool and the capability that was going to help us do this. Because one of the things that we figured out initially was, we all want to be out and talking to consumers. We all want to be able to do these things. But it becomes a time and a money and a resource kind of constraint that always kind of hampers that real desire. So we

Found a partner that was willing to kind of pilot with us and in that partnership we co-developed, you know, this program and we named it consumer love because you know, something also has to have a very, you know, fun and lovable title and it's really, you know, people-centricity at the end of the day. how we it's not only consumers for us. It's doctors. It's patients. It's you know, it's really people that we're talking to and by kind of

evaluating and understanding how we would build this at scale across the globe really opened up our ability to kind of do this in the right way.

Jess Gaedeke (06:00)
Yeah, definitely. Well, a good branding exercise, right? What are you going to call it to get people on board and make it memorable, et cetera? You know, I often say that it probably says something about my personality that my favorite thing to ask about is what went wrong? Like where were the hiccups? Where did you get tripped up? Because like you said, any global endeavor is going to have its associated challenges. Was there something specific that came up where you had to pivot or find a problem solving?

Liz Ackerley (06:12)
mmh mm

thought that everybody we know, we work with consumers all the time, right? We interview, we talk, we know how to because the part of this program was not just developing a program where insights professionals and people within marketing and categories organizations who are used to this kind of consumer interaction. It wasn't just built for them. It was built for actually building empathy within the entire organization. it's

take a

person in finance or take the person in.

demand planning or whatever, you name it, part of the organization, for them to feel comfortable with kind of this interaction, wasn't always, it was actually, they were more scared than anything else and kind of like, ooh, you really want me to do what? So building some of those templated ways and discussion guides and things that could help them and really understanding that this isn't about a right or wrong answer actually. Data, we use a lot of consumer connects for data, right? For sure, that's my job every day.

Jess Gaedeke (06:56)
mhm

Liz Ackerley (07:12)
But these were more for understanding, building that rapport, kind of feeling you feel by talking to a

Jess Gaedeke (07:19)
Is there an especially memorable anecdote you have where you feel like the program was clearly on display? It was really working for you.

Liz Ackerley (07:25)
Yeah, I think one of the most impactful parts of this program wasn't actually giving this program and giving this kind of opportunity for categories or marketing or strategic insights and analytics members to kind of interact with consumers because we do that. We do that a lot. We do that all the time. I think one of the most impactful to me and certainly of the program was when we were talking with some of the non-traditional

people across the organization who this was also developed for from an empathy building perspective, like someone in the supply chain team, they had the opportunity to talk to a mom about her purchasing of her infant formula. And I don't know if you remember there was an infant formula crisis and they were talking about how emotional it was for them when they could go to the store and there wasn't something to feed their baby. And while that supply chain person

that from us and from people and, know, or in the news,

actually hearing it from the mom was something that they told me and coming out of it that it's changed the way that they have made decisions in their day to day because they have that mom in the back of their head. And I think we can resonate with that well because those of us who have been in the insights world, have those moments, we remember those experiences from consumers, but this was new for many of the people across the organization, so it was super impactful.

Jess Gaedeke (08:35)
I love that story. Excellent impact. How do you keep a program like this interesting, insightful? How do you keep it kind of top of mind?

Liz Ackerley (08:41)
Yeah, think this idea of having advocacy from the top certainly helps because we've been able to engage at that GM level and having people see them engaging in this program definitely gives it its weight for sure. So that helps. I think we've also made a fair attempt at kind of keeping it in the news, if you will.

I will tell you is always an important part of any launch, right? So when we think about, we do have t-shirts, we do have kind of pens and things that are around the offices that are reminders for sure. And we do bring it to town halls here and there. One of the most tangible ones though is we actually have a kind of, know, making things a game or making things a competition never hurts either. When we think about, we have quarterly kind of moments where we can actually

Jess Gaedeke (09:05)
you

Liz Ackerley (09:30)
what business units are actually using it the most. We're not enforcing that really, we can see that. But we can also encourage them to say, OK, whoever does the most, we've started to build a brand book. wanted to give, if you've had this many conversations on your brand or in your category, we can kind of build that information. Because one of the key functionalities is also very much like an AI summary. Not everyone is an insights professional building a great

top line final report at the end, but we have ways that we can share back the data so we can, you know, we gamify it a bit also to make sure that it stays current and fun for them.

Jess Gaedeke (10:03)
Yeah.

Yeah. Well, it makes it actionable, memorable, all those things that you want. You know, I really am curious to know how do you measure success of this type of program? Because you probably know, you know, one of our dig colleagues, Rob Volpe, he's developed these types of empathy programs for so many clients. And I think he has, you know, seen it play out in different ways. How does your organization measure the success of this type of program?

Liz Ackerley (10:28)
And I love Rob. He's a very, very dear friend of the Danone community for sure with the work we've done together. I think we are in the early stages of that, I will very much admit, in terms of, know, for us right now success is that A, we have what feels like and what we can see as excitement and engagement, right? There's those two key critical kind of metrics that we have. I think over time, it's this idea of not only, you know, nice to have, I think it's

becoming critical, right? Becoming critical for the organization will be the way that we have seen, you know, that we feel we have then met our success criteria. I think where we're trying to go with this is imagine that, you know, and this happens in other organizations, so this isn't like it can't happen, but imagine that there is a KPI connected to your objectives, right? In terms of you must kind of have an interaction at, you know, and this isn't just for the categories and marketing and teams that are connected.

You must have a consumer connect moment x number of times a year as part of a KPI. That is one that we are really striving to get to so that we have that real kind of measure. We do, like I mentioned, we can see who's using it, how much they're using it. So we have those measures. We're not actually kind of using them as success criteria yet because we're still in the infancy days of being just happy and excited with the success of engagement at this

Jess Gaedeke (11:46)
Well, I think that that's a great way to motivate and you know, some of that creates some competition too, because the people in supply chain don't want to be outdone by the folks in finance, right? So.

Liz Ackerley (11:56)
And you'll also

say like, it's the leaders. The leaders don't want to be like, you know, they don't want to be the leader that didn't, know, leader X had had, has talked to how many consumers? Cause again, we know we want to make sure that leaders have the opportunity. They're not, they're busy. They don't have that. They remember the days when they used to go and listen to consumers and they feel disconnected. They actually, you know, have been much, maybe not more surprisingly excited by this than I thought, but they are definitely excited by this opportunity as well.

Jess Gaedeke (11:59)
Right? Good night.

Yeah.

that's great. So, so many takeaways that you've shared about this, but what would you say is your biggest takeaway from this experience of developing the program?

Liz Ackerley (12:29)
I think

emotion behind this program actually was our biggest kind

seller because I think we were able to show kind of the why it was important rather than it just being this, you because like I think I said in the

endeavors can often feel like they're placed on you when you are a region as part of a global kind of program.

We did everything we could to kind of minimize some of that to make sure that it was more of a very clear understanding the why and connecting it to the things that we know are important, ⁓ which is we talk about it a lot, being consumer centric, really making this the way that you can be that for the organization really helped us sell in, of embed and make it feel like it might last for us.

Jess Gaedeke (13:15)
Absolutely. Well, what an amazing accomplishment to add to your long storied resume. I love that and great embodiment of empathy in action, which is what we love to see. So thank you for sharing that story.

are going to turn to you as a thought leader, Liz. You've got some pretty cool passionate points of view. We've chatted a little bit about this one, but I can't wait for you to share the power of mentorship and coaching. I'd love to kind of know.

where that started with you? Is this something that's just always been part of how Liz operates or is it at a different part in your professional career did you develop a different appreciation for it?

Liz Ackerley (13:49)
I think I've always been kind of that mama bear mentor leader. That has been who I have always been, even when I was junior and the person was an intern, right? So that part of this story is longer than kind of this, the mentorship and kind of coaching part. I think.

over the course of my career, as you're often told, it would be for you to get a mentor. would be good for you to, coaches come kind of later usually, or they have in my experience. But this idea of finding a mentor,

was a game changer for me when I was kind of, when I first, when I found the first one that stuck. I had a few before and they were great and they gave me, in different parts of my, over the different companies and parts of my career.

But when I finally found the one that stuck for me, it was actually a, we do a mentorship programs where you can kind of be placed with people and it's like, you people come together and you're placed. And when I was placed with her, she, didn't know her, she didn't know me. We were, you you look for someone that's, know, two levels above or something like that.

Jess Gaedeke (14:37)
Mm-hmm.

Liz Ackerley (14:47)
was transformational in the way that I could, you know, have conversations from someone who had, she's not from

the insights world, but from my organization or from a CPG organization that really had that way to help me through some of the challenges or even just help and guidance and am I thinking about this? Am I approaching this? That outside kind of body and person that I could go to was really transformational. I then, when we think about coaching, coaching always felt guarded to me. It was like, you only got it when you were

Jess Gaedeke (14:54)
Mm-hmm.

Liz Ackerley (15:17)
you know, really, you know, in yeah, either in trouble or, or, know, so high performing that they were like giving you this thing. And those were the two ways. But then I, realized once I found a, you know, I asked and I kind of pushed for one. And when I got the

Jess Gaedeke (15:18)
in trouble.

Liz Ackerley (15:31)
it was, later in my career and more for kind of advancement, right? That was more of like, you know, was looking to like, you know, here's areas that I've heard of opportunities of mine here, I would like to work on these things. Can you help me? And they have the really, you know, they have the more

structured way of giving you that real advice and things to go work on, which is different than a mentor, because a mentor gives you advice from their experience, but it's not from a coach's kind of technical expertise. So I actually have both, and I utilize them both. And I really appreciate this idea of coaching. And one of the things that we've been, and why it's so top of mind, and one of the things I'm kind of, my passionate point of view at the moment, we're actually

Jess Gaedeke (15:52)
Mm-hmm.

Liz Ackerley (16:06)
working with a company that we're thinking of with digital coaching, right? So that democratizes this idea before it was either expensive or hard and you had to find it was very hard. Now we've opened this digital coaching kind

app essentially that has like the world, right? Has made it so much more convenient, so much more open for people. Has really been beneficial to people that have like me had felt it was guarded or kind of privileged in the past.

Jess Gaedeke (16:30)
Yeah, not accessible.

Yeah. that's really cool. And I love that idea of technology kind of helping us out with this thing that is difficult to scale before. And I also just wonder, can you think of a piece of advice you did get from either a mentor or a coach that just really changed how you thought about something?

Liz Ackerley (16:48)
Yeah, I

this idea, and you work on yourself, have lot of, I have great self-awareness. have a lot of energy. have lot of kind of, I'm sort of bigger, I'm a big personality. I've learned over time, one of the biggest, the best pieces of advice was kind of when you're coming into that first interaction with someone, or not even first, when you're in a meeting or when you're in a group setting, meet.

Meet the energy level of the people or the person that you're working with. Think

you are and don't lose yourself, but think about the energy level that the other person has and try to meet it, match it. Because

though I'm high energy and I feel it's positive and exciting, depending on the person on the other side, they're not actually able to maybe absorb all of me at that same moment. have to kind of think about that. So it's been a great, it's something I do all the time.

often think about, you know, how, you know, that kind of energy between the two people that I'm with.

Jess Gaedeke (17:39)
Yeah, that's interesting.

I do think I've had a lot of both mentors and mentees in my career.

think I have freaked some of my mentees out if I come in like super hot on something and like have this, you know, a lot of energy around it and they don't match that. It's a really good

What's your hot take on the future of the food industry? I have been so excited about asking you something that big. So what do you think? What's coming?

Liz Ackerley (18:00)
Yeah,

⁓ you know, we are, and I think, you know, we've done a lot of work together in this

so obsessed with this world of GLP-1 in terms of what it is and how it's transforming what we've known as the food and beverage industry, for good, for bad, for obesity, for health, for all the things. I think one of the things that we're watching though now is in terms of, you know, what it means

outside of kind of just the space that it sits in, which means, which I mean, the protein space. Protein is, know, we have listened to protein for years. It's

there's an exponential growth at the moment in all, you know, you'll see, I just yesterday had a popcorn, a Khloe Kardashian protein popcorn. So it is, you can find this

Jess Gaedeke (18:40)
⁓ there you go.

Liz Ackerley (18:42)
every aisle, but I think it's more important because of GLP-1, because of the protein important conversation that's in market.

But the other thing in that too, we're also talking, it's like there's a self-awareness or an awareness of women's health that is, the space of women's health is the other, what I see as an incredible boom that we, know at Danone are trying to get very smart about in terms of, guess what, 50 % of the world's population happens to be a

are we

how are

thinking about

the health and wellness for a particular group like that as it relates to, and it is protein and creatine and all the important things that are required.

know, obviously to know this is the spaces that we're in. So we are, you know, really excited about the journey

Jess Gaedeke (19:28)
Well, I know that that will be an exciting exploration for you to keep on going. So we're going to move to the final dig. This is all about you as a person, Liz. So just feel free to give us the consumer or person answer to this stuff. What's the last product or service you bought on impulse?

Liz Ackerley (19:39)
Okay.

I mean, this everything comes back just to the renovations. I mean, it all, it always tell me it's a, it's a hamper, a bath. It's a laundry hamper that was a, I don't even know that I need, I don't even know that I actually need this, but I was on Pottery Barn. I was looking for something else and it was so adorable.

Jess Gaedeke (19:46)
Tell me it's an expensive tile, please.

Liz Ackerley (20:01)
I decided to buy it. And I was not clear how expensive hampers are.

and or that many people keep them in their bathroom because this is what it told me. And I said, ⁓ this is not where I keep mine. So I was having a whole question and conversation to myself about where I might keep this new hamper that I may or may not need.

Jess Gaedeke (20:18)
Well, do we care if you need it? I mean, if brings you joy, let's do it. Yeah, I'm excited. Well, I need to see a picture of that as well. My last impulse was these really special like artistic doorknobs that cost way too much for the functionality that they really have in my life. But you know what? They're beautiful. So I'm excited for that.

Liz Ackerley (20:20)
Yeah.

And if they bring

you joy, these are why impulse purchases, I always have a reason. They're always, they're always have a good reason because if they're bringing you joy, I think they were important.

Jess Gaedeke (20:44)
Yeah,

absolutely. Well, that ties to my next question. Is there a category or a brand that you could sort of rationalize any price point for? You just have to have it in your life.

Liz Ackerley (20:53)
maybe it's not a, it's a category more than a brand. Sneakers and it's so, sneakers and, you know, shoes in general, think, you know, I'm not gonna say females love sneakers, love shoes, but I do. And sneakers for the.

it's not just for me anymore. My son is now obsessed with sneakers. So now it's like an obsession across the household

Jess Gaedeke (21:10)
Yeah.

Liz Ackerley (21:13)
I don't think I needed that next pair of Adidas with pink stripes. And I already had the ones with the silver stripes,

and then my son is on a whole nother level

caliber as it relates to sneakers and knowledge about the

that's a category for which is prevalent in this household.

Jess Gaedeke (21:28)
Yeah,

you're a sneaker household. So my son, he's 13. He has now started ironing his Jordans where he's got like this whole situation with, yeah.

Liz Ackerley (21:34)
The crease. You have to have a crease protector. I'm in it. I'm in

Jess Gaedeke (21:38)
well, I had to learn, but you know what? I loved the initiative. I mean, he learned where the iron is and how to set it up. I mean, it was life skills basically happening.

Liz Ackerley (21:42)
you

You're like the next one

is a white button up shirt you need to iron. That'll come in helpful for the...

Jess Gaedeke (21:49)
no.

I don't know. I've abandoned ironing in all parts of my

I love this one. Brands have distinct personalities. Is there a brand that you would date and a brand that you would marry and they can be different brands?

Liz Ackerley (22:03)
I think I would love today, and I'm going to keep this from a Danone brand perspective, we have, you know, International Delight. It's such a fun, fun brand. It has so much personality. It's one that, know, it's for those who wouldn't know, might not know, it's coffee

coffee is a loving moment, a reward moment for most

so that brand with that personality, it's the one, it's definitely date. I don't know that I would marry, but definitely date from a want to have the fun, right? We're dating for

Jess Gaedeke (22:27)
Yeah. Okay. Yep.

Liz Ackerley (22:33)
Mary,

think,

I don't know, for some reason Patagonia just came into my mind in terms

And I think that feels, you know.

Jess Gaedeke (22:41)
Mm-hmm.

Liz Ackerley (22:44)
Maybe that, I don't know, fun, I think it can be fun too. I feel there's a lot of outdoor and a lot of kind of moments, adventure in that. So it's not like, you know, often be the old married woman, you know, it's actually a fun, there's still a fun part of Patagonia in my life.

Jess Gaedeke (22:47)
Sure. Yeah, a lot of adventure there. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Something you could be loyal to for years and years. I love that. That's a great brand example. And so finally, Liz, what keeps you inspired at work? You've been at Danone 12 years, which I think is love to see these types of 10 years. What keeps you inspired?

Liz Ackerley (22:59)
Correct.

You

there's always change. think maybe it's part of my personality too. You know, the only thing you can expect in life is that there will be something that changes. It's kind of the mentality we have at Danone. I think that the change that we've had over time is one that we have, there's nothing stale about the way that like even the business or the organization or our products have

I think I'm really lucky to be working in this kind

agile enterprise type of role because we're thinking about the future. We're not, you know, I get the opportunity to think about five, 10 years from now, rather than, you know, where I have done it all, but I've worked, you know, in the day or the, or the looking at last week or thinking about tomorrow. And there's, know, there's always a fire drill. There's always, that's part of the job, but I'm, I'm really lucky now that I'm working in this kind of thinking about the future, thinking about the next growth moments, thinking about the platforms that we should be in.

And that's super inspiring because it means that there's only the road ahead. There's only the runway that we have. part of it, I get to help kind of choose and craft. So

lucky to be inspired by that for sure.

Jess Gaedeke (24:14)
Yeah, well, it keeps it fresh. New opportunities and challenges every day is what it sounds like. So never dull. That's the very diplomatic way that I like to say some of the chaos can be.

Liz Ackerley (24:20)
Absolutely.

Jess Gaedeke (24:26)
thank you for sharing your story, your background, and just your energy with us. It's been a real pleasure having you join me today.

Liz Ackerley (24:34)
Yeah, it's been great. Thank you.