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Rebecca Marmot, who has been a part of Unilever’s sustainability technique for nearly 20 years and its chief sustainability officer since Might 2019, is leaving the corporate for an undisclosed new position.
Her alternative is Michael Smith, a long-time communications strategist, who joined Unilever on Oct. 1 as chief company affairs and communications officer after serving in an identical position at accounting and consulting agency PwC.
Although Smith will lead international sustainability, it gained’t be mirrored in his title.
Marmot’s position expanded to incorporate public affairs in December 2024, a transfer paying homage to the early days of company sustainability when sustainability and social accountability have been usually built-in into advertising and marketing and public relations. She saved the title of CSO although operational administration of sustainability initiatives is dealt with on the enterprise division degree.
That change got here one yr after former Unilever CEO Hein Schumacher overhauled the corporate’s method to the perform, giving particular person model managers accountability for stewarding environmental initiatives.
Unilever’s groundbreaking Sustainable Residing Program, launched in 2010 by then-CEO Paul Polman, was an inspiration for a lot of different firms, however highly effective shareholders pushed again on that agenda.
“We have now too many long-term commitments that did not make adequate short-term impression, and the latter is what the world actually wants proper now,” Schumacher stated in saying the shift.
Marmot recalled the “grand goal-setting days” in a July interview with the Two Steps Ahead podcast, co-hosted by Trellis Founder Joel Makower.
They “have been sensible on the time, having imaginative and prescient and having the ability to provoke and produce enthusiasm behind an agenda,” she stated. “However now I believe enterprise expertise and acumen are completely essential. If I don’t perceive — and my counterparts don’t perceive — what we have to do as a enterprise, we gained’t be capable of actually embed sustainability.”
Profession trajectory
Marmot left L’Oreal to affix Unilever in April 2007 as an exterior affairs supervisor, ultimately launching the corporate’s first basis earlier than being requested to guide a crew that mixed international sustainability technique, advocacy and coverage and partnerships, comparable to Unilever’s relationship with the United Nations International Compact.
She was the face of the corporate’s high-profile critiques of its commerce affiliation relationships, which study the potential for the organizations’ coverage stances to align with Unilever’s personal objectives.
“I really feel excited in regards to the future but it surely’s additionally been a wrench to go away,” she stated in a LinkedIn publish. “Main Unilever’s exterior engagement and sustainability work globally has been completely sensible.”
Marmot’s alternative, Smith, led communications, public coverage, sustainability and repute administration at PwC.
Beforehand, he was a part of the chief committee on the world’s greatest public relations agency, Edelman, which Unilever makes use of. The longest tenure of his profession was at consulting agency McKinsey, the place he left as international director of communications and advertising and marketing. He has labored on tasks with the U.N. International Compact and the Prince of Wales Worldwide Enterprise Leaders Discussion board.
