pathdoc - stock.adobe.com
Interview: How the CIO of Unilever delivers business empathy
Reema Jain, who recently became CIO of Unilever, says IT leaders should build a culture where IT people can ‘play’ with new tech
Reema Jain recently took on the CIO role at consumer packaged goods giant Unilever, where she is steering a global technology transformation.
Jain is a firm believer that the true power of technology is achieved when it moves from what she describes as “classes to masses”. In other words, the tech moves from theory and isolated use cases to a place where it delivers value and achieves genuine business impact for people and communities.
Power to transform communities
As an example, Jain says Unilever sees artificial intelligence (AI) and digital platforms as powerful tools that empower communities to engage with technologies for the creation and co-creation of innovation that meets their needs.
“Our distributive trade programmes, which run across six markets in Southeast Asia, are equipping micro entrepreneurs – many of them from family-owned ‘mom and pop’ shops – at the centre of the community, using the latest cloud-based platform and digital tools to run their business,” she says.
Powered by digital platforms such as the Shakti app, in India, around 200,000 female entrepreneurs are currently members of the Shakti Network. They use the app to manage ordering, inventory and sales.
“By leveraging these digital platforms, our female entrepreneurs can build new skills and reach within the local communities more easily, which builds business resilience and contributes to greater financial inclusion and economic empowerment,” says Jain.
She says Project Shakti demonstrates how artificial intelligence (AI) and digital innovation can drive positive social impact, “enabling more people to participate in and benefit from economic growth”.
The programme covers 5.5 million retailers, multiple distributors and 6,000 sales representatives across Indonesia, Vietnam, Pakistan, the Philippines, Thailand and Bangladesh.
For Jain, the technology innovation strategy is about staying close to where the value lies. Unilever’s goal, she says, is to focus on the business outcome: “We often say ‘fall in love with the problem, not the solution’. We shape a practitioner-led approach where technology initiatives are clearly tied to business outcome.”
One such business outcome is using insights driven by AI for a successful campaign by Dove, the beauty and skincare brand owned by Unilever.
Discussing the campaign, Jain says: “Research shows that even by the age of three, girls prioritise looks more than boys, and by adolescence, over 60% feel pressure to be beautiful, often at the expense of confidence. The challenge was, how do we shift the conversation in the #ChangeTheCompliment campaign from appearance-based compliments for girls to celebrate character, value and achievement?”
She adds: “The creative teams are using AI to produce impactful content at speed and unlock customer insights to drive reach and engagement at scale. AI is reinventing the marketing lifecycle, delivering insights, optimising performance and rapidly analysing consumer response to create messaging in the Dove #ChangeTheCompliment campaign.”
According to Jain, the AI-powered insights made the campaign “hugely successful”.
“Technology alone doesn’t create transformation. People do. And at Unilever, we are putting AI into the hands of our people,” she adds. “We are putting the ‘I’ into AI, and through our AI academy, executive fast leadership programme and hands-on experimentation, we are building a culture of continuous learning across the organisation.”
Mentorship for confidence and growth
Throughout her 25-year tech career, Jain has benefited from mentoring and has been a mentor herself.
“I’ve been really lucky to have some fantastic mentors and coaches who have helped me through the journey. I think that has made me who I am today,” she says.
In a LinkedIn post celebrating International Women’s Day, Jain touched on how women often doubt their own abilities. “I’ve realised that growth often begins the moment we move past that doubt,” she wrote.
From her own experience of mentoring women, Jain says: “The thing I see is that we are not very kind to ourselves. A lot of the time, we critique ourselves too much. So even if there is a job out there, we will think 20 times over whether we are ready for the job or not.
“In our mind, we have a critic and a coach. Sometimes we let our critic overpower us: ‘You know, you’re not ready. These are the gaps you have today.’ But we don’t let the coach prevail over the critic. So, I think what we need is to have the coach in our mind say, ‘Okay, fine, you’re not ready. These are the gaps. But let’s go with a leap of faith; let’s learn and believe in yourself.’ We have to believe in ourselves and have more confidence.”
Her advice to women is to take a leap of faith and say, “I’m ready”.
Adapting to an ever-changing tech landscape
With the technology landscape changing so quickly, Jain notes that CIOs are operating in a world where they do not have the complete information to make decisions.
“What you know today might be irrelevant tomorrow. When things are changing so fast and you don’t have all the answers yourself, you need to steer your people and be clear with the direction they act on”
Reema Jain, Unilever
“What you know today might be irrelevant tomorrow,” she says, referencing how earlier in her career in tech leadership, she felt she needed to have all the answers, but that is no longer the case.
“When things are changing so fast and you don’t have all the answers yourself, you need to steer your people and be clear with the direction they act on,” she adds.
Jain’s advice for other IT leaders is to be honest with their teams about freedom to learn and adjust. Despite uncertainty over which technology will ultimately be the winning bet, she says: “The team can run fast if you provide this level of clarity, even though there’s a lot of fog around in the ecosystem. Clarity beats certainty.”
Read more about CIO leadership
- Five IT leadership tips for CIOs: Smart CIOs make IT a driver of business value, not just a back-office function. To do this, they focus on outcomes, ruthlessly prioritise, and quickly adapt to market changes.
- The digital leader’s playbook – a guide for IT chiefs by Paul Coby: In this extract from his book, The digital leader’s playbook, CIO Paul Coby offers expert advice for established IT leaders and IT professionals who have set their sights on digital leadership.
The technology team needs to appreciate the potential of new technology and what it can mean for business. Practical experience trumps theory. As a CIO, Jain says: “The biggest thing for us is to lead by example. I play around with a lot of the new tech. There’s a lot of hands-on playing with these tools because my strategy is just not a PowerPoint presentation. I want to open my eyes to the art of the possible.”
She says her team is also starting to play with new tools and technologies to understand how they can deliver business value.
“To unlock the power of technology, you need an appreciation of where the value is unlocked. We need to challenge ourselves, understand and learn. Sometimes, we don’t have all the answers, but that’s okay because we can take a leap of faith, go forward, and we can pivot if we have made a wrong decision.”
Developing business empathy with a technology lens
While it is the goal of a CIO and the technology team to be aligned with the business, they are technologists. They can understand how new tools and technologies can be applied in their own day-to-day jobs, but it is far harder to look at specific use cases in other, non-IT parts of the business.
Jain believes business empathy is a key skill, and one that IT leaders and IT teams need to develop.
“While we all are technologists, we need to have a great appreciation of the business. Sometimes that comes from working very closely with business partners and staying close to business operations,” she says. “That’s where you understand the problems that exist in that part of the business, and see how you can solve them using technology.”
Unilever has product teams that work very closely with business teams, such as in procurement, finance, business partnering and finance products. “Having business empathy is about understanding what’s really happening in the business and then seeing how you can unlock value from the technology,” she says.
Her recommendation is to stay focused, stay curious and, above all, learn and understand the opportunities that new technology innovation can offer the business.
Listen to the full interview with Reema Jain in this podcast.
