Q&A With Top Woman in Retail Esi Eggleston Bracey, Chief Growth and Marketing Officer, Unilever

Women in Retail Leadership Circle (WIRLC) recently released its 14th annual Top Women in Retail report. The valuable resource highlights female executives who impressed us as well as colleagues from the industry. Honoree Esi Eggleston Bracey, chief growth and marketing officer of Unilever, is one such example. Here’s a sampling of Eggleston Bracey’s interview featured in the report.

Women in Retail Leadership Circle: You were recently named Unilever’s chief growth and marketing officer. What are your key goals in this new role?

Esi Eggleston Bracey: It’s an honor to become Unilever’s first chief growth and marketing officer. I’m excited to lead the company into the next generation of marketing and growth acceleration — growth marketing! My goal is to accelerate and maximize opportunities for growth and drive value creation. As I write this on day one of my 100-day plan in my new role, I have three priorities during this time. First, to get to know everyone better — our people, our markets and our agency partners. Second, to clearly define our growth and marketing agenda with an unrelenting focus on our top 30 power brands. These include our biggest brands — the 14 in the 1 billion Euro club — such as Dove, Magnum and Hellmann’s, and those which have the most potential to join them, such as Vaseline, Cif, Nutrafol, and Liquid IV. These brands represent our biggest value creation opportunity. And third, to identify the biggest opportunities for future impact. From leveraging digital and AI platforms to driving unmissable superiority, preparing our marketers with pioneering capabilities to win the hearts, minds and pockets of the people we serve today and tomorrow.

WIRLC: You previously led Unilever’s business in the U.S. as well as serving as its North America personal care head. What were some of your key accomplishments in that role?

EEB: I joined Unilever in 2018 as the executive vice president for North America, beauty and personal care, and was appointed general manager of personal care North America and president of Unilever USA in 2022. I’m so proud of the impact of the team’s countless contributions and the accelerated growth the business experienced over this time. This includes Dove’s outstanding beauty and personal care product innovations and working to eliminate beauty bias and narrow standards through many programs, including the CROWN Act movement; Knorr continuing to provide delicious, nutritious and affordable solutions for families across demographics and purchasing power; Hellmann’s impactful Make Taste Not Waste campaign helping families make the most of their leftovers; and the way our iconic brands like Vaseline and SheaMoisture are innovating with exciting new products, surprising and delighting people who are often underserved. The list goes on. Finally, it was fantastic to see Unilever inducted into the Advertising Hall of Fame, recognizing decades of best-in-class marketing.

WIRLC: You’ve championed purpose-driven marketing in your career. Can you offer some key campaigns or programs you’ve led around this?

EEB: I believe business can be a force for good and consider myself a human-centric business leader. I first realized the business impact of a human-centric approach when I had the opportunity to innovate and diversify the face of COVERGIRL with disruptive talent that embodied real beauty, such as Queen Latifah, Pink, Ellen, and Janelle Monáe. My proudest moment in my career so far has been to co-found the CROWN (Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair) Coalition to help foster beauty inclusivity and eradicate race-based hair discrimination through the CROWN Act and similar legislation — legislation which is now law in 23 U.S. states and counting! 

WIRLC: What role do you play in cultivating diversity at your company? 

EEB: Marketers are in the business of serving people’s needs. You have to be human-centric; think of a person, not just someone you want to sell something to. There are 1.5 billion people with melanin-rich skin and textured hair globally, yet we know they have unmet needs in the beauty and wellness space. This population is only going to grow — one in two babies born in the U.S. are people of color. We want to make sure our products are serving and in fact overserving the new demographics who are often underserved today. For example, we started the Melanin Science Movement recognizing that melanin skin needs are not well understood or researched so products in the market don’t always meet the mark. This has helped us create products that meet unmet melanin skin needs like Dove Even Tone for dark marks under arms, Vaseline Coco Radiance and Vaseline Radiant X for melanin-rich skin, Shea Moisture ranges, and much more. Unilever is at the forefront of innovation that caters to polycultural consumers through facilities like the Polycultural Center of Excellence.

WIRLC: Can you share a few leadership lessons from your career?

EEG: Experiences during my career have helped to shape my leadership philosophy. Here are my five principles:
1. Do you. Know yourself, be yourself, share yourself with others, and take good care of yourself. You are your superpower.
2. Manage your energy, not just your time.
3. Keep your feet on the ground, eyes on the horizon, and dreams in the clouds.
4. Say yes when you’re scared and no when you’re clear; Don’t be afraid to doubt or not fully understand something.
5. Help people, not just consumers. There’s more to someone than their consumption.

WIRLC: What are the skills and characteristics you believe will be necessary to be an effective leader going forward?

EEB: A passion for people and solving problems because that’s what marketing is — understanding what people need and desire, creating propositions and programs that meet both of these, and ultimately building a healthy growing business through problem solving and continually addressing these needs. I very much like the concept of “business of you” — how you bring yourself to people, how you make sure you’re of service to people — to inform how a company is run and how it’s made relevant to people. I see myself as an intentional, multidimensional leader. I’m an executive, a Black woman, a mom, and a community advocate. None of these exist apart from the other. All aspects of my humanity drive my decision-making process.