‘Why leaving Unilever was the best thing I did’
Former PhD chemist turned chief marketing officer at energy giant Centrica Margaret Jobling says leaving Unilever was the best thing she did – because it made her realise how much she had learned (Marketing Week).
Key points:
- 12 years at Unilever as research scientist before asking to join marketing department
- Current McDonald’s global CMO Silvia Dias Lagnado, then at Unilever, agreed to switch
- After three years Jobling joined Sarah Lee, before stints at Cadbury, Birds Eye and British Gas (owned by Centrica). Now CMO at Centrica, the UK’s largest energy company
- “It’s very easy to sit in the comfort zone and do what you’ve always done, but there’s a point where you have to ask yourself whether you’ve stopped learning. It’s important to retain perspective because it’s amazing how quickly you can become part of the culture rather than the solution,” – Centrica CMO, Margaret Jobling
Fresh perspectives can shift brands – and Jobling has her work cut out at Centrica, whose share price has fallen 72 per cent over the last five years. But she doesn’t seem phased by a challenge – having worked in frozen food, where by the time people have got to the freezers at the back of the store, “they have lost the will to live”, she says. Jobling’s comments around creative people’s assumptions that technical people are not creative are also insightful – and in today’s increasingly tech-driven landscape, creatively minded techies arguably have the edge as marketers.
Jobling’s CV also makes a good case for moving around as a marketer to reach the top, taking in new categories along the way, rather than being stuck in a "holding pattern" at a consumer goods giant, with every other marketer vying for the next promotion. “It’s only when you step out and push yourself into another environment you realise you know a lot,” she tells Marketing Week. “Life is about choices, accept it, change it or move on because it’s never going to be any more complicated than that.”
