Once you become CEO, you're no longer going to own your face. People are paying attention to every single facial gesture you make. The more you open yourself, the more human you become, the more inspiring you can become, and the closer you can become with people.
Carlos Abrams-Rivera, former CEO of Kraft Heinz, with such a great long experience in working the consumer products across Mondelez, Campbell, and Kraft.
I'm at my best where things are very challenging.
You have worked your whole life to have the opportunity to feel that level of pressure. Make sure that you surround yourself with people who are going to have that agility to be able to move with the volatility that's going to be happening globally. When you first sat in that chair, what surprised you about the job that nobody had warned you about?
Hi everybody, welcome back to a new episode of the World Class Leader Show. Today I'm in very good company. I have with us Carlos Abrams-Rivera, former CEO of Kraft Heinz, born and raised in Puerto Rico, and with such a great long experience in working CPG, the consumer product group, across Mondelez, Campbell, and Kraft Heinz. He will tell us more about his experience as a CEO, and that is what we are here today for. So Carlos, thank you so much for being on the show with me today.
Andrea, it's a pleasure, and I'm very thankful to get to spend time with you here.
Great. And look, I'm very excited, Carlos, because to me, you're the kind of guest that I really would like to have on the show. Because when we met the first time, you demonstrated a lot of openness, vulnerability, and that's what we'll be talking about today. And also at the end, we'll talk more about the future, what you're up to. But I'd like to start, as always, from the past, because you grew up in Puerto Rico, you went back to work for the governor, and then you spent 30 years climbing through major organizations — Mondelez in Mexico, as I said, Campbell, and eventually the CEO seat at Kraft Heinz. So when you first sat in that chair, what surprised you about the job that nobody had warned you about?
Well, I guess let me start with the fact that I know people normally hear the fact that CEOs are a lonely job. But I'll tell you what surprised me, which is that it happens overnight. Overnight, all of a sudden, people are going to interact with you differently, and you start feeling kind of a sense of separation from everybody else. And sometimes they are people that you have known for a long time, and yet overnight it's that sense that things are different and that there's a certain distance there. I'll tell you, on the other hand too, something that one of my coaches, Marshall Goldsmith, actually prepared me for — and at the beginning I thought he was kidding — which was he said, 'Carlos, once you become CEO, you're no longer going to own your face.' And I'm like, what do you mean I'm no longer going to own my face? But it's true. The moment you become CEO, people are paying attention to every single facial gesture you make. And you have to be aware of that so you can use that power for good, because again, it can actually matter quite a bit internally and externally. So there's a lot of things that you don't expect, but I think those are a couple of things that jump to mind.
Yeah. And I'll come back to — I really want to come back to the idea of loneliness because it's a topic that is worth discussing more. But before getting to that, I'd like to ask another question about the CEO seat, because something that you said, I think, when we met the first time, that really stuck with me. Because sometimes — not sometimes, actually all the time — I review the conversations I have with potential guests, and then I consider, okay, but what is really telling me, what is in the background. And you said something that really stuck with me. You said, you know, when things were going well, that's when you were probably at your weakest, because you thrive in the hard moments. So where does that come from? Tell me more about that.
Yeah. No, that's — I'm glad you picked up on that. But let me take that answer from the other angle, which is when I will say that I'm at my best where things are very challenging. And I think part of the reason for that is, one, in those moments it demands all of you. It means that you have to be strategic, you have to be operational, you have to be inspirational at that moment. And also during those moments in which you are so challenged, you know you're going to have to bring people with you. So when you kind of go through those crucibles, and the fact that you went with these people who were with you in that kind of moment, it creates kind of a sense of camaraderie. It creates a sense of, you know, I was at my best, and I'm going to be able to now go forward with people that I trusted and trusted me in order for us to overcome that challenge. So really it comes from that sense of being able to feel like it is certain challenges that require you to put all the best of you to work, if that makes sense to you.
It does. It does. And to me, one of the most interesting parts is the importance of and the privilege of leading with pressure. You know, you're experiencing pressure, and you're leading through these moments. And again, there are many different perspectives about pressure as a privilege. There are some amazing basketball coaches that build their own narrative about pressure as a privilege, and I'm sure that you probably — we are thinking about the same person that said that. But that is a good segue to the sport metaphor, because I know that you're a sport fan, you have used as well — you're still thinking about sport as a perfect metaphor for the world of business. And again, now we move from basketball to tennis, because first of all, we are both tennis fans, and I was a tennis player. I don't remember whether you're a tennis player. I forgot to ask you. Are you?
No, I love watching tennis, but I'm not a player.
Okay, great. But you compare the CEO to being a tennis player on the court. I remember as well that's what you said — thousands of people watching, to your point before, millions on TV, and it looks like you are alone. You're still alone dealing with that. But behind the scenes, you said, and we know most of the tennis players, but also now most of the professional athletes, they have a number of coaches working with them. You know, I think we mentioned Sinner has seven coaches, Alcaraz has a whole team. So a lot of people supporting leaders right now. What does the CEO support system actually look like? And what happens when you don't have one? Because I mean, you worked with a coach right before, but do you feel like you had the support system in place, or leading through that level of pressure when you were at that level?
So let me answer that in three ways. First of all, let me go back to your point about pressure as a privilege. You know, Billie Jean King talked about that, a tennis player, and you go into the US Open tennis and you see that quote right there as players walk into the court. And in fact, I think this idea that you think of it as a privilege because you have worked your whole life to be able to have the opportunity to feel that level of pressure. So I love that sense. And then going back to your point about coaching — listen, when you are CEO, the whole world sees just you as a person, whether it's externally, analysts on Wall Street, the media, your employees. But the reality is that you need that support system. And I think people — I love people like Rafa, Coco Gauff, who seem to also be enjoying the pressure and also understanding that they're not doing it alone. And I think for me, one of the things that changed is that while I've had business coaches in the past, I expanded my coaching network. So you had the formal part of that, which is your business coach, you had a media coach, you had people who could mentor you, and then I also expanded that with more informal coaching — peers that I admire, people who are outside of the normal way of everyday work, that allowed me to also have another way to understand whether I was going the right way or not. So that idea of both formalizing your coaching but also making sure that you expand it in a way that allows you to feel like you have the right support system. In fact, over the last six months, I also added a therapist to my coaching staff. And frankly, I wish I had done that a couple of years ago as well. So I think this idea of preparing yourself in all these ways in order for you to be at your best, and making sure that while people only see you, that you recognize that you're going to need a whole team for you to be at your best.
That's brilliant. And I'm with you. I mean, as I probably mentioned, I have created a CEO community where CEOs can support each other. Because again, not all CEOs have the luxury or the opportunity to be surrounded by multiple coaches in multiple dimensions, right? I mean, you worked for a global firm, so probably that is a little bit easier than other people who don't have, unfortunately, the luxury. So I said, well, you can have a coach, but also you can have a set of other CEOs dealing with the same situation that you're dealing with. You can share it, you can learn it, you can get inspired. So that's hence the fact that I created WCL21 as a community. But it's the same point — it's the same point about creating a support system that you need to operate at the level of pressure that you're operating with. But talking about coaches, you mentioned before — I mean, you have had Marshall Goldsmith as a coach, and he's one of the most famous coaches, most people know him. But I think it's worth saying that he gave you a red folder, right, full of feedback that was neither fun nor happy. That was probably difficult to take as a CEO. Tell me about that moment. What was in that folder?
Yeah. So the way that Marshall approaches — and Marshall works, at least with me, he worked with Mark Thompson, who's another amazing coach. And so they work in partnership. And when we first started working together — now it's been almost four years — between Mark and Marshall, they interviewed about 28 different people: the board, peers, my wife. And they collected all this feedback to kind of present to you. And they start the conversation with, like, 'Here's the blue folder that has all the great things about you that make you successful and so forth.' And they give it to you the first day, and you read that and you're like, you know what, maybe I don't need a coach, maybe I'm doing okay. Everything seems to be working here. Everything seems to be great. People love me. Then the next day they give you a red folder. And in the red folder — by the way, it's a little thicker than the blue one — all of a sudden, all the things that you need to work on. And it is very humbling because at this point of your life, you feel like you have achieved all the things, and yet there is a lot of work to do. And I think that for me, it really changed how I approach my leadership. It was something that even though I have been working in teams for many decades, it actually added something new to my skill set. And frankly, a lot had to do with vulnerability. Because when you grow up in an organization and you become CEO, sometimes you tend to feel like you have to be more protected and not as open in your persona every day. And I think one of the things that I worked on was actually to be more vulnerable in an open space, not just in small groups but in large groups. And that takes some practice. It was a journey. It took me probably a couple of years to really feel comfortable being as vulnerable as I have been in order to be able to improve on my leadership. But frankly, it has paid off. I mean, I would get feedback after town halls, after discussions with large groups, about how they felt more connected to me because I was being more vulnerable. So something that was, I think, for me a little bit of an aha — that the more you open yourself, the more human you become, the more inspiring you can become, and the closer you can become with people. So I think it's been a journey, but it started with a red folder that wasn't as fun, but it really led me into a much better place afterwards.
Yeah. And there are two things, Carlos. So one, to me, I do the same thing. So it's a very similar process. And I think why it's important, particularly for people at the CEO level — but I would say at the C-suite level generally speaking — is because unfortunately the quality of the feedback that you get inside the system every single day is poor, or is absent, or is very poor. Right?
It's poor. So you get a very diluted message. Sometimes it's wishy-washy, it's nice, but it's not really real. So you can't really act on it. So the way that Marshall and Mark — the structure, I think, is great because it allows you to see a different perspective you didn't see before. That's when things change, right?
I think that's a great point, Andrea, because we have at a company — and many companies that I worked at — we have a 360 feedback process. So you feel like you have heard it all. You feel like people — right, it's anonymous, so you feel like they're giving you great feedback. But to be honest, it's exactly the process that you're going through, Andrea, which is when you can go deeper with the people who are providing that feedback, it creates a different level of honesty and, frankly, feedback that you haven't received.
Yeah. And again, there is an element, unfortunately, that whoever is sitting in the CEO chair unfortunately receives even less feedback than anybody else. That's, I think, the negative flip side of being a CEO, because people are always afraid, no matter how human you are, to say frankly what they really think. So anyway, that seems to actually — I work a lot — but I'd like to go back a second to the family part, because I don't actually interview wives, so it's interesting that they did. But it's also interesting because I think you said that powerfully — your family is not prepared for the pressure you carry as a CEO. And that is really consistent with my experience, personal but also the experience of other people I work with as CEOs. And you have worked your whole life to earn the privilege that you were talking about, of being under pressure, right? But they haven't — our partners, leaders' partners, unless they were or they are CEOs, otherwise they were not prepared for that. How did you navigate it? Without getting very personal — I'm not interested to hear something very personal for you — but how can you navigate the family situation? Because they didn't sign up for that, right? They signed up for something different, which is love and spending time together.
Well, and I think a couple of things to that. I'm glad you asked that question because it's something that you also don't get to see from afar. When you join and take that job as CEO, you're not doing it alone. Your whole family is coming with you, and you're going to be in the public eye if you're in a large company. And they're going to see the good things, but they're also going to see the tough things, right? And they don't have the coaching support that I do. So you also have to become a little bit of a coach in the family to make sure that you are open, that you're bringing them along in terms of what they can expect to hear and how to help them shield from all the noise that is happening out there. So rather than going into little detail, what I'll say is be aware of it. Make sure that's something that you also need to be paying attention to — whether it's your wife, your kids, your family — that this is something that's going to affect them. One of the things that I did is I also wanted to make sure I involved them in the great things that were happening. So if you look at the last few years, on the global town halls of the company that we had, over 35,000 people, you would see many times my kids there and you would see my wife there. And it was the idea that those are great moments and fun moments. So at least they can get to see the joyful part of what I do as well. So it was a way for me to say, listen, I know there will be tough things and you cannot control, but enjoy these moments as well, because this is part of what it means to be part of this role.
Oh, totally. I think what I see, unfortunately, when these things don't go well, is the partner becomes the collector of all the concern, frustration CEOs have, which is normal. But they essentially bring work at home, and unfortunately it has a real implication on the relationship, right?
