BIF-2 Summit: Betsy Cohen
Betsy Cohen of Nestle asked us to think about working in a small company… how about a company with 250 people? Then she asked us to think about a company with 250,000 like Nestle. How can these folks be coordinated, how can they communicate?
She talked about a product called FortiFlora, a probiotic sold for dogs and cats, sold in little packets (a colon’s best friend?). They developed an innovative process for the active ingredients, innovative packaging in packets, still in launch. How to communicate this to consumers and vets?
In July 2006, she became the Global Sustainability Champion across all Nestle products. Loking into corporate social responsibility as well as energy, CO2, and packaging material reductions. Found new packaging for various products, replacing multi-material non-recyclables. What they’d been doing is raising awareness across the company so that everyone’s engaged in this.
Lots of stuff has to come together to make this kind of big change:
- Work across companies within Nestle
- Work across cultures (in 80 countries)
- Work with manufacturers, retailers, government, NGOs
Her challenge: how do you stay innovative in such a large organization?