Name: No Recession Worries for AB InBev CEO
Uploaded: 2022-12-02
Duration: 9 min 40 s
Description: Michel Doukeris says beer is 'very resilient' and 'affordable.'

Michel Doukeris says beer is "very resilient" and "affordable."

No Recession Worries for AB InBev CEO

Leadership

Michelle thank you so much for joining us to talk about Anheuser Busch inbev you are now running the largest beer company in the world. It's been about a year now since you became Ceo of the company. And very early on in your new job, you announced a new global purpose. We dream big to create a future with more cheers. I got to say this doesn't sound like the typical corporate statement of purpose. What's your message? What do you want to get across to people? It doesn't sound very corporate but sounds a B. I because we are known by dreaming big and it's incredible to think that the future more cheers is really correlated to our culture to our industry and brings a lot of what we do every day, each and every employee uh and cuts across all segments that we tackle is not only about beer because the future of more cheers is more inclusive, is more equitable, is where nature that we work with uh is in good, healthy and is in good pace and we really like the idea of bringing this as the North star to the entire company. And my first thing as Ceo, Well in your 1st 100 days as Ceo, you visited many of your operations all around the world. You talked to hundreds of your employees. What did you learn from those conversations, couple of common themes they came across. One is people really like our culture, the company that we are and the products that we represent. People love beer. People love the dynamic environment in which we have as a company. Uh there was this view that our purpose, we had the purpose before that helped us for a long time but was updated so people really want to have something that was more inspiring and easy to share with everybody. There was uh a need to refrain a little bit of the objectives and the way forward in the company called this like reimagining what a beer company can be and we put in place new purpose, new strategy, a very clear idea of moving from buying companies and inorganic strategy to a more organic strategy growing brands, growing businesses and so far we are in the execution mode now happy in the execution mode. Well as you say, you're much more into growing brands building the company as opposed to buying other companies and the success of a your company is to come up with products that are very popular with the public. What is the newest product that you're coming out with that you think is gonna be the next big hit in the United States. One product that we have and people love is very new is in a way Michelob Ultra as a franchise is well known by people but you have for example, Michelob Ultra pure Gold, which is an organic version of Nicola Balter and it's growing very fast. People love it. This is a really difficult time to be growing your business, your new ceo you've got lots of ideas, the US economy, the global economy is all very weak right now dealing with inflation and a lot of other financial issues. What does it take to succeed in these difficult times? People talk a lot about these things that's in a tenure of a ceo you should see right, Which is an economic crisis, cycle of growth, a recession, a social disruption in the first year. We check all the boxes so you need to have your long term plans. You need to have clarity on what you want to achieve but a lot of flexibility to adapt to the circumstances. And I think that people are realizing some are not, but today the cycles are much faster. You need to adapt much faster. You no longer have time to learn everything you need to learn as much as you can and then act if the experts are right, we're going to see a recession worldwide in 2023. Well, how are you preparing? How are you saying to be flexible in the face of a real recession? So number one, controlling what you can control. Number two, I think that we are fortunate to be in a category that's very resilient and the reason why beer is so resilient is in a way is affordable as a category. So when people don't travel, they still needing friends and drinking beer and we have products that go from premium products to more affordable products so we can appeal to everyone. Well speaking of prices, you have raised prices on many of your beer and other beverage brands and It seems to be consumers are still buying it. Do you think that that you can sustain that demand going into the new year into 2023 prices of beer are leg inflation so far because of what I said, consumption remains solid. Beer is growing globally is gaining what it called sheriff throat uh and has to do with what we said beer is very resilient. Beer is present in several different occasions globally. Has been premium izing as an affordable luxury. So it's very easy for you to trade up in beer from the mainstream to the previous segment because a matter of cents not thousands of dollars or hundreds of dollars and we keep looking at our revenue strategy in a way that we can keep the category healthy and we can keep interacting for consumers because we want them to be with us for the longer run. You sound pretty optimistic at a time when so many business leaders are worried about all of the uncertainties. Is there any concerns that you have? What's on the top of your worry list. So the fact that I look not concerned and look optimistic, it doesn't mean that I'm not concerned. We think that I can see managing control but I think at the same time the background that I have where I grew up, the places that I live in, they give me some visibility on all these impacts from inflation, supply chain disruptions, social instability, economic differences in geopolitical tensions. And I think that uh I kind of try to understand all of that, but keep my focus on our strategy on our execution in motivate and engage our partners and our team in optimistic way because I think that time and at the end of the day, I'm very optimistic about where we are going to. And of course on the way there is always some turbulence. Well, Michelle, let's talk a little bit about you. You grew up in brazil, your mother, Brazilian, your father greek and you've lived all around the world in europe china latin America the US just about everywhere. How has that influenced your thinking as a ceo I had the privilege of living in many different places. Grew up on a family that was multicultural in itself and because you live in different places, you learn different cultures, different business methods. Uh you can read fastest sometimes what happens around you and you continue to have contacts across the globe which in a company that's truly globally like us, we have a very dire reverse footprint. This ends up being a big help for you when you need to read things fast and build your plans and be able to adapt for different circumstances. You spend most of your career at a b. M 26 years and you've worked in almost every possible country that the company does business, at what point did you look at yourself and I'd like to be the ceo short answer. I think it was never I always focused on doing my job, learning from people and creating value to the company and to the stakeholders that we have and happened that I had the opportunity to go everywhere and I ended up on this great opportunity to be leading the company, which I consider to be a privilege. You interact with so many american ceo. I'm just wondering how is the way you lead different than your american counterparts? It's difficult to say because leadership is something that is very different place to place people to people. If I would say that there is like one difference maybe on my approach is that I tend to look at things from a more global standpoint and more empathetic to the differences that exist. And this is being helpful to me because when you get to know people the way that they think usually you can bond faster, you can act faster and you can find mutual understanding much faster