Andrea Zahumensky on Leading with Care, Speed, and Authenticity at Kimberly-Clark

Summary

BRAVE COMMERCE Podcast Summary
Episode: Andrea Zahumensky on Leading with Care, Speed, and Authenticity at Kimberly-Clark
Release Date: June 26, 2025
Host/Authors: Rachel Tippograph (Founder & CEO of MikMak) and Sarah Hofstadter (President of Profitero)

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1. Personal Vulnerability and Leadership

The episode opens with Rachel Tippograph and Sarah Hofstadter delving into the personal side of leadership, discussing the emotional challenges executives face. Rachel shares a poignant moment from her career:

Rachel Tippograph [04:20]: "I cried at a board meeting, and it was horrible. I was so embarrassed, I had to end the board meeting."

Sarah reflects on the impact of showing vulnerability in leadership roles:

Sarah Hofstadter [06:26]: "Crying at work can be viewed as a sign of immaturity, especially early in your career. However, when positioned correctly, it can breed trust and demonstrate genuine care."

This conversation sets the tone for the episode, emphasizing the human aspect of leadership and the balance between vulnerability and professionalism.

2. Introduction of Andrea Zahumensky

Rachel introduces Andrea Zahumensky, the President of North America Baby and Childcare at Kimberly-Clark, highlighting the company's impressive 150-year legacy.

Rachel Tippograph [09:16]: "When we think about all the brands that we've had on the show, very few of them can claim that they've been around for over 150 years, like Kimberly-Clark."

3. Kimberly-Clark’s Longevity: Innovation and Care

Andrea outlines the foundational pillars that have sustained Kimberly-Clark through centuries:

Andrea Zahumensky [09:50]: "There are two core elements that make Kimberly-Clark special: an unrelenting focus on solving consumers' needs through innovation and science, and a profound culture of care."

She cites the creation of Kotex as a prime example of innovation driven by consumer need:

Andrea Zahumensky [10:35]: "During wartime, women needed better solutions for managing periods. Kimberly-Clark responded by inventing pads, thus creating the feminine care category."

Emphasizing the importance of care, Andrea explains how the company invests in consumers, employees, and communities:

Andrea Zahumensky [12:00]: "We care about consumers, each other, communities, and solving world problems like sustainability. This deep-seated care drives our investments and innovation."

4. Navigating Challenger Brands and Market Dynamics

The discussion shifts to the challenges posed by new entrants in the market due to lowered barriers to entry:

Andrea Zahumensky [17:06]: "Challenger brands have poked at areas where we atrophied a little. This has been a wake-up call to sharpen our strategies and better meet consumer needs."

Andrea shares Kimberly-Clark’s strategic response to these challengers:

Andrea Zahumensky [18:47]: "We assess our competitive advantages versus theirs. We focus on what sets us apart and leverage our strengths to remain leaders in the marketplace."

5. Balancing Care with Speed and Agility in Leadership

Andrea discusses how Kimberly-Clark maintains agility despite its large size:

Andrea Zahumensky [20:03]: "Our entrepreneurial DNA keeps us low on bureaucracy. We make weekly decisions on significant matters, drastically reducing go-to-market times and enhancing project launch speeds."

Sarah complements this by highlighting the balance between critical mass and hunger for growth:

Sarah Hofstadter [19:41]: "Having critical mass with massive hunger allows us to push ourselves and our partners without being hindered by our size."

6. Operational Agility and Global Scale

Andrea elaborates on how Kimberly-Clark leverages its global presence to respond swiftly to market changes:

Andrea Zahumensky [22:01]: "We tap into global scale without forcing it, allowing us to respond to tariffs and market shifts faster than smaller competitors. It's about 'global might to the local fight.'"

7. Essential Skills for Future Leaders

When discussing future leadership, Andrea emphasizes the paramount importance of maintaining a consumer-centric approach:

Andrea Zahumensky [23:16]: "The consumer is the ultimate decision maker. Leaders must consistently bring focus back to the consumer’s needs to drive success."

8. Case Study: Innovation in the Diapers Category

Andrea presents a compelling case study on Kimberly-Clark’s strategy in the diapers market amidst declining birth rates:

Andrea Zahumensky [24:30]: "We introduced our next-generation premium diapers to the mid-tier market first, addressing both quality and affordability. This flipped the traditional approach and has been well-received by consumers."

Rachel adds a personal touch to the discussion:

Rachel Tippograph [26:26]: "I might be your newest customer because my wife and I are due in August!"

9. Authentic Leadership and Embracing Emotions

Andrea shares her journey towards authentic leadership, moving away from masking her emotions:

Andrea Zahumensky [26:56]: "The bravest thing I've done is commit to authenticity. I stopped squeezing my butt cheeks to hide my tears and now embrace my emotions openly."

She explains how this authenticity fosters trust and creativity within her team:

Andrea Zahumensky [27:58]: "Everyone on my team has seen me cry. This openness has unlocked more flow, creativity, and trust, enhancing my leadership."

Sarah appreciates Andrea’s transparency:

Sarah Hofstadter [30:08]: "The unapologetic representation of emotion is so special. I'm going to try the butt cheek thing!"

10. Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Rachel wraps up the episode by encouraging listeners to engage with other leaders who embrace authenticity:

Rachel Tippograph [30:42]: "If you like what you heard and want to hear from other execs who bring their whole selves to work, check out our episodes with leaders from Colgate Palmolive and Georgia Pacific."

Andrea expresses her gratitude and enthusiasm for the conversation:

Andrea Zahumensky [30:58]: "Thank you so much. This was fun."

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Key Takeaways

• Innovation Driven by Consumer Needs: Continuous innovation based on solving real consumer problems is crucial for long-term success.

• Culture of Care: A deep commitment to caring for consumers, employees, and communities fosters sustainable growth and loyalty.

• Agility in Large Organizations: Maintaining an entrepreneurial spirit and minimizing bureaucracy enables large companies to compete effectively with smaller challengers.

• Authentic Leadership: Embracing vulnerability and authenticity can build trust, enhance creativity, and strengthen team dynamics.

• Adaptation to Market Changes: Leveraging global scale and agile decision-making helps navigate changing market landscapes and respond swiftly to challenges.

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Notable Quotes

• Andrea Zahumensky [09:50]: "There are two core elements that make Kimberly-Clark special: an unrelenting focus on solving consumers' needs through innovation and science, and a profound culture of care."

• Rachel Tippograph [26:26]: "I might be your newest customer because my wife and I are due in August!"

• Andrea Zahumensky [26:56]: "The bravest thing I've done is commit to authenticity. I stopped squeezing my butt cheeks to hide my tears and now embrace my emotions openly."

• Sarah Hofstadter [06:26]: "Crying at work can be viewed as a sign of immaturity, especially early in your career. However, when positioned correctly, it can breed trust and demonstrate genuine care."

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Conclusion

In this insightful episode of BRAVE COMMERCE, Andrea Zahumensky shares her journey of leading Kimberly-Clark with a blend of care, innovation, and authentic leadership. She highlights the importance of staying consumer-focused, fostering a culture of care, and maintaining agility within a large organization. Andrea’s candid discussion about vulnerability and authenticity provides valuable lessons for aspiring leaders aiming to build trust and drive meaningful change within their organizations.

For more inspiring conversations on commerce and leadership, tune into future episodes of BRAVE COMMERCE.

Transcript

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[Andrea]

Hair can sound trite like what does that really mean? Is that a buzzword until you get inside Kimberly Clark we care and we care a lot. You get to care when you perform. We believe and I believe there is a virtuous cycle in that if you can deliver results then you have more money, more support, more resources to be able to pour back into things that solve people's problems which then can deliver more results and it becomes a virtuous cycle, and that is really what we're aiming to do here and what we've proven over 150 years when we do that.

[Sarah Hofstadter]

Welcome to today's episode of Creative Commerce.

[Rachel Tippograph]

I'm Rachel Tippograph, the founder and CEO of Micmac.

[Sarah Hofstadter]

And I'm Sarah Hofstadter, chairwoman of Profitero Plus.

[Rachel Tippograph]

And this is a show that talks about what's relevant in commerce for the world's biggest brands. Sarah, I'm gonna ask you a professional question, but it's also personal.

[Sarah Hofstadter]

I don't see the difference. Go ahead.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Good answer. Have you ever cried at work?

[Sarah Hofstadter]

The answer is yes. More often than I think. Most people tend to show of themselves crying. Yes, I have cried at work, I think, in every job that I have had. How about you?

[Rachel Tippograph]

Well, wait, when you cry at work, are you crying in private or in front of your colleagues?

[Sarah Hofstadter]

See, all of the above.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Yeah, I have cried at Micmac. I can't say I've cried at all my jobs. And it was to my board.

[Sarah Hofstadter]

That's a pretty vulnerable moment.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Yeah.

[Sarah Hofstadter]

Are you comfortable sharing more?

[Rachel Tippograph]

I'll share a little bit, because it was a real turning point for me. It was a few years ago, you know, I was fundraising for McMack, and if anyone has gone through that, it's just a brutal process and you get a lot of rejection. And I was at a point in my maturity, which I would describe as immaturity, where everything that happened to Mi' Kmaq I took so deeply personally. And when someone was rejecting Mikmac, I felt they were rejecting who I was as a human being, which is just absolutely false. And I have certainly grown in my professional maturity to know how many things are truly out of your control in a process like this. And more often than not, the rejection has literally nothing to do with your business. And it has everything to do with where the other company is in their trajectory, or vc, where they are in their. Their fund or private equity. There's just like, a gazillion things that are out of your control. But anyway, I cried at a board meeting, and it was horrible. I was so embarrassed, I had to end the board meeting. And one of my board members called me about an hour later, and he said to me, would you like a hug?

[Andrea]

A kiss?

[Sarah Hofstadter]

You?

[Rachel Tippograph]

Yeah. He said, would you like a hug or real talk? And I said, real talk. And listen, I love this person. They've been phenomenal to me. But they just wanted to cut through my tears, and they told me to pull my pants up and be a big girl. And I was like, holy shit.

[Sarah Hofstadter]

And how did you respond to that?

[Rachel Tippograph]

I was silent. You know, it took me a minute to really absorb what this person was saying, but they were like, you're a boxer. Get back in that ring. And I've never cried to my board since. And I'm not saying like that you shouldn't cry to your board, but that's interesting. It was a moment of professional maturity for me.

[Sarah Hofstadter]

I've never cried to any board, but I. I certainly have cried also. I think you're. You're raising a very interesting point just about taking work personally. I have been accused of doing that by my co workers and by my family that anytime somebody quits, I take it very personally. They don't want to work with me, therefore I must suck. Blah, blah, blah. I do think that bringing some of that taking things personal to work is not a bad idea. I do too much of it. I still do too much of it.

[Andrea]

I understand.

[Sarah Hofstadter]

It's a good opportunity to be reflective. I think shedding tears at work is loaded because it depends on what level you are when you're doing it and when you're doing it early in your career, it can most certainly be perceived as immature. As it was when I cried at work in my verve job. And when I did as a CEO and I did it in front of a lot of people, I did it. And it was a sign of vulnerability when I had already achieved, I'd already earned the CEO role. And so when you're crying at work and you're. And you're new in your career, that's probably not a great move. It was literally, it was because I was so emotionally involved in something that we were working on, and I just was trying to communicate to them how deeply I cared about it. And I got totally worked up and I just started bawling. It was a lot. I wasn't doing it as an actor, but it did what it needed to do, which was show the gravity of the particular moment in a way that was authentic to me. And maybe that. Maybe that works for somebody, but that works for others. But I do think crying at work is one of those things that can be shown via a sign of immaturity in certain instances. But in other instances, the vulnerability breeds a greater degree of trust, which ultimately could be a very important leadership mechanism.

[Rachel Tippograph]

And I think the point for both of us is that life goes on. My board remains to be my board, that they're 100% supportive of me and the vision of Mick Mac, you have gone on to continue to do great things in your career. Look at you. You're on two public boards, for God's sakes.

[Sarah Hofstadter]

And not crying in any of them, I might add.

[Rachel Tippograph]

All right, it's not a competition Yet.

[Sarah Hofstadter]

Yet, yes.

[Rachel Tippograph]

The point is, is like we're all human. And being human at work is probably the best thing you could do for yourself. And you don't have to just hear it from us. You're going to hear from Andrea, the president of North America Baby and Childcare at Kimberly Clark, and you're probably going to hear from many others in your life. So on that note, let's bring Andrea onto the show. The president of North America Baby and Child Care Transformation and Canada. Hello, Andrea.

[Andrea]

Hello, Rachel and Sarah. It's so great to be here.

[Rachel Tippograph]

We're super excited to have you, especially the company that you're representing. When we think about all the brands that we've had on the show, I think very few of them can claim that they've been around for over 150 years, which Kimberly Clark, Ken?

[Andrea]

Yes.

[Rachel Tippograph]

And when we live in a world where the barrier to entry to create a company has now become fairly low, you know, there's a stat that's always flowing around. 90% of companies that are born today don't make it. What do you think has allowed Kimberly Clark to stand the test of time?

[Andrea]

It's a great question. And I've asked myself this question as we've been leading this transformation here, because I also believe the fruit is in the roots typically. And I think there's two core elements that really make Kimberly Clark special and have allowed us to really go from strength to strength through 150 years. It's the first is an absolute unrelenting focus on solving consumers needs and problems and doing that through innovation and science. So most people don't know that Kimberly Clark created most of the categories that we compete in. And we have this entrepreneurial culture that sees a problem, someone speaks up and says, wait, I think I can do something about that. And then we go solve it. My favorite example of this is Kotex. So just over a hundred years ago, it was wartime and women needed to play the role of being nurses. And when their period would come, they were using cotton basically to take care of that so they could go out and be nurses. And someone at Kimberly Clark said, wait, I think we could do better than that for these women so that they can really contribute here. And they said, I'd like to go work on that. And we Said, yeah, go work on that. And the feminine care category was born, and we invented pads for women. And so it's just an example of creating an entire category by solving a consumer need. Now, our mission on Kotex is to never let a period get in the way of women's progress, which is really how the entire category was founded.

[Rachel Tippograph]

You probably can go a step further with that tagline because it's been proven that if you support women's education and women's health, literally, country economies grow.

[Andrea]

Yes, this is exactly right. And I don't think our founders maybe had the data to prove that at the time, but they had the intuition. And which leads me, Rachel, to the second thing. So the first one is this kind of unrelenting, solve consumers problems through innovation and science. The second one is care. And care can sound trite, like, what does that really mean? Is that a buzzword? Until you get inside Kimberly Clark and you realize, no, actually we care and we care a lot and maybe more than other people think is rational. We care about consumers, we care about each other, we care about communities, we care about solving world problems like sustainability, and we invest disproportionately behind this care. Maybe they didn't have the data to know that it was going to change communities by solving this problem for women, but they cared enough about the problem, about communities and about the world to say, I think this is going to make a difference if I do it, and then invested behind it and did.

[Sarah Hofstadter]

It, there's something very powerful about that. But as somebody who has had the privilege of working with you for a number of years now, with you, Russ, Mike, and so many other members of the leadership team, you really walk the talk. And there are so many companies where the values sit on a wall. Come back for a town hall. But when, when you see that in the way that you behave, whether that's through the lens of what you were just talking about on innovation, but also about this whole culture of care but caring with a bias to action. The we can change this. And rallying the troops to say, you know what? We can push ourselves and we can push our partners. And that push is not coming from a place of negativity. It's in the let's all rise together. As a leader, how do you balance that push to lead with care but push the envelope which you as an individual are so well known for doing?

[Andrea]

Thanks. I do have a very high standard.

[Sarah Hofstadter]

I might have gotten the. The memo on that one.

[Andrea]

I do, I do. But here's the trick. You get to care when you perform. We believe, and I believe there is a virtuous cycle in that because if you can deliver results then you have more money, more support, more resources than to be able to pour back into things that solve people's problems which then can deliver more results and it becomes a virtuous cycle. And that is really what we're aiming to do here and what we've proven over 150 years when we do that.

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[Andrea]

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[Sarah Hofstadter]

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[Andrea]

Busy taxes and fees extra.

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[Rachel Tippograph]

So 150 years you've created many categories but in probably the last 15 years the landscape has significantly changed because the barrier to entry has been lowered, you know, due to technology and, and everything else that's happening now in a lot of your categories. I'm sure there are brands that never were mentioned in the building before that are gaining market share within your segments. How are you navigating all of these challenger brands that have entered the market?

[Andrea]

Yeah, you're absolutely right, there are and they shall remain nameless in this conversation. But you're right, there is a much lower barrier to entry and they have really poked at areas where I would say maybe we atrophied a little bit over many years. So it's also been a wake up call to us to be sharper on what we need to do. What we have done is basically said, not on our watch. Are we going to let them come in and take our business. So we need to shift some of how we're doing things. We need to get sharper on things like cost, on things like meeting consumer needs better than anyone else on our go to market strategies. It's really resulted in us sharpening those things to be able to compete with them. So a little competition coming from a huge competitor maybe hurts at the time, but when treated the right way makes us sharper. And that's how we are shifting the narrative internally and externally. I'm a stoic. I follow stoicism. One of my favorite books is the Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday. And it's basically this idea of like the impediment to action creates action. Like we are turning this obstacle of Challenger brands into sharpening how we, how we go to market within a large.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Organization like Kimberly Clark. How do you make the decision to say, hey, we should beat them or acquire them? Like what's that dialogue internally?

[Andrea]

I think it's about what is our competitive advantage versus what is their competitive advantage. You would only acquire someone if they're bringing something to the table that we can't beat them at with our own capability. Right. And right now what we believe is as we've sharpened our strategies, we have the tools that we need to be able to win in the marketplace. You know, it's also required us to get back to our DNA of who we are as a company and really what I call unleash our courageous and caring culture, unleash that entrepreneurial spirit within us to again make the things that have been disadvantaged or maybe attribute strengths. And what we're finding is that when we've done that, we're able to win versus these Challenger brands.

[Sarah Hofstadter]

You've got the right. The combination of the infrastructure, the ip, the talent. How do you do it? With speed. I was just talking to a company that is similarly sized to you and they said we have a combination of critical mass with massive hunger.

[Andrea]

Love that.

[Sarah Hofstadter]

Yeah, I really like that. I just invited him to be on the show like that. You're saying some very smart things. This Is great critical mass with massive hunger. Similar size company to you totally plays in a different space. Great. But what are you doing to operationalize the hunger in a way that doesn't let your size hinder it? So how have you created that motion, speed and agility, at least at minimum, within baby.

[Andrea]

Yeah, it's a great question. Here's what I will say is again, the DNA of our company is entrepreneurial like in its nature. So we're pretty low bureaucracy compared to other companies our size. Now, we had to activate against that. Right. Because some of our teams were maybe operating as if we're this big bureaucratic company and we've had to change our processes to say, no, no, no, we're going to do things like meet on a weekly basis. Like we as a leadership team meeting as a leadership team with our project teams are now, no, we're going to do weekly decisions. There's nothing in our company that prevents us from every week coming together and making, by the way, we're making like multimillion dollar decisions. These aren't small decisions. Right. They don't require months and months to make. So we've put some of these processes in place again to say we have to operate in this different way and make decisions at speed. And what we're seeing is that we are go to market times have dramatically reduced, we are ahead of schedule on many projects and we've been able to launch things faster than we ever have really, or at least ever have in recent history.

[Sarah Hofstadter]

You're sitting here on the one hand, you're competing with a very large other company we're not going to talk about.

[Andrea]

Yes.

[Sarah Hofstadter]

You've got the ankle biters. You're saying you're the Goldilocks.

[Andrea]

Yes.

[Sarah Hofstadter]

You figured out how to move at the right pace, making decisions with speed and agility and pivoting where you need to go.

[Andrea]

Yes.

[Sarah Hofstadter]

So is your size an advantage?

[Andrea]

Yes, that's exactly right. And then within our transformation, we are also, we are still a large global company tapping into global scale. We're not forcing global scale, but we're tapping into global scale. So we've been able to reach into the China market and grab technologies and commercialize them way faster in the US by doing that, by looking across our global footprint, we've been able to respond to tariffs significantly faster than some of these ankle biters because we have our global scale and global footprint that we've been able to activate when we need to. So it is this idea of global might to the local fight, if I dare say it that way.

[Rachel Tippograph]

So a lot of what you're describing is the agility within the organization to respond to external as well as internal factors.

[Andrea]

Yes.

[Rachel Tippograph]

When you think about the exec over the next five to 10 years, what do you think are the hard and soft skills that are needed to succeed in your seat?

[Andrea]

Yeah. So number one, maybe number one, two and three is cont. Making sure that the consumer is at the center of every single thing. I like to say the consumer is the ultimate decision maker. We can spend a lot of time in an organization. Who's the d, who's the a, who's the right. Whatever process you want to make, we come back to the consumer is the decision maker. And it really relies on the leader to consistently bring it back to who. I'm not the decision maker. The consumer's the decision maker. So I think that is the most important thing. And I would say, you know, when challengers have been able to come in, it's when we've taken our eye off of who the ultimate decision maker is. So that's the most important.

[Rachel Tippograph]

You've mentioned a few times, you know, challenger brands coming in and how it can be a good thing because it made you realize perhaps you had blind spots. Is there a particular case study that you look at where you're like, this was a turning point for us. I know when you and I were talking, I'll just, I'll lead you to it. But I love the story that you had within diapers. Yeah, I thought it like a very tangible case study for others to learn from.

[Andrea]

Absolutely. So we're in a category in diapers. There is a, a declining birth rate. This is very public information. So the way that you grow in a category like this is through premiumization, more money per little baby butt. And that has been the strategy for decades, I would say, in this category. Well, what insurgents came in and saw was, well, wait a minute. There seems to be a widening gap in the quality and price of diapers. At the same time, by the way, there's a widening gap in bifurcation in consumer spending ability. And so they came into the diapers market with a pretty high quality diaper at a really affordable price. And it really made us realize as we wrote our strategy, that if we want to be the leaders in this category, we can't just meet the needs of the top tier premium consumers. We have to be able to meet the needs across the spectrum. So we've really even flipped things on its head. We brought a really big innovation. I can talk about it now because it's in market. A really big innovation, our next generation core, next generation softness to the consumer. And we brought it to the mid tier, to the mainstream, really affordable for consumers, which really flipped the whole category on its head. The last two decades. You'd bring it to the premium tier first and then maybe over time bring it down. But we said, no, there's a real need for this mid tier consumer and we're going to bring it there first. And consumers are rewarding us with sales and really high ratings and really great applause. Early days, but a pretty exciting approach and a really declaration that we're going to meet the needs of all consumers, not just the top tier.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Well, I might be your newest customer because my wife and I are due in August, so I'll have to look for this new diaper.

[Andrea]

Congratulations. It's snug and dry. It's huggy. Snug and dry.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Okay.

[Andrea]

I definitely recommend it.

[Rachel Tippograph]

We're on it.

[Andrea]

It's the softest diaper you'll find.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Okay. Well, one of the pro tips we got was bring an empty suitcase to the hospital because the nurses will just keep filling it with diapers. So hopefully that's there.

[Andrea]

Yes, they will.

[Sarah Hofstadter]

Yes, they will.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Well, we have to ask you our famous last question, which is, what's the bravest thing you've ever done?

[Andrea]

Well, I love this question because my number one principle in life is that nothing ever happens when you're comfortable. Good things will happen, but nothing great will happen. As I thought about this question, though, I think when you ask about brave things, you first envision some big physical feat or moment, you know, jumping out of a plane or I made this big, big bet. And those are all really good stories, and I have many of those. I wanted to instead talk about what I would say every day. Something that I, that I do, that I. That I think is brave, is being really committed to authenticity. I made the decision a while ago that I'm going to come every day. I'm going to be me and real. And I will say unapologetically, me. Sarah can attest I'm a lot.

[Sarah Hofstadter]

I didn't know where you were going with that. You're like, sarah can attest. I'm like, yeah, I can attest her unapologetically. You attest that you're a lot. I don't know a lot.

[Andrea]

It's all right. But I'm unapologetic about it.

[Sarah Hofstadter]

Yes.

[Andrea]

And I will tell you, I was not always brave in this way. Early in my career, I Thought I needed to fit a certain mold to be able to fit in. I was really self conscious about being a first generation college graduate. I was self conscious about not having my mba, self conscious about, gosh, there's no way I could ever get a nose ring, even though I wanted one for a decade. Because who would ever hire an executive with a nose ring? I went to a training early in my career, a women's training upand cominging leaders. And this woman leader taught us this amazing trick. She said, don't ever let them see you cry because you'll be perceived as weak. So if you ever feel like you're going to cry in a meeting, squeeze your butt cheeks. By the way, it works every single time.

[Sarah Hofstadter]

The best advice.

[Rachel Tippograph]

I have a question. If you're authentically yourself, should you not be allowed to cry?

[Andrea]

This is my point exactly. See, Rachel's onto the tip, which is the bravest thing that I've done now. Because by the way, for many years I squeezed my friggin butt cheeks. No one ever saw me cry. And I'm a very emotional person by the way. I could like pull down the steel trap right when I needed to squeeze those butt cheeks. No one ever saw tears. But you're exactly right, Rachel. The bravest thing I've ever done is I no longer squeeze my butt cheeks. Like my superpower is my emotion. Everyone on my team has seen me cry. They've seen me cry in victory, they've seen me cry in defeat, they've seen me cry in just being mad. And that's one example of how I show up, you know, unapologetically me. And what has happened is through that, I find more flow, I find more creativity, I find more trust with the people that I work with because they know they're getting me. And that's it. There's nothing behind it. And I think it's really unleashed my leadership being able to do that. So this has been my new superpower is not squeezing my butt cheeks.

[Sarah Hofstadter]

Love this. I wanted to know the butt cheek thing because I'm happy to have a tool in the toolbox, which I did not know because I cry at work all the time. I've been crying for 30 years. Amazing. I think the unapologetic representation of that is so special. But I have to tell you, I'm going to try the butt cheek thing and I will let you know how it goes because there are some times it might not be at work that I need to cry. So thank you. Thank you for the pro tip.

[Philo Ads Advertiser]

Exactly.

[Rachel Tippograph]

Yes, Andrea, we're so appreciative for your time, for bringing your authentic self to the show, and I'm sure everyone will be tuning in to everything that you're doing at Casey as Well as on LinkedIn. So thanks for your time.

[Andrea]

Thank you so much. This was fun.

[Rachel Tippograph]

If you like what you heard and you want to hear from other execs who bring their whole selves to work, go check out an episode we did with Colgate Palmolive's Diana Hossling. Or go check out a recent episode we recorded with Laura from Georgia Pacific. Thanks for listening.

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[Jackie Cooper]

Hi, I'm Jackie Cooper, Global Chief Brand Officer at Edelman and the host of Touch of Truth, a new podcast launching on the Adweek Podcast Network. My dad gave me this incredibly smart piece of advice. Meet everyone once. As a result, I've met some of the most fascinating and inspiring people on the planet. Now on Touch of Truth, we're coming centre stage and sharing the MIC to explain experience, stories of truth, insights and visions for the future that will challenge your way of thinking. Touch of Truth is available wherever you listen to podcasts. New episodes come out every Tuesday. I do hope to see you there.