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Redefiners
Sweet Success: How Mars Blends Family, Values, and Growth with former Mars SVP & Head of Corporate Development Valerie Mars
00:36:38
How does a more than 100-year-old family-owned business continue to evolve and grow across generations to become one of the largest privately held companies in the world? On today’s Redefiners episode, Clarke and Marla are joined by Valerie Mars, f...
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- [00:00]
A
Call them change makers.
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B
Call them rule breakers.
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A
We call them redefiners.
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B
Hello everybody and welcome back to Redefiners. It's Clark Murphy, a leadership advisor with Russell Reynolds Associates and I'm joined by my joyous co host, Marla Oates. Marla, welcome.
- [00:24]
A
Hey, Clark. Hi everyone. It's great to be here today.
- [00:27]
B
A reminder that all of you who are watching this on YouTube, please hit the subscribe button and then you'll see all the episodes that we have and those that are listening, we'd love to have you give us some feedback on the episode so we can keep listening to what you'd like to hear. Today we're in for a wealth of insights from a more than 100-year-old family owned, privately held business that's going to give us insights about thinking in decades, not, not just in quarters. We want to think about how we go ahead in long term thinking and how businesses can evolve over time. But before we dive in and snack on all these leadership lessons, Marla, I have a question. What is your favorite candy?
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A
I love Snickers. Fun fact about me, when I was investment banking, I would have a Snickers and a Red Bull every morning before work.
- [01:18]
B
Breakfast of champions. All right. Okay.
- [01:21]
A
How about you, Clark? What's your favorite?
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B
Considering you were up at 4am this morning, did you have Red Bull and Snickers this morning? Is the real question.
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A
No, I've moved on to Celsius now.
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B
Okay, good, good. Ironically, I'm a Snickers guy as well, so. And I spent a lot of time sailing in the across the ocean and we always have bags of Snickers bars with us to make sure three in the morning, we keep going. So Snickers is the winning, winning host. Candy of the day.
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C
I love that.
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A
Well, Clark, as you mentioned in the candy question, our guest today is part of a family that makes many of the snacks you and listeners have enjoyed for years. And that's not all. Her company is responsible for a host of well known global brands that many of our listeners know and purchase across candy and snack foods along with pet care, food nutrition. So Clark, tell our listeners who our guest is today.
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B
We are very excited that Valerie Mars, the former head of corporate development for Mars, where she focused on acquisitions, joint ventures and divestitures for the company, is going to join us. While you think about Mars and the candy business, they're also very big in the food snack business, broadly defined and also in the pet business. The Greenies are Weimaraner's favorite dog snack. They Own as well as many others. But that business operates in 120 countries and is one of the largest privately held companies in the world. Valerie also served on the board of Xenia, the Mars Family Office and Conservation International. And we will welcome Valerie.
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C
Thank you. Thank you for having me.
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B
Thank you for joining us. We're very excited and we're want to launch in a little bit about some of the, the values of the company. When you think about this company was started about 120 years ago in Tacoma, Washington where Frank Mars was selling buttercream candy from literally from his kitchen. But I believe the ethos of Mars early on was about individual brands, not about Mars per se, that the brand spoke for themselves. Why? Why did the company choose that path? And as the focus has turned increasingly to Mars, what's that transition like and what was the thinking in the very beginning?
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C
So I think at the time, and this is again you have to remember, these are stories you hear from mostly my grandfather, sometimes my father and my uncle who would talk about the past. What was the purpose for focusing on the brands? The belief that the brands speak for themselves. They are what a consumer identifies with. A consumer doesn't identify with necessarily the manufacturer. And why bring attention to the corporate name rather than the name of the product? And I believe that while for a while there was a resistance to shifting because it is also the family name and therefore bringing attention to the family because the bars, except for the Mars bar mostly, especially in this country, not really a name that's well known, it became clear that if you don't tell your story, somebody else will. We know this and that's I think where the shift started to happen.
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A
I love that piece. If you don't tell your story, others will. And so I commend you and the family for doing that. So as we understand it, you know Mars is a family owned business, but neither you nor your siblings are on the executive leadership team making those day to day decisions. In fact, Mars leadership team has had non family management for the last 25 years. Tell us about that decision to bring in a non family CEO to manage the day to day and how that's impacted the company.
- [05:03]
C
I will say at the time of my father and uncle deciding to retire, and that would be at the end of the 1990s and the beginning of 2000, there was for a time actually a belief on their part that they would just replicate what they had. My grandfather had a way of bringing up his children which he claims he learned from the Jesuits. But basically if one of them got into trouble. They both got into trouble. He basically assumed that they were both guilty. So there was no point in complaining about the sibling. And that he believes is what forced them together because he had a plan. He wanted them to run this company and it worked. That this duplication with two strangers, it was a temporary thing that didn't last very well until realizing that actually you needed one head on the horse and there was a logical person and when they looked at the family, I think they made the wise decision that you can't replicate two siblings with two cousins or even two siblings from one branch. Not the right, not, not, not the right thing to do. And I think that's where really their logic was it was going to cause more internal family strife. And so that's how we ended up with non family management. And at the moment it seems to be working just fine.
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A
Joining a family owned enterprise can be challenging for an outside non family CEO. Tell us what you think are the key traits that are critical for a CEO that's coming into a family business.
- [06:41]
C
I do observe when I look at and I have been on various boards where there's been family control and still am family controlled or family owned. Businesses are not the same as non family and it's not private equity, even though they're technically private private. It's a legacy. And you need to understand the family dynamics and you need to value what the family brings. That is it's hard to put on a list of key KPIs or skill sets. One of the principles that I care a lot about is a mutuality one. How do you explain mutuality to somebody when in fact it's about treating somebody the same way that you would want to be on the receiving end of and why that's important. The best deal comes from understanding where I have some value, where something is important to me because I value it and it's not important to you and vice versa. And how can we create more value for both? What I see in people who don't grow up with this is it's almost a blindness to it. They value what they know and not having the curiosity to try to understand why it's different.
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B
You talk about mutuality and one of the core values of Mars and it remains a values driven company which maybe is the secret to having not a family ownership but a CEO buys into the values. Can you talk a little bit about the five principles you mentioned? Mutuality is one of them. What are the others and how does that drive either deal making, integration or the day to day operations.
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C
The one that's most misunderstood is freedom. And we'll get to that. One last. But there is mutuality, equality.
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B
Responsibility, efficiency.
- [08:41]
C
Responsibility and efficiency. Okay? Most of them are fairly straightforward. Most companies will tell you they have those same principles. I think the mutuality one and the freedom one. The freedom one was really, it's not about free, do whatever you like. It came from the depression era and my grandfather's view, very strong view, that if you take on debt, you become beholden to the banks. His view was you should keep your debt levels low because you don't want others to control how you run your business. You don't want others to have a say over how you run your business. There are times when it's just not the right deal. And it's not the right deal because the way they do business, because of the prospects of the business or what you would have to do to that business in order to extract back the value is not the way we run a business. And when you bring in businesses from the outside and you bring in businesses that are different, you have to respect their cultures and you have to respect their way of doing things. But, but at the same time that also means you have to be careful that you don't destroy value inadvertently by imposing your way of doing things. And sometimes some businesses, I will personally say that I think that the food business is very difficult because generally food, food, groceries, it's really tough to extract big margins on things that we all consume every day. I mean, there's flour, sugar, butter, eggs. I mean, you need the cost of the inputs and then a small margin. Do you hope that people will continue to raise chickens for your eggs, but if you don't make it worth their while, they'll stop or something is going to go broken in the background that you don't see until it's a catastrophe.
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B
You ran corporate development, you bought a number of businesses, you have some big acquisitions right now waiting for approval in Europe. What deals did you know worked? Not by name, but why? And equally, why did you say no to some transactions?
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C
So I'll give you an example that goes way, way back. Something I learned from a really boutique investment banker. We've been looking at a deal and the business was located in an Eastern European country and the business had been very keen on the acquisition. And in those days we were still doing due diligence where you had to roll up to the company and sit in a room and go through documents so you didn't get it in real time. So it had to be processed and presented. And we were meeting to review the inputs and realized that their labor costs were something like 70% less than ours in that same country we already had manufacturing. And he looked at me and he said, this isn't going to work. I'm like, what do you mean? I was still pretty new at this. And he said, I've never seen labor costs go down. It was clear. And I remember having to call the business and say, we can't do this deal. And nobody disagreed really with the labor costs. And this shift, this change would have been, might have taken a couple of years, but that was certain. And then there are other deals that talk about Greenies. And Greenies was really a magical deal because when we bought Greenies, Greenies was having some issues. I mean, it's all documented. It's nothing new that people didn't know. And we were willing, it was a right asset for us. The economics worked. But moreover, we were willing to take some risk and do some calculation. And we realized it was about the brand. It was a promise of the brand, that this was temporary and we could fix it.
- [13:10]
A
Thanks, Feller. If we go back to the five principles for a moment, your family has done an incredible job preserving a value driven culture across generations. But your family took it even a step further recently in 2018 with the Mars Compass. As I understand, it's predominantly designed to link partners, purpose and performance at the company, so leaders can think in generations, not just quarters. Why did your family create the Compass and how do you go about establishing and operationalizing that throughout the company?
- [13:43]
C
Okay, let's, let's go back a little bit to when I said my father, my uncle, realizing that is not that the family should not be in operations or operational, the senior roles. And then being on the board, the family is the board. We have advisors to the board, but the family is the board. One of the things is in my generation, we're 10, then you go to the next level and you're up in the 20s and you know how this works. And the five principles are part of how we help people see what matters to us as shareholders and to the family, the broader family. But it's more than that. And those were more operational metrics than sort of philosophical metrics. And the family wanted, by not being in operations and not leading the company, wanted to ensure that without creating a shadow board for our board or creating a shadow management, that we created something that helped guide. And this is more, and it's used more for management rather than all the way down through the organization, although the compass is known about, but it's really how do you think about the broader impact that you make people understand? It's not just about financial results, because that's the easy one, but it's how you got there. And the how matters a lot. In fact, the how matters more in some ways than the financial results. Because if you did it by destroying the world around the people who were either manufacturing the product in their environment, in their lives, or around the suppliers that you buy from the way that they go about actually creating those products, it's not okay. It's not okay to just close your eyes. That doesn't make it easy and it doesn't make it perfect. We all find it challenging. We find it challenging because, well, everybody wants everything, right? You can't have it all. You have to understand in a more nuanced way how to balance those things and to keep progressing, always to keep progressing, always wanting and striving to make it better. So I think that's how the compass relates to the five principles and why it came about.
- [16:30]
B
I think that's amazing. I mean that's the lesson to a number of families around the world. That's the question. As you have lived through this transition, you've been in Eastern Europe, in the room, looking at the numbers and also saying let's, let's balance performance and purpose. Love that. To keep progressing. What's your advice to other family owned businesses that face multi generational challenges?
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C
It's difficult and I don't think one family's answer is the same for other families. There's a time in every business where you're no longer the best holder of those assets because it's destroying the family. And I think sometimes the assets prioritized over the human capital, the people, their humanity. You're not an organ donor to the business. It's the other way around. You are a human being. It's not just three people, it's my generation and the next generations. And for them, keeping them proud, but also hearing what matters to them, what's important to them because those are the conditions under which they're going to be willing to be stewards to the business if it doesn't resonate. And you have to meet them where they are, not solve it. Now today you have these people in their 80s and 90s. They're still trying to be the hero. They've got children who are in their late 60s and 70s. They're kind of past the energetic, creative time in their lives. And we're completely ignoring the younger generations. And I think we as family owners need to get ourselves out of, quite frankly, our own heads and egos and thinking. These are kids, they're not. They're adults and they're in the prime of their lives, in the prime of their creativity. That doesn't mean that a little wisdom doesn't go some way to helping. But it's a balance of those things, not a waiting for the oldest generation to die. And that model, I think needs to be rethought and we need to figure out how to do it within a risk parameter that a family business is willing to accept.
- [18:55]
B
But at the same time, you all have done, without getting any confidential, you've done an amazing job preparing the next generation for governance and leadership. How do you inculcate that into the family and the business?
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C
I don't think it's inculcation. I think it's their desire. It's not about us, it's about them. We're going to be gone and speaking to them honestly about what you feel as a group, as a cohort, you're going to expect one another, you're going to want to see in each other. You're going to require as a sort of minimum to get you in the door to be in this governance position. What would you want to feel confident about? What would you want to know? How would you want others to see you? Because let's go back all the way where we started, which is non family management. And what would you wish them to be conscious of or sensitive to what a family member brings to the party? That doesn't mean that you want somebody to walk in there with none of the business education that is just elementary in order to basically sit on a board. You want people to feel comfortable and confident when they sit in that boardroom. And that's what they want for themselves. They want to be in that room feeling that they have every right to be there. And then that they bring those other attributes because they, unlike anyone else, will have a sensitivity to how to explain the five principles, how to explain the compass. And they'll do it in a way that truly resonates because it's coming from knowledge and a feeling of what's important to the family.
- [20:41]
A
I think that's so well said, Valerie. I mean, little wisdom goes a long way. You've got to give the next generation a chance and shepherd them, put the guardrails. But they need to get exposure and start to make decisions. I'm curious. You've been this private family owned business really? Since inception, was there any, ever any discussion about going public? What have you found to be the advantages of staying private?
- [21:08]
C
First, go back to that freedom principle. It is an advantage. On the other hand, it also means that you have to keep pretty good control of your capital structure. That doesn't mean that debt is something you should be allergic to. This is not the depression and understanding the capacity of the business to actually take on debt and pay it back and so the going public to be very it's never been a conversation. It just doesn't come up. It comes up that we don't want to. We don't want anything different than to be private and family owned and family controlled. I think you'll have to make that choice. Probably you have to make it continuously. You'll have to continuously evaluate what you might what might be different. What would you need? Why would be a reason. But at the moment that conversation doesn't go anywhere. Nobody sees any particular need to we'll.
- [22:25]
A
Be right back with Valerie Mars. But first let's hear from Manurata Chawla, a leadership advisor at Russell Reynolds Associates Toronto office. Anuradha will explore when family enterprises should consider introducing professional management.
- [22:38]
D
For many family enterprises, the passion and intuition that built that business is no longer enough to sustain it. Markets are evolving faster than ever and competition is intensifying. And the intimate knowledge that once guided every decision may not be sufficient in today's complex environment. Our H1 2025 Global Leadership Monitor found that 41% of family enterprise leaders cite scaling operations and global expansion as a top three challenge. Yet many hesitate to bring in outside expertise, fearing it will diminish their family's influence. Professional management isn't about surrendering control, it's about enhancing your legacy. In our latest article, we identify critical transition points that signal when it's time to introduce family management. And we reveal how to navigate this evolution while preserving what matters most your family's vision and your family's values. To learn more about elevating your family enterprise through professional management, you can find the full article via our show notes or by visiting russellreynolds.com.
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A
Now back to our conversation with Valerie.
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B
One thing is listening to all this. There are various moments in your career. Whether it was the change in your uncle and your father's leadership, doing deals around the world or saying no to deals. Is there any single as we ask the redefining moment or defining moment in your career about your role and what you learned and how that would change as you went forward in my life.
- [24:22]
C
There were times where you sort of hit that moment where you think maybe there's a different perspective you should take. While working at Mars, I was traveling with a colleague and we're also Eastern European airport. And I was frustrated because my ticket wasn't right and these were the days where you had steal paper tickets things. And I had to go and the person at the counter was trying to help me and she said I had to go up and see her colleague in the ticket office or something. And I huffed off being annoyed and annoyed that I was being inconvenienced. And then I came back down with the ticket fixed and I continued to talk to my colleague while this person fixed my ticket. And this colleague said to me afterwards, can I give you some feedback? And I said yes. He said, it appeared to me that you treated that person there as if you didn't care for them. And I said, well, she was doing her job. And he said, well, yeah, she was and she was trying to help you. I didn't like that message, but I heard him and I sort of realized what was I doing exactly? And had this because where do you learn these things? Where do you learn these behaviors? Do you observe them? That's how other people behave. So you think that that should be the way you behave. After all, I'm more important, right? And you realize that you're not more important at all. You're just another human being just like everyone else and they're doing the best they can. And then I observe and I look at management and think people who lead people. What is leadership? Is leadership not about actually extracting from people voluntarily, getting them to bring their best to work every day? And they don't do that when they're fearful. They don't do that when they don't feel valued.
- [26:43]
A
I love that, Valerie. And it's clear that you care a lot more than just the P and L. Right? It's about the people. And I mean clearly it's a nimmic to your culture. Let's talk a little bit about what else Mars is doing outside of the day to day operations. We understand that you have several goals aimed at improving the world net zero emissions by 2050, reduce water usage by 50%, develop reusable, recyclable, compostable packaging across your product lines, speed up that shift from fossil fuels to clean energy through the use of wind farms and other renewable sources. But you don't stop there. You've also focused on the people side of sustainability, which you talk so passionately about. The company's goals include improving the lives of 1 million people across your value chain, especially women and increasing farmers incomes. Why has this always been part of Mars focus outside of the day to day P and L and so critical to your business strategy?
- [27:41]
C
We're an agricultural company. At least partially these products, these inputs come in many cases, sugar, cocoa, mint, they come and they're grown in faraway places. If the people who are growing them have other choices because they're not getting a fair price or they don't have a sense that there's a commitment from you as a buyer, but you also really want a very high quality product. You want them to take care when they're growing it. This doesn't work if you're just treating them, their community like a commodity. This planet is struggling and perhaps you don't want to see it, but in my lived life I'm certainly seeing shifts and it's not positive and I don't know where it's going. But if people don't start doing, trying to make it better, I don't know what's going to happen in two generations. I won't be around, you won't be around. But it doesn't look terribly hopeful.
- [29:04]
B
Well, that's why the steps you all take again and again make such a difference. We also look at in today's as you think about the planet as a whole and you all manufacture everywhere around the world and the supply chains are tremendously more complicated. Even in the past three years, in the past 15 or 20. There's a significant investment in US manufacturing now as well. How does one balance where you're selling product, where you're manufacturing it, where you're shipping it, where you're packaging it, where you're growing your commodities. Has that become more complicated in the last few years for the company?
- [29:42]
C
It's always been complicated. I just don't think it's less complicated. The manufacturing has always been based on trying to ensure that we manufacture in countries because that is part of the. We should be manufacturing in countries because it generates jobs and it generates taxes and it's the right thing to do. That's not a new concept, that's a mars concept. That's always been there. The United States of America represents a large, well, a big enough portion of our business and we should manufacture here. And those things come and go. It's not always been we manufacture in China, for China. We're never been in the business of shipping stuff all around the world. For one Mars Bars don't like that very much. It's not very good for them. You're certainly not providing vet services from somebody who's sitting in Europe for somebody's pet here. Now the day is going to come where maybe has already come. It's come in human medicine where you can get people actually who have an expertise in a particular surgery, being able to do it with a robot remotely supervised by. I mean, these things are exciting. I mean, veterinary medicine is as complex as human medicine. And then you're operating on creatures that are a lot smaller than we are. So everything is mini. So those types of things. Yes, but we've never been in the business and you can't. It's agricultural. You want. The consumer wants freshness. You don't want that Snickers bar, even if you've had it at sea. And it maybe gets a little salty because of how you store it. But the fact is, the fact is you do want that Snickers bar to be fresh and those peanuts to be fresh. And it's not by sending it all over the world.
- [31:51]
A
We want it a little bit sweet and salty.
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C
But yeah, well, he does find more salty than most of us. But if the spray hits it as.
- [32:00]
B
That's exactly what happens. That's exactly what happens. Do you take a bite fast before the wave hits?
- [32:05]
A
Well, Valerie, we've come to the part of our conversation we like to call rapid fire. And this is really a chance for us to get to know you better, for our listeners to get to know you better. So we're going to ask you a series of questions today. Your job is to respond as quickly as possible in one sentence or less. Are you ready?
- [32:23]
C
Yes.
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A
We have to start with the obvious question. Halloween's coming up here in the US My kids are excited. What's your favorite candy?
- [32:32]
C
Peanut M&MS.
- [32:33]
B
You've worked in the family business for 30 years or so. If you could have worked anywhere else in your career, who would you have worked for or where would you have worked?
- [32:41]
C
Warren Buffett.
- [32:42]
A
Good one. If you could wake up tomorrow having gained one new skill or ability, what would that be?
- [32:49]
C
Be able to paint.
- [32:50]
B
You've traveled all over the world for work. What's the most unusual thing you have eaten in your travels?
- [32:57]
C
Mostly avoided it and been hungry at night. I don't put anything in my mouth I don't want to eat.
- [33:05]
A
You mentioned your pet care industry and vets as we have to ask dog person or cat person?
- [33:11]
C
Been a longtime cat person at the moment, petless and sort of snuggle and huggle other people's pets.
- [33:21]
B
More serious question as you think about leaders broadly defined, what are the three traits you look for in leaders?
- [33:28]
C
Humility, ability to understand what it's like to be on the receiving end of them and to be human. I guess humility counts in there.
- [33:42]
A
Last question. If you had a crystal ball that could show the future, what would you want to know?
- [33:48]
C
I would want to know if the planet is going to make it.
- [33:53]
B
Well Valerie, this has been phenomenal. Super super super insightful and heartfelt and authentic. There's a lot we've learned and our listeners have learned and it's understanding the value of what the family brings to the business and in transactions as well. As you talked about valuing equally mutuality both sides of a transaction, both sides of a conversation and freedom not being beholden to others to make sure that perhaps both sides win something in a transaction. But everyone wins in working for a company that has that value system. If you don't tell your story, which is the evolution of the mars business, someone else will. So understanding and adapting to a modern world to tell the story. But equally as you all think about businesses you buy or expand into, don't destroy value inadvertently if the brand and the values fit. Even if you have to take risk in a transaction that you know that will work, that you'll take risk if it's in the wheelhouse of the company operationally and then and then the the asset can perform but you think about it in such a long term way. But that long termism comes from mixing performance with purpose and guiding about how one gets to the financials is as or more important than the financials speaking for themselves. If you balance as you have performance and purpose, you can keep progressing. I think we have three P's not just two now perform and have purpose and progress will happen. You're not just an organ donor to the business. I love that the family value set is about multiple generations understanding what happens. You don't do things for children, nor should we, but give them exposure and experience and they'll be more comfortable in the boardroom representing the values and culture of the firm. And as you think about the management of the company, you're making sure that from your own redefining moment allowing people to bring their best to work every day that they feel valued, they feel listened to and you'll get better perspectives and the company will be better run if the family has the perspectives that people have the courage to speak up. And thinking about the future, whether it's the business, the brand or the planet defines why you all think in decades and now century to bring the best to the company. From the company into the world in which you operate. How fantastic is that? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for taking the time today.
- [36:32]
C
You're welcome. It was a pleasure.