Doug Conant has served as president of Nabisco and chairman of Avon Products and is a New York Times bestselling author. A widely recognized speaker, he founded ConantLeadership, a mission-driven community of leaders.
But Conant is best known for his work as CEO of the then-ailing Campbell Soup Co. In 2001, business results were dismal and employee engagement was at rock bottom. With a relentless focus on workplace culture, Conant turned things around dramatically. In a Gallup survey 10 years later, Campbell Soup’s employee engagement scores outshone those of the other companies surveyed, and included a spectacular 17-to-1 engaged-to-disengaged employee ratio. (In 2001, the ratio was a nightmarish 1.67-to-1.) Over this time, total shareholder return went from a negative to exceeding industry and stock market benchmarks by multiples.
