DEBORA KOYAMA

New York / Zurich

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"Marketers". Debora uses this word without shame to refer to the teams she has been running in her career.

Debora (Global Growth Operations Officer at Unilever) as Chief Marketing Officer - Mondelez International (position she held from 2017 to 2019) implemented a powerful digital transformation and acceleration agenda. "What is marketing in the 21st century? How to accelerate digital growth? Who is this consumer we are talking to?", Shares some of the questions that were under his eye. This is your primary role and your job description, but your personal agenda is much bigger:

"I have arrived for my direct and spoken team: what is your dream? What do you want to accomplish within the company? What makes me happy is to see the sparkle in the eyes of the person that is there and that I can help to fly . "

Nipo-brasilian, new yorker by heart, based in London. She has been developing brand strategies for AB InBev, Diageo, Kraft and L'Oreal for nearly 20 years through a leadership philosophy called servant leadership, or "leadership at the service of people".

Traditional leadership usually involves the exercise of power by a figure at the "top of the pyramid." In comparison, the leader-server shares his power, puts the needs of others first, and helps people develop to their full potential. "It's the team that has to be in the spotlight," she says.

Of course, as a result of this position, campaign and business KPIs are expected to make sense for the business (and Debora collects many things in the bag), but for her, companies must begin to understand something primordial: they are more in the service of people's dreams than vice versa.

Brands are agents of transformation and, as such, need to act responsibly. A great example of using this power was a campaign that Debora orchestrated for Stella Artois with the Water.org foundation, the NGO of the actor Matt Damon. She and her team had the privilege of talking about how water shortages compromise and slow human and economic development in the world.

Right in the middle of the Super Bowl.

In the name of a brand.

More than once, she repeats with conviction: "This is one of the best times to be a marketer in the world." One of his arguments is that millenials will be 50% of the global workforce by 2020, so there is no choice:

"People are ready for brands to have purposes."