I really enjoyed my conversation with Vineet Mehra who is the Global President of the Baby Care business for Johnson & Johnson (J&J). As a fellow Canadian, it's always a nice bonus to hear the story of someone who started their career in Canada. Vineet now oversees a massive global business at J&J. There's a ton of practical and useful advice in this conversation and I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I did.
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These are just a few of the highlights from our chat:
- Grew up with a Tiger Dad (not mom). Strict upbringing where his parents had incredibly high expectations of him.
- Got into the packaged goods industry in high school when his entrepreneurship teacher told him about a company called Procter and Gamble. He then went to the high school career services office to look for the Universities where P&G hired.
- One of his first business endeavors was selling candy in high school at an 80% margin. That was probably one of the first signs that he was destined for business and the packaged goods industry.
- Never planned to be a lifer at P&G. P&G was an incredible training ground but he always had the curiosity to look at different points of views.
- Lived in 11 different homes in the last 13 years. If you have plans to run a global company, you have to be willing to work in multiple regions and it's incredibly important to have a life partner who is willing to support that.
- Vineet and his wife lead a dual track career and both incredibly busy but they keep their life organized using a shared calendar. This is something I'm hoping to get my own wife signed for but she never accepts my calendar invites.
- Bloom where you're planted. What this means is, wherever you land, make sure to kill it. Accept the challenge that you've been given instead of always thinking three steps ahead.
- Curate the village – you can't do it alone and it's important to build the right team around you in order to be successful.
- On giving advice to his 25 year old self, he would recommend learning to live with losing from time to time. Lose with grace and don't take those losses so seriously.
- On rituals or routines, if he's in town, he will make sure that he has dinner with his family.
- He lives in a clutter free life – no filing cabinet and doesn't keep paper around him both in the office and at home. This enables him to think clearly.