Barbara Martin Coppola
speaker
72 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jun 2025
last heard Jun 2025
Barbara Martin Coppola’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
And so the leadership was somehow more demanding than before, as it meant to really create new business models, a new brand identity, a new experience, circular processes and business models overall.
a more demand, if you will, and also a lot of excitement as we were expressing somehow the next frontier, the next era for Decathlon without losing the roots and without losing, you know, the culture and values that were so important for Decathlon.
I saw how different companies were defining their visions and their purpose. I had done two rebrandings prior in my experience, one at Google, and then I worked at Grubhub and did another one. And every time it was important to dig deep into why do we wake up in the morning? Why are we here? And what is the reason to have all the energy in the world to reinvent and transform oneself?
And that is about contributing to more than a bottom line. This is about societies. This is about people. This is about a bigger sense. And that's the inspiration and experience that I brought into Decathlon in order to do that. Somehow there is a rational side, but there is also an emotional side.
And it's important to play with both so that, you know, people go and lean in into the new strategy and transformation with a lot of energy.
It's a big, big differentiator. So imagine both at IKEA and at Decathlon, it starts with creating, designing the products, and then having the materials and understanding not only the quantities, but deep knowledge on what to use to the production, the supply, the transport, the logistics, and finally the stores. So the control end to end can mean a lot of different advantages if done well.
The first one is time to market. We can test and go fast and understand, you know, whether the creation resonates or not. You can go and control your costs much better because of the huge volumes, you know, being able to negotiate the prices and materials and the production. So the affordability of both IKEA and Decathlon is linked to that. But then there is the sustainability aspect.
Because of the end-to-end, then one can control the CO2 emissions in an absolute way, choose the right materials, choose the production partners, and therefore control and even do the right thing, diminishing while growing the company and doing the right thing for the planet. There is many, many advantages when the company is digitalized.
Because now in the age of AI, imagine being able to control the end-to-end and putting all of this in connection to the service of creating value for the customer. Now, the caveat of that is that it takes a lot of alignment. We're talking about companies over 100,000 people plus for both examples.
And so the alignment of the end-to-end is really important for reaping the benefits for the companies.
There's different aspects that were important to prepare for the top position at a company. I think one is about adaptability. Having worked in a mosaic of different industries and different countries, the more diversity of experiences you have, the more you can connect the dots to be able to have answers, business models, different thinking to any setting.
But I would also say there's two other aspects. I worked in digital industries for a long time, and there is a philosophy of working in digital places that I think can be applied to any company. One is the fact of having cross-functional teams, having test and learn, and having this agility being applied to any company. I think it's really important to get to know and to use for other companies.
And the last part, I've been involved with two huge transformations of complex environments, both at IKEA, at Decathlon, but also at Grubhub. And the most important thing in transformations is people. So the last thing that I would say to become a CEO is there is a rational side on strategies and movement,
But there is an emotional side that is equally important, the human aspect of inspiring people and creating movement so that, you know, companies as large as 100,000 people follow and create and thrive into, you know, the new era for the company.
It's a great question. And I'm a deep believer in innovation. And I think any business that does not innovate is a recipe for failure. There's different types of innovation. There is the innovation on the everyday, the incremental innovation, if you will. And that is important. Now AI is going to be bringing productivity, for instance. How do we get better operationally?
How do we have better products, et cetera? But there is the big thinking innovation, too. And the big thinking innovation is important to create budget, time, and people in order to meaningfully move the lines and reap the benefits maybe longer term. But this is the type of things that could be cut when there is cost-cutting exercises or when the benefits are not immediate.
And I think that's really a mistake for companies that do that. It's really protecting all these areas because they are diversification of revenues, because they help actually the company continue its evolution and reinvent itself. The thing that is important as well is to know the strategy and to know why we are here.
Because in the big thinking, I believe companies can lose themselves into creating into areas that are completely foreign to the strategy and that North Star that I was describing before. So there is a bit of consistency.
And a lot of culture as well, to make sure that people dare and that are empowered to take the risks and that get into that framework of the strategy, but with the freedom to know that they can actually meaningfully create for the good of either now or the future.
First, the voice of the people working in the organization, both at Google, IKEA, but also Decathlon, Grubhub. Every quarter, the voice of people would actually be heard. It will be heard through questionnaires, it will be heard through comments, and there will be informal gatherings to actually voice.
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