Jan Zijderveld has run businesses on five continents, fixing broken ones, growing strong ones, and inheriting everything in between. In Part 2 of this conversation, he picks up where the strategic playbook left off: leading leaders across Southeast Asia and Europe, then walking away from 30 years at Unilever to take the top job at a company most people had written off.
That company was Avon. Share price at $2, $2 billion in debt, 6 million sales reps cycling in and out the door every year. Zijderveld rebuilt it around four levers: brand, earnings, digital, and simplification, and sold it three years later for $6 a share.
The episode closes with hard-earned advice: start with the end in mind, take risks, and learn from everyone worth learning from.
In this episode, you will hear:
- Leading leaders across Southeast Asia and Europe, and what changes when the people reporting to you run billion-dollar companies
- How Jan turned a shrinking European business into Unilever’s sharpest competitive proving ground
- The state of Avon when he arrived: $2 share price, $2 billion in debt, and 6 million reps churning through the door every year
- Four levers that rebuilt Avon from the ground up: brand restoration, rep earnings, digitization, and radical simplification
- Why 90th-percentile talent succeeds only 27% of the time, and what the other two variables are
- Start with the end in mind, get flying hours, and surround yourself with people who have a spike
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