Articles

The P&G Alumni Network is a global organization of over 25,000 with chapters in over four dozen cities around the world. It is dedicated to both helping our members stay in touch and in giving back to the communities in which we live and work. 
Every two years at our global conference, we honor five of our members for their achievements and successes both as business people and as human beings, because the shared values learned and developed at Procter & Gamble combine both.

Past awards winners are some of the most recognized names in business around the world, as well as names that may not appear in the business press, but are critically important to the people they have served. This year's award winners are no exception.

The winners will receive their awards at the 2013 Global Conference.  
Mike Halloran
Network Director
P&G Alumni Network

The Alumni Community Service Award- For an individual who has made a significant contribution of their time, effort and expertise to the community in which they live. The award can reflect a single event or a lifetime of work.     

Gurcharan Das- It is hard to think of a person who has had a bigger impact on the community in which he lives than Gurcharan Das.   His book, India Unbound, changed how the world looked at India and while he could have gone into more lucrative careers after P&G, he chose to become an author and economist, and is involved heavily in education and philanthropic work.   

Gurcharan Das was the CEO of Procter & Gamble India and Vice President for Procter & Gamble Far East between 1985 and 1992. He was later Vice President and Managing Director, Procter & Gamble Worldwide responsible for global strategic planning. Prior to P&G, he was Chairman and Managing Director of Richardson Hindustan Limited from 1981 to 1985, the company where he started as a trainee. In 1994, after a 30-year career in six countries, he took an early retirement to become a full-time writer. In 2006, The Pio Manzù Centre recognized his decisive and valuable contribution made to the Western world's understanding of the remarkable economic development of India by conferring on him the medal of the Italian Senate.

Gurcharan has been heavily involved in numerous programs to improve education in India.   Most notably, he is the Chair for the Center for Civil Society. The Centre for Civil Society is an independent, non-profit, research and educational organization devoted to improving the quality of life for all citizens of India by reviving and reinvigorating civil society. But the CCS doesn't run primary schools, or health clinics, or garbage collection programs. They do it differently: trying to change people's ideas, opinions, mode of thinking by research, seminars, and publications. They champion limited government, rule of law, free trade, and individual rights. CCS is an ideas organization, a think tank that develops ideas to better the world. CCS wants to usher in an intellectual revolution that encourages people to look beyond the obvious, think beyond good intentions, and act beyond activism.

Gurcharan is also a trustee with the India Foundation of the Arts. IFA makes grants to individuals and organizations with the aim of filling important gaps in private and public assistance for culture and the arts in India. Their grants respond to existing demand for assistance, provide opportunities for artists to explore untried processes and new connections in the arts, or address systemic issues in the field. IFA's grants support all forms of cultural expression, while accommodating work that falls outside specific domains of art, blurs disciplinary boundaries or anticipates new modes of artistic production and presentation.

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The Alumni Humanitarian Award- For an individual who has made a significant contribution to the human condition through their time, effort or expertise, whether this was a single event or a lifetime of work. This award is intended to recognize actions that go well beyond efforts in a single community or location and serve mankind as a whole.     

Margaret Swallow- Margaret spent 23 years at P&G, retiring in June 2002 after successfully building brands and developing marketing personnel globally.

Margaret's passion for serving the members of the worldwide coffee community began as a Brand Assistant on Folgers in 1979, and continued through her roles in the Food & Beverage GBU, where she represented the company to the coffee industry. Her vision and leadership have now made a difference in the lives of thousands. She has designed, secured funding and successfully deployed programs that have improved the sustainability of coffee farming in developing countries around the world. According to the National Coffee Association, coffee is the world's number one agricultural commodity and is number two in terms of international trade (behind oil).

Margaret has improved the lives of families, particularly women, working in the coffee industry in the following ways:

• As Executive Director of the Coffee Quality Institute (a non-profit organization) from 2002 - 2006, Margaret established the Coffee Corps program with initial funding from the US Agency for International Development. The Coffee Corps recruits highly skilled coffee experts that volunteer their time to travel to origin countries to help farmers improve the quality of their coffee, which contributes to the farmers receiving higher prices when the coffee is sold. As of Dec. 31, 2010, experts around the world had conservatively contributed over 77,000 hours (valued at $7.7 million). The program celebrates its 10th anniversary in January 2013.
• As an active alum of the University of Maryland, Margaret worked with the Vice President of Student Affairs to develop an Alternative Break program in which students go to the Los Andes coffee farm in Guatemala and work on infrastructure projects to benefit the children of the farm laborers.
• In 2003 Margaret and five other women founded the International Women's Coffee Alliance with a mission to empower women in the international coffee community to achieve meaningful and sustainable lives. The IWCA now has eight chapters in Central and South America and Eastern Africa. The work also benefits entire families and communities, as the increased economic power of these women enables them to contribute to schools, hospitals and other community services. As a direct result of the IWCA, women in coffee in Central America have advanced into politics and moved from agricultural employment into decision-making roles and have developed their own coffee brands.
• In 2005 Margaret designed and led the first leadership program for women in the coffee industry funded by a USAID grant. This yearlong program matched 12 women from Central America with mentors from the US and Canada for quarterly seminars that focused on leadership development and coffee technical skills.  
• At the 2011 Specialty Coffee Association of America conference, she presented "Gender and Equality: the role women play in the future of the coffee industry". She also played a major role in having representatives of the IWCA participate in the International Coffee Organization's 2010 World Coffee Congress in Guatemala. This was the first time the role of women was featured at this event, which is attended by senior level representatives from both business and government.  
• In 2005 she was recognized as "Woman of the Year" at the Ramacafe conference in Managua, Nicaragua.   

 The John G. Smale Alumni General Management Award- For an individual who has made a significant contribution to the world of business whether the result of a single event or concept or the compilation of a lifetime of achievements.      

Mike Clasper- Mike had a very successful career in P&G starting in Marketing before becoming General Manager of the UK Company in 1985. He combined excellent business judgment with strong people skills.    Without doubt his time as GM produced some stunning business results. He also got heavily involved in the top grocery trade organisation....The Institute for Grocery Distribution...which was a unique organisation comprising of both Retailers and FMCG Companies...a real discussion shop for big non competitive issues. One of these was Waste Management and Mike successfully led a project on this with the result he was awarded the CBE (Commander of the British Empire) in 1990.    

When he left the UK he moved into Europe where he became Vice President of Home Care and Cleaning. He became President in 1999. After he left P&G he became Chief Operating Officer at the British Airports Authority before eventually becoming Chief Executive and Chairman of British Airport Authorities.    
In 2008 Mike was named Chairman of the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs where he served until the spring of 2012 - the first non-executive chairman of HMRC (no other major government department has a non executive chairman). HMRC is the prime tax agency in the UK, collecting £470billion.   

• Non Executive Chairman of Which? Limited from July 2008 - Which? is a subscription online and offline publishing business with over 1.3 million subscribers.
• Non executive director of ITV PLC from Jan 2006. ITV is a FTSE 100 company, the leading free to air broadcaster and the largest commercial television producer in the UK.
• Managing Director of Terra Firma/ EMI PLC in 2007/08. EMI is one of the world's leading music companies and had been acquired by Terra Firma in 2007.
• CEO and deputy CEO of BAA PLC 2001/06. BAA is a FTSE50 company and the leading global airports company. It owned, operated and developed airports including: Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Budapest, Melbourne and five other regional airports around the world.

Awards/positions - CBE, Honorary Doctorate at Sunderland University

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The Alumni Business Innovation Award- For an individual who has contributed a significant innovation to the world of business during their career. This is an award to recognize creativity that has been translated into business success.     

Wahib Zaki- Wahib was appointed R&D head by John Smale who was concerned that P&G was no longer generating the kind of product innovation that had separated the Company from its consumer goods rivals. Wahib made both organizational and attitudinal/cultural changes that allowed the Company to dramatically regain its footing. These are the key ones.   

• The combination of upstream technology development and downstream product development under one R&D head in each Sector. In this way he/she had all the resources required for the complete development process without the challenge and inefficiency of technology transfer across organizations and the potential for "not invented here" issues.   
• Expansion of the Euro product model on a worldwide basis. Wahib insisted that new technologies/upgrades/brands had to meet the needs of the world's most discerning consumers, frequently in Europe and Asia. While this set a very high standard for the R&D community understanding and meeting needs worldwide was also was a stimulus for product innovation. And by developing breakthrough ideas that could be implemented worldwide P&G gained economies of scale in product development, manufacture, raw material purchase and marketing.   
• Wahib set challenging objectives for everyone - demanding a focus on big ideas (his "Big Product Edge") and therefore a major shift of resources away from incremental product improvements/marketing support. While this met with some resistance, the force of his personality (and John Smale's support) enabled the R&D community to make the resource shift.   

The result of these changes, worldwide perspective and focus on big ideas was an unprecedented flow of major upgrades and new brands during Wahib's tenure as head of R&D and immediately afterwards as Wahib's successor, Gordon Brunner, continued to follow the Zaki model.   
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The McElroy Award- Procter & Gamble has long been recognized as the preeminent consumer company in the world and it desires to maintain this position. This is specifically not a "Marketer of the Year" award to be focused solely on the marketing function nor on a single time period. Rather, this award is intended to recognize significant contributions to the art and science of satisfying the consumer whether that is the result of a single event or concept or the compilation of a lifetime of achievements.     

Chip Bergh - Chip is currently the President and Chief Executive Officer of Levi Strauss & Co (LS&Co.), a leading global apparel company with sales in more than 110 countries.

Before joining LS&Co, Chip worked for Procter & Gamble for 28 years and served in a number of leadership positions of increasing scope and complexity. Prior to retiring and joining LS&Co., Chip was the first P&G executive to lead the Gillette Blades & Razors business, as Group President of Global Male Grooming, where he was responsible for the strategy, branding and innovation of this important 7 billion business. In this role, he led the integration of the Blades & Razors business into P&G, launched Fusion and Fusion Pro-Glide to more than 80 countries around the world and drove monthly share growth on that business for 63 consecutive months. He also led Gillette's first-ever innovation designed specifically for emerging markets with the launch of Gillette Guard in India in 2010. Finally, during Chip's time on the Male Grooming Business, the Old Spice brand was reinvigorated, and grew dramatically behind the Cannes Grand-Prix winning advertising campaign "Smell Like a Man."

Prior to leading Male Grooming, Chip was President of P&G's ASEAN, Australia, India business. Most notably, he spearheaded P&G's rapid growth in emerging markets, creating a mandate to have a P&G product in every home in Asia. This was a visionary change in thinking as P&G had previously focused its marketing on a product portfolio to serve the top end of the market. Chip challenged his team to create products with the right value that would reach a broader segment of the population.   This approach led the transformation of P&G's overall Asia business.

Chip is a strategic leader with a proven ability to build and grow brand powerhouses, bring new products to the mass market, develop innovative marketing campaigns, and capitalize on digital platforms to drive brand awareness. More importantly, those who work with Chip admire his leadership and passion for creating winning products and delighting the consumer. But, Chip is most proud of the impact that he left on the people in the P&G organization.

Chip has had an impact in every role he held as a leader at P&G. Bob McDonald once said, "Chip doesn't tell time, he is a watchmaker".  

Chip retired from P&G in September 2011 and joined LS&Co that same month. Chip was motivated to join LS&Co. for a few simple reasons. First, the brands - including one of the most iconic brands in the world, Levi's ®. Second, the global nature of the business and the tremendous opportunity for growth. Third, like P&G, the values of the company are very strong and are about "profits through principles."

Chip previously served on the Board of Directors for VF Corporation and on the Economic Development Board, Singapore. He was also a member of the US-ASEAN Business Council, Singapore.

* Procter & Gamble and P&G are trade names of The Procter & Gamble Company and are used pursuant to an agreement with The Procter & Gamble Company.  P&G Alumni Network is an independent organization apart from The Procter & Gamble Company.