Name: President of Global Ice Cream Mars Exec Anton Vincent on How He's Having Fun at a Century-Old Brand
Uploaded: 2024-09-05
Duration: 15 min 32 s
Description: Anton Vincent has been the President of North America and Global Ice Cream at Mars since 2019. Throughout his career, he’s drawn on his experience dealing with pressure and staying confident while playing high school basketball, applying these skills to his approach to business leadership.

Anton Vincent has been the President of North America and Global Ice Cream at Mars since 2019. Throughout his career, he’s drawn on his experience dealing with pressure and staying confident while playing high school basketball, applying these skills to his approach to business leadership.

President of Global Ice Cream Mars Exec Anton Vincent on How He's Having Fun at a Century-Old Brand

Leadership

Anton Vincent is the President of North America and Global Ice Cream at Mars and has drawn on his experience from playing high school basketball to inform his approach to business leadership.

I have fun. What I do. Uh And I, I try to create an environment where we have incredibly high expectations, but we have fun as well. And so I try to create an environment where people want to be there because I think if they want to be there, I'm gonna get their best work. I mean, you're the president of Global Ice Cream, of course, you're having fun, you're not having fun. What are you doing? Well, as we say, we can't have fun. Nobody can have. And thank you for joining us. Thank you. Thank you for having me. This is a series aiming to explore the, the strategies and elite mindsets of professionals, both in sports and in business and trying to learn how, you know, help our audience basically propel their careers on to the next level, whether that's the sports field or the boardroom, whatever it is, you know, you are. I think your full title is uh Mars Wrigley, President of North America and Global Ice Cream. Is that correct? I don't care whose definition of success you're using. President of Global Ice Cream is pretty phenomenal. Um Your kids must have been delighted when you told them you're going to be president of Global Ice Cream. Um But what, what is your proudest achievement in your career? Yeah, I think I got a couple of proud changes in my career. I think, first of all, it was just being able to have a sustainable career and to do, I would consider pretty cool things over the arc of time, I guess. First and foremost, I think the second piece is being able to do that and still have a very engaging family life. Uh My wife and I have been married for 25 years. We have three great kids and I like to think that I'm a pretty significant part of their lives. And so being able to execute my profession at a high level for a long time and still being present, uh I consider those things very successful for me. So I think those are things that I can look back on and feel proud about. You know, he sustained a very long career every long time. Is there ever a particular point where you thought or you ever considered yourself that is a success or I, you know, I'm, you know, so proud of that moment. Yeah. Well, I think, I think it's interesting when I think about that question, it's more of a conceptual piece for me. I think at some point in my career, I, I recognize the impact that my decisions have on people. Um both on the people that I lead and the organizations I lead. But because I have a consumer facing business, the decisions I make in my team make, they impact millions of people all around the world. And so I think when you sort of think about that responsibility of leadership and, and understanding around, wow, how am I successful in making sure that I'm making great decisions and I'm making it for the right reasons and I'm making them hopefully so that my company and our marketplace strategies can be successful. I think when I, when I really understood sort of the awesomeness of that, I said, OK, wow, maybe what I'm doing is having some significance and therefore I feel successful about it. What are the key nonnegotiable behaviors that you use in your everyday life to reach your goals and ensure that, you know, you keep making the right decisions for you and those around you. Yeah, I think I have a few, few simple ones. I think the first thing is that my, my foundation is about high accountability, high individual accountability. Uh That's very fundamental to me. I'm an athlete so that, you know, in, in my lifetime, I played all through college sports. And the first thing you learn is athletes, you do your job, you do your job, everybody does their job. We do it collectively with the right plan, the right strategy. We put ourselves in a position to win so high accountability, I think is first, I think secondly, it is just having, um, high curiosity, you know, the world is changing at a certain pace. Now, our minds can't really keep up with it. And so I don't think you can be successful over time unless you have an innate curiosity. I think from that perspective as well. And I think the third thing is just learn from failure. Um, a lot of people talk about how successful they've been. They really learned from failure. I know I have and I look to learn from my failure. I look to really understand what went wrong. What was my contribution to it? What was the contextual situation as well? And so I think putting those two things in place for me have helped me to understand my leadership better, has helped me to execute it better. I think it's helped me to be successful in different situations. And that's the key one. I think learning from failure and you know, that comes up a lot with the people that I speak to. How do you cope with mistakes and how do you deal with those mistakes? Well, I would say it has changed. I would say when I was a younger leader, I would get very frustrated because I didn't want it to happen. Obviously, we set a plan and a strategy and we expect you to be successful. I think as I've gotten to be an older leader, I really try to make sure again that I just learn from it. I, you recognize you're not going to win all the time. Uh You recognize that maybe your effort is not right. Your strategy is not right. Maybe even your plan is not right. So I always look forward again back to the accountability piece. Where did I go wrong? Where the team go wrong, where the organization go wrong? And now what do we learn so that we minimize the risk of going wrong in the future? So I really look at failure as a tremendous learning opportunity, but I had to evolve to that. I wasn't always that precient to sort of say, oh, we fail. Let's learn, let's keep going on. But I think it's fundamental really because in certain endeavors, particularly innovation, for instance, you're failing more than you're winning by a pretty large slide. That doesn't mean you stop doing it. It doesn't mean you don't have an innovation appetite because it's necessary for the future. So that's critical and, and not only for me as a leader, but how do you get that ideology instead? An entire organization because I need them pushing the envelope most of the time. Do you use any um key habits or rituals or anchors? Some people call them um in your day to day life to help set you up. I'm an early riser. I always have been I five am 435. Yeah, I also, I also go to bed early. So people know me know that II, I have a cut off time, uh, eight o'clock, not sleeping. But I like, I don't want to be out after eight o'clock. So I try to have early dinners and all that kind of stuff. But I think for me is that I know that I have, um, an intellectual need to absorb information and process information. So what I try to do is to sort of get my intellectual needs met first. Otherwise I'll be thinking about it and so on and so forth because like most leaders, once my day starts, it's not my day anymore. It's my calendar's day and I'm off to the races. So I try to make sure the things that I think that drive me that help feed my curiosity are fed first. And so, you know, I wake up, I read, I do all the things I need to do and it's not always about my business or the category business or the industry. Um, but it's just, it's feeding all those things around me. So I think that's pretty important. My goal is to be physical in the morning, um, somewhat consistent with that as well. So I try to take care of my needs first, you know, the intellectual needs and physical needs. So when I hit my environment, I'm ready to go, I am, I am 100% locked into what I'm doing and I'm available to my team internally externally. What have you. So, I think it helps me have purpose to my day. Helps me to have a bit of a symmetry to my day as well. And whatever comes my way, I feel like I can, I can handle it. So, you're an exercise in the morning, kind of. Yes. Yes. Because if it doesn't happen in the morning, it's not going to happen. You've been president of, of Mars Rigby for just over five years. I think you had 15 years at General Mills. You've obviously encountered um a lot of um great leaders and a lot of um top executives in your time. What are, what is the best advice that you think that, that you've come across during your career? Well, first of all, I had the opportunity to have some great mentors in my life as well. Always going back to my high school coach, legendary high school coach, who I think the one thing he helped me to understand is how to execute under pressure. Um And he, you know, if, if there wasn't pressure, he would create the pressure, you know, so by the time we get to a game, we know how to handle it psychologically, we know how to handle it physically. I try to take some of that into as well. I think the second piece of advice I've gotten is really, is just uh don't put too much pressure on yourself because things happen. A lot of things that happen are really are not in your control. Um One of the things that leaders of the trap we fall into is that we assume we control everything and that is mostly not the case. And so just taking some of that pressure off. And the third thing, the third thing is just making sure you have context in every situation that you're in, every situation is different. Every situation, yes, may have some foundational principles in terms of how you manage through it. But it's all context, whether it's in the gy, whether it's in a market, whether it's in a brand, you know, there's just different contexts as well. So just making sure your situational leadership is at a high level that is really, really important. I think the last thing is just um just learn from your mistakes because you will make them, uh you will continue to make them. Uh But the key is not making a mistake is what did you learn from it? And how do you apply it moving forward? Uh And, you know, if you've been in anything for any length of time, hopefully, you know that, but the practice of learning and to applying and those types of things really have have been helped me, helped me for sure. But I, I would say I evolved for that, you know, when I first became a leader, I didn't have all that wisdom. Um But you know, people have so much access to information and insight these days, you don't have to wait till you deep into your career to have some of those so that wisdom come your way and then try to activate it and practice it. I say the last thing is um talk to people. I think some of my greatest learnings of talking to people, whether it's colleagues, whether it's older mentors, whether it's younger people as well. I, I get insight from every conversation that I have with a person. I feel like I can learn from anybody been helpful. So I've been open to that curiosity. However, it comes at me, I just try to embrace it and try to look for it and just learning, I try to play. It's interesting that, you know, you mentioned your high school coach had one of the most formative impact on you. And, you know, considering the career that you've had, you know, that's, that's crucial and I show you can get it from anywhere at any point in your career, no matter who it is or no matter how young you are, there can always be someone who can, who can offer you that will set you up for, for the rest of your life. But the key is you gotta, you gotta be able to look for the learning. What are the most important attributes do you think that leaders have um that you've experienced your career? Like a theme that runs through them all. Yeah, I think the thing that runs to the mall is, and I've come to this one somewhat lately. I think I, I practiced it but just appreciating it more. It's just focus, focus is critical because, uh, you know, as you start to grow as a leader, you know, everybody has an opinion on what you should do, how you should do it, what your strategy should be as well. But you got to be able to incorporate the information that you're getting, you should get. But then you got to be able to have a core and then be able to really sort of synthesize that into action. And so I think that idea around focus is just absolutely critical. I think if I talk to 10 leaders, some, some form of focus is going to sort of show up in the advice that they've given to me over the years. I think the second thing is just to trust yourself as well. Um You're gonna come into a lot of situations, a lot of dynamic confidence, you mean? Yeah. Yeah, trust and confidence, you know, so, but trust builds confidence. I think if you trust, trust your uh how you process information and how you execute information, how you set up the organization, I think that builds confidence over time. Uh But sometimes, you know, I've found leaders that are just searching for an answer and not really having a course, I think that for yourself or how you process and how you execute, I think it is very important, you know, when you were coming up. Um There may not have been that many role model that you can look to. Who, who were the people that you could look to and who were the people that inspired you on your journey? Yeah. So I'll start from the beginning. I think my parents were, I think I had some of the best in the world. They were um they were in the classroom when I was growing up as well. And so I think I saw people who invested so much in other people for their success. And I thought that that was a beautiful thing for us. I thought they taught us some pretty basic values around working hard and treating people, right? And just having a limitless mindset around what, what you're capable of doing that is very important. And the second thing is just my, my high school coach, uh legendary coach, legendary person. I put about 12 players in the NBA as well. And just his idea around how he prepared us for victory both physically and psychologically and using sports as a, as a metaphor for life. You know, some of the things I still go back to, I think, I think to this day, I think a pretty important and I think for me, you know, I had a lot of heroes growing up. Uh, but the one that sticks in my mind today is just Muhammad Ali, not, not so much for his boxing capability and all the things he did in the ring, but sort of what he represented outside the ring and how he carried that throughout most of his life. I thought it was incredible. Um especially as an African American, you see someone that has confidence, you have somebody that has incredible athletic capability who is working hard, but still has a broad worldview and is really and truly trying to help people as well. So I thought I saw somebody that had multiple dimensions that that might be on a sport looking back to, to young Anton, you know, when you were first starting out, what, what would you wish you could tell him that? You know, now, yeah, I would tell him so many things. I mean, the first thing is just slow down. I don't think I was unlike most people, my age is I always wanted to get to the next thing fast and I had a timeline in my head and had to be at this time. So it's just slow down like a little bit like let the game come to you versus chasing it. Um I wouldn't do it differently again because I think that was my motivation. That was my energy and it pushed me to do what I needed to do. But, uh, but it took a lot of emotional energy and a lot of psychological. So I would just sort of say slow down. I think the second thing, you know, I talk about this a lot is just, just having a better relationship with feedback. When I first started getting feedback early in my corporate career, I just, I took it personally. I didn't, I didn't take it as developmental conversation. I took it as, oh, you don't, you don't like me. you don't like what I was doing. Um But man, it, it, it really is powerful. I think when someone invests and helps you to understand how you can do better be better. Uh It's a beautiful thing and if you act on it in the right way, it actually elevates you. Uh So I think that's what I would tell myself. Just take the, take the feedback a little bit more broadly and making sure that you're getting the development message and not that we don't like your message. You know, it, I took it very personally. I think the third thing is just that I, I wish I would have spent more time in learning as a youngster around what made me special, you know, I thought I had confidence, I felt I had skills, I thought I had capabilities. Um But I didn't really understand it in a way that I can understand it now. So I, I think just making sure you're spending time with yourself investigating yourself, understand why you do what, you know, what, what turns you on, why you do what you do. I think it's pretty special. Once I started to do that later in my career, I started having more of appreciation around me and I started to make sure that I was really trying to spend those things, spend time with those things that was gonna leverage my capabilities. So I think that that's pretty cool to understand that I had a self-awareness at a younger age and speaking of, you know, self-awareness and, and, and what, you know, now what do you think matters less than, than you thought it did? That is a really good question. I think what matters less is I, I would say definitions of success, I would say I would have, I had a very classical definition of success as a younger person, which is probably more things, things and titles and uh you know, more and more and more. I think now it was just impact my, my understanding of what success means. How do I impact people, individuals, organizations, uh broader swath of communities, particularly where we serve and where we have businesses. It is pretty important for me because success now is a long term impact. It's not something that is, that is acquisition oriented. You getting this thing, getting that thing. So I think that's how my success definition has evolved over time. That's why I try to spend my mental time and making sure I'm having maximum impact in people and communities. We are honestly, if you have to make one decision today, that would have the most positive impact on your life going forward. What do you think that could be? Well, if I had to make one decision, I think today is taking care of myself. I think a lot of leaders spend so much time in doing the thing and executing the thing and achieving the thing, they really forget about the foundation that allows the thing to happen. Uh which, which is yourself, which is taking care of yourself physically, mentally, spiritually. Uh Because this is a long game, it's truly long game. And I can't be successful at the game if I'm not at the top of my game, physically, spiritually and mentally as well. So I think it's just making sure we focus on that, putting the right kind of attention to it, being consistent about it. I think it's pretty important but that, that is the foundation for everything else that sort of jumps off of as well.