Ann Mukherjee sees Chivas Regal sales rising post-COVID 19
Over the past year, consumer purchases of the coffee liqueur Kahlua have risen 30%, Ann Mukherjee told CNBC last week. Locked inside since March this year, due to COVID-19, people are mixing cocktails at home using Kahlua, cognac, tequila and other premium alcohol brands that they used to drink at bars and restaurants.
Mukherjee is the chief executive of Pernod Ricard North America, which owns 16 of the top 100 global alchohol brands. Its brands include Chivas Regal, Ballantine’s, Absolut Vodka and Beefeater gin, in addition to Kahlua. North America is the biggest market for Pernod Ricard. It is the world’s second largest alcohol vendor after Diageo, whose brands include Johnny Walker. Pernod has a stock market value of $48 billion.
There is strong demand for alcohol bottles selling in the $50 to $100 range. Compared to paying $50 for two glasses of Cognac in a bar, before the pandemic, you can buy a bottle and get 10 to 15 glasses for the same price, Mukherjee said. Over the past year consumer purchases of the company’s bottles, mostly online, have risen 22%, with Glenlivet Scotch seeing a 26% increase. She expects the rising home consumption to continue post in 2021.
Early this year, soon after the pandemic broke out, Mukherjee acted decisively, using her experience in overcoming several tough personal challenges. She told her team, Forbes reported, that “We need to move forward while managing risk and planning for contingencies, but we will need to get used to moving through all the unknown…We need to make reinvention part of who we are.”
In 2017, chatting with students at the business school at the University of Wisconsin -Madison, Mukherjee displayed profiles of two women. One faced misfortune and tragedy—sexual abuse, early death of a parent, violent marriage. The second one lived the American dream—good education, happy marriage, children, success.
“How many think both women were effective leaders?” Mukherjee asked. The answer, she said, is that “woman A and woman B are the same person. And that person is me.”
Mukherjee offered three lessons on leadership to the students. First: Make adversity your advantage.At 14, Mukherjee was traveling with her mother in Kolkatta, India, when their car was struck by a drunk driver. Her mother, who was 36, died within 30 minutes. While a young girl, Mukherjee was raped by a drunk man.
After her first husband put her in a hospital for a second time, she found the strength, with the help from a cousin, to leave the abusive marriage. She then went on to earn an MBA from the University of Chicago in 1994.
During her second marriage to Dipu Mukherjee, she learned she could never have children due to her first husband’s physical abuse. She and Dipu tried in vitro fertilization for four years before their twins were born. Later, on finding out that her daughter had leukemia, “We just imagined a world without cancer,” Mukherjee says. “We would try to use the power of positive thinking.”
“Failure is the secret to my success,” Mukherjee told Forbes. Every large failure in her life has “been the S-curve of my growth.” Going through tough times taught her resiliency, the courage to change course when needed, and the tenacity to never give up on her dreams, she told the students.
Mukherjee’s second lesson is: Love yourself so you can love others. “My job is a people job and if I don’t love myself, how can I love the people that I have to serve?” Good leadership means embracing all parts of yourself, especially the bad because that’s harder.
Authenticity is the bedrock of being a leader, a foundation that remains firmly in place whether at home or in the office. “We are who we are because of our experiences,” she says. “We don’t have regrets… saying what you really feel…is a philosophy I’ve had in life, and it’s a philosophy I’ve had as a marketer.”
Mukherjee’s third lesson for the MBA students is: Understand your audience.“I fell in love with consumers, I fell in love with people, I fell in love with what motivated them, I fell in love with brands—I fell in love with what I did,” she says.
“I’ve never been apologetic on any of the brands I’ve worked on because there’s a group of people that love them.” In every job, she seeks to understand a company’s brands and consumers.
She recommends finding mentors “who tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear.” For those just starting their careers, she advises “It isn’t about being perfect and thinking you need to know everything…” When you have confidence in yourself you realize that anything is possible, she told Forbes.
Mukherjee, 55, joined Pernod Ricard in December 2019. Earlier she was the Global Chief Commercial Officer of S. C. Johnson & Son, a family-owned manufacturer of household and professional products like Ziploc bags and Windex cleaning liquids. She ran its $12 billion consumer global business, which sold products in more than 90 countries.
From 2005 to 2015, she was at PepsiCo, New York. Her roles there included Vice President of marketing for Quaker Snacks, Chief Marketing Officer of Frito-Lay and President of Global Snacks. Earlier, starting in 1994, she spent 11 years at Kraft Foods managing Kraft Mac & Cheese, Taco Bell, Minute Rice and other brands. At Kraft, her first job after her MBA, she soaked everything up “like a sponge.”
Mukherjee started her career in 1992 at Citibank Diners Club in the New Product Department. In addition to her MBA, she earned a double Bachelor of Arts in Economics and in Religious Theology at the University of Chicago.
Born in Kolkata, she currently resides in Dallas, Texas with her husband Dipu Mukherjee and their twins. She is active in the South Asian community in Dallas, assisting other women who face domestic abuse.
Her mother, Mukherjee says, taught her to accept people unconditionally. “God put a gift in everyone.” her mother would say. “Your job is to find that gift and learn from it.”
