Richmond alumna urges audience to be courageous

Melanie Healey, Group President - North America and Global Hyper-Super-Mass Channel at Procter & Gamble Co. and Richmond alumna, urged an audience in the Robins School of Business Wednesday night to "choose to be courageous."

Healey said it is critical to start with a vision and dream, learn to move beyond a comfort zone and find a company that is consistent with personal values.

"Sometimes the path might not be firm, but if the dream is there and you really want it, you can get there," Healey said to the audience of students, faculty and community members.

Healey's lecture from 6 to 7 p.m. in the Ukrop Auditorium was the latest in the Robins Executive Speaker Series. Healey, a Brazil native, graduated from Richmond in 1983, and credited the University as critical in inspiring her passion for marketing.

"Brazil was a military dictatorship and a closed economy. Walking into a supermarket, there was one brand of butter," she said. "When I walked into a supermarket in Richmond, I thought, 'Wow, this is Disney.' I thought, 'I want to take this back to Brazil.'"

And she did. Healey joined Procter & Gamble in 1990 as a junior brand manager in Brazil, after working as a marketing manager for Johnson & Johnson Consumer Division.

"This looked like a crazy move," Healey said. "But when P&G came to Brazil, it was viewed as the Harvard of marketers, the MIT of innovation. I decided I wanted the chance to be a part of the start-up in the turbulent market of Brazil with incredibly entrenched competitors. It was a risky career move."

Healey said the experience of winning from behind, the opportunity to move around the world with Procter & Gamble and learn about different markets was worth the risk.

Innovation is crucial at Procter & Gamble because it is the primary way the company touches and improves consumers' lives, Healey said. Healey discussed commercial innovations, which use creative marketing to grow existing products and help drive trial and loyalty, she said. Procter & Gamble, a Worldwide Olympic Partner, launched a 'Thank You, Mom' campaign for the London 2012 Olympic Games. Healey said the campaign is her number one example of commercial innovations.

The campaign focused on the mothers of Olympic athletes, she said. During the lecture, Healey aired two P&G commercials that focused on the role of Olympic athletes' mothers.

"We had been a company of brands, and we never really talked about P&G," she said. "Our 'Thank You, Mom' campaign was an opportunity to talk about a company of brands and what they meant in the life of consumers."

The campaign has been hugely successful in terms of leveraging popularity of the Procter & Gamble company, she said. This is because the campaign focused on improving consumer feelings toward the brand, she said. Additionally, Procter & Gamble started a 'P&G Home' for mothers of Olympics athletes that could not afford to travel to the Olympics, and funded their travel expenses, she said.

"One of the things that defines good leaders is making good choices," Healey said. "Become intentional about making the right choices."

Contact reporter Jenna Robinson at jenna.robinson@richmond.edu