Social Impact Heroes Helping Our Planet: Why & How Rahul Malhotra Of Shell Is Helping To Change Our World
An Interview With Martita Mestey
You can be the top student in your class but the guy who works harder than you will probably get promoted faster!
As part of my series about “individuals and organizations making an important social impact”,I had the pleasure of interviewing Rahul Malhotra.
High quality commercial & general management experiences. Large value B2B deals. B2C and B2B2C marketing/sales. Have lived in the US / UK / Japan / India / Singapore / Switzerland & worked on many global businesses over nearly 24 years.
Procter & Gamble marketing — head of marketing (P&G India), Global Pampers Brand Manager, Asia Pacific marketing head for Pringles, Vicks and Metamucil.
Global P&L roles with Shell running 10–15 countries with $2–4 billion global turnover. Currently responsible for global brand strategy and architecture (for the $42 billion value SHELL brand family), brand identity & multi-sensorial standards, brand stewardship, employee ambassadorship, brand protection/counterfeits, brand operations across various parts of the group (upstream/downstream) and brand extension licensing. Leading highly successful program to embed our Purpose deep into the DNA of employee behaviour, strategic choices and value propositions to our stakeholders. Also leading work stream on behalf of executive committee to step change the company’s customer centricity capabilities.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit about how you grew up so we can understand your backstory and sources of passion?
I grew up moving every year or so as both my parents were in the government of India. This included being sent to boarding school but also pulled out later to move to the US for my high school. As a result, I saw a lot of the world, a lot of diversity but also a lot of poverty and inequality. This shaped my worldview very significantly. It’s not easy to see people struggling to find money for food or wall repairs after a flood or not having electricity for 20 hours a day. In today’s world, despite a section of the world talking about the metaverse, social media reels and holo lenses, about 1–1.5 billion people on earth still don’t have access to affordable or reliable energy, healthcare and education. It is my firm belief that it is up to the privileged few (individuals, governments and corporations) to bridge these gaps on human basics.
You are currently leading efforts within an organization which is trying to make a difference. Can you tell us a bit about what you and your organization are trying to change in our world today?
Energy powers the world and helps fulfill the dreams of billions. The most visible form is electricity which helps children study in the evening, keeps households safe at night, allows fans and air conditioners to keep families cool or heaters to keep children warm in the winter. However, electricity is only 20% of the energy mix and energy’s other forms are important too — this includes paving roads with bitumen to facilitate trade and transport, fueling and lubricating cars, trucks, ships and airplanes, factories, petrochemicals to make cars lighter, transport food across distances via stronger storage solutions or make our pharmaceutical products. Our population is expected to increase from 7.5 billion to 9.5 billion in the next few decades. The world therefore needs more energy to power progress for humanity. However, we need cleaner energy, as well. There are tremendous challenges to realise this in terms of available technology, political will, affordability and financing among others.
Shell’s purpose statement is that we will Power Progress Together by Providing More and Cleaner Energy Solutions. This was derived after interviewing over 300 staff across the world and asking them what their hopes were & what they thought was our DNA. Our employees said to us ‘if not us, then who?’ given our 125 years of history in the sector. Initially, we did not communicate our purpose externally for about 5 years — choosing instead to embed it into business strategy at the group and then individual line of business level in that period via a professionally led initiative from my team (Purpose into Customer Value Proposition). Second, a few years ago, we included decarbonization as an important metric in the group dashboard that links to the annual bonus of our top 16,000 managers. Thirdly, we measured and held leaders accountable to delivering against the purpose via Executive Committee reviews of this embedding every 2–3 months for a 5 year period. Finally, we believe that only the quality of individual leadership will drive sustained embedding of the Purpose and hence we invested time/effort into helping thousands of our frontline leaders articulate their own personal purpose and then link it to that of the company. In recent months, Shell has been recognized by the Bloomberg NEF as the #1 company among 41 others in the oil & gas business when it comes to leading on the energy transition.
Over time, we have launched multiple commercial innovations that help meet customer needs while ensuring decarbonization targets for our businesses. These include low carbon products, renewable electricity for businesses/homes as an offer, carbon reduction services for customers and completely new business models (eg. services, apps, ‘deliver fuel to you’ trucks that disrupt the ‘fuel station as destination’ model). A real step change was made in 2021 with the launch of our ‘powering progress strategy’ released to investors in Feb 2021, a truly multi-stakeholder effort with 4 pillars connoting our 4 goals — net zero emissions, generating shareholder value, powering lives and respecting nature. We are optimistic about the future of the energy and our role in it will be critical. We can never give up the challenge. It is a source of energy for us internally (pun unintended)
Many of us have ideas, dreams, and passions, but never manifest them. They don’t get up and just do it. But you did. Was there an “Aha Moment” that made you decide that you were actually going to step up and do it? What was that final trigger?
Watching inequality during visits to the markets (eg. trying to sell a 10 cent sachet of shampoo in a village which had never heard of the product) was definitely one trigger in hindsight. However, broadly in my case, there was no one trigger. As I had grown up witnessing lack of affordable access to energy, healthcare and education, I had been trying to make a difference for years in my own sphere of influence. In fact my entire philosophy is that each of us should make an effort, one single thing in our own spheres of influence can change the planet. It’s the equivalent of ripples from millions of pebbles on a pond creating a tsunami of change. Over the years, it’s individual choices like eating less meat, taking more public transportation, re-using materials, not using plastic bags for groceries or hiring people from under-represented sections of society (giving them a chance, all else being equal).
Many people don’t know the steps to take to start a new organization. What are some of the things or steps you took to get your project started?
Storytelling and inspiration. Many people don’t know where to start because their internal engine is not running on full throttle. I was able to ‘ignite’ the passion in a few people around me with lots of examples and storytelling about what’s possible. It’s really important to acknowledge that one can’t make a difference alone and secondly, one can’t ‘activate’ other human beings in purely rational ways.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading this part of the transformation?
Sometimes, a leader would not buy into the idea initially due to perceived impracticality and other short term priorities. In such cases, we used to inspire people around the leader and some of the younger employees in his/her organization. Then, in town hall sessions or other engagements, the employees would bring up their desire to work in a business that was a force for good. They would be full of ideas that would meet both short and long term goals, providing confidence to the leadership. Soon enough, more and more people were asking us for help to embed the purpose into their own business, not because we had asked them but because their own staff were rallying around the idea. I found this experience with human psychology really very interesting.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson or take away you learned from that?
One initial mistake was assuming that once a leader is ‘activated’, they’ll go and deliver against an idea they came up with. We used to then go and inspire other businesses quoting this leader’s ideas and what they were doing. However, this led to more than a few sheepish smiles. Our biggest lesson from this was to let the leaders be a little bit. Give them space to breathe and not put as much ‘pressure’ on them since this could backfire as well.
None of us can be successful without some help along the way. Did you have mentors or cheerleaders who helped you to succeed? Can you tell us a story about their influence?
We were fortunately able to galvanise a large group of employees, some of whom we called ‘brand jedis’. These were passionate about the difference we can make and wanted to be agents of change in their own businesses / areas of influence. Being around infectious, positive people was the biggest source of energy for me.
Are there three things the community, society, or politicians can do to help you address the root of the problem you are trying to solve?
I’ll mention three things as a personal opinion.
First, a large part of the sustainability challenge on the planet today is due to excessive demand and consumption. We are a consumerist society unlike our great-grandparents. Imagine if entire communities started using less single-use plastic, insisting that politicians set up recycling facilities in neighbourhoods or change their meat consumption habits (one vegan meal out of 21 meals a week). It will dramatically change the planet.
Second, I believe politicians need to be braver. They need to start with tough regulations that incentivize all stakeholders to do the right thing, even if that means there is a risk they don’t get elected the second time around. We’ve had strong leaders over time who have prioritized doing the right thing. Can the younger crop of college students be such leaders?
Finally, corporations need to step up. They have the best talent, financial resources and capabilities in today’s world, more so than NGOs or even some governments. They have to find the intersection between purpose and profit, finding ways to drive greater impact on UN SDGs while meeting the needs of their owners/shareholders. My experience transforming over 75 businesses proves this is absolutely possible and simply needs the right leadership will and professional approach.
How would you articulate how a business can become more profitable by being more sustainable and more environmentally conscious? Can you share a story or example?
I love telling this story, among many others, since it’s closer to home. A large part of lubricant sales worldwide are driven by mechanics, who are key influencers and decision makers on which brand to use while servicing a car. A very small proportion of car owners are aware or interested in the lubricant. Now, in emerging markets, mechanics have been historically incentivized to sell more of a certain brand by using traditional consumer product techniques — volume incentives, holidays and giveaways etc. However, we decided to humanize these stakeholders and seek to know them better when competitors only categorized them by how much volume they could sell (gold/platinum etc). We found that, in emerging markets like India, these mechanics grew up on the streets fixing bicycles or small electrical devices. Over time, they became informal apprentices to more senior mechanics and learned how to work on cars etc. They often don’t have a salary slip, being in the ‘informal’ economy. They don’t have health insurance or even an assurance that their kids will get to eat/go to school if an engine block falls on their foot and takes them off work. We decided to divert our ‘promotion funds’ towards health check up camps and insurance for these valuable partners. Our volumes in the pilot markets grew dramatically higher vs. the control markets over the same period of time, and so did our brand love. There are so many other stories around the use of renewable electric charging points to supplement traditional petrol/diesel points, or reducing both costs and CO2 by reducing our energy consumption at factories. We have dozens of examples of such stories now.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why. Please share a story or example for each.
If you could tell other young people one thing about why they should consider making a positive impact on our environment or society, like you, what would you tell them?
- You can be the top student in your class but the guy who works harder than you will probably get promoted faster!
- Invest in physical health early in your life, including the small stuff like work ergonomics on the laptop and daily exercise / stretching / yoga etc.
- Travel as much as you can and be curious. Ask questions even if it’s embarrassing.
- Get out of the office. Spend time with the customers, the sales guys and the factory guys. They know the pulse of any business more than the office guys.
- Ignore the job description. Focus on what is the most powerful idea to drive your organization and nobody will come at you complaining about some delayed report submission.
I would tell young people to start somewhere. Make a single difference in their own lives or their immediate area of influence. This will be the catalyst and fire for the next bigger move.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
This was from an ex boss of mine (Erwin). He said life is all about balance in its many forms. Short term vs. long term results. Relationships vs. assertiveness when working with others. Work and life balance. Cost and revenue. Profit and Purpose. Personal time vs. family time and many other situations. It’s only when we are imbalanced in life, that we create stress and illness (physical or mental). In fact, shout out to my wife Geetika who is a professional psychotherapist and has even named her practice Balanced Life Psychotherapy & Counselling.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
I would absolutely love to have a private breakfast or lunch with Bono. I was a semi-professional rock musician before I decided to work in a corporation (drummer!) and have continued my love of music since by learning the piano and continuing to play in bands on weekends. Bono is a musician who has passionately championed the cause of poverty and hunger, using his influence as a force of good. I’d love to learn more and partner with him to contribute in any way possible! @Bono are you reading this?!
How can our readers follow you online?
I’m usually most active on linkedin following ESG topics and calling for change from corporations, governments and individuals (https://www.linkedin.com/in/rahulmalhotra1/).
This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!
Social Impact Heroes Helping Our Planet: Why & How Rahul Malhotra Of Shell Is Helping To Change Our… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.