Tati Lindenberg finds laundry fascinating. The global vice-president of Dirt is Good (known as Persil in the UK) has been interested in the daily lives and household habits of people around the world since she was a child.
A marketer by trade, Lindenberg started her career in retail before joining Persil-owner Unilever in 2004. After working on other laundry brands, including Surf and Radiant, she had a stint as marketing director for Dove DermaSeries, before returning to laundry five years ago to run Dirt is Good. Now she sits at the head of Unilever’s third-largest brand. Here, she shares her insights on leadership, branding and the true power of laundry detergent.
Did you always want to head up a company?
No – I am a frustrated film producer! I am really passionate about two things in the world: one is film and the arts and the other is people. I have always been fascinated by how people live. Even as a child, I loved going to other people’s houses and seeing how they cook, how they do laundry and how they behave. These were the two core reasons why I decided to study communications and advertising at university.
Then I joined Unilever because of the possibility of living outside of Brazil and being able to know people from many different parts of the world. When I joined, I remember secretly thinking, “I hope they send me to some country as soon as possible.” And it worked: I joined Unilever in 2004 and in 2006 I was living in the Netherlands. By 2008 I was living in India.
I never really tried to be a film producer, I got hooked into the advertising industry. But I want to believe that every time I’m producing and advertising on a TV campaign, it’s a little part of that frustrated teenager coming back up.
What do you think makes a good leader?
I’ve been working in global roles for more than 20 years and a good part of my career has been at Unilever, but I must say that I found freedom in a big corporation.
Many of my friends or colleagues decided to leave the company, some choosing to go to startups, but Unilever really shaped me. And because I found this freedom, I have never tried to protect my job or avoided taking risks.
In this context, what is important is being very open-minded. Being in a global job means you have to really appreciate the diversity of the world; the human richness. You’re never going to know everything, but you have to be open to learning as much as possible.
Another important trait is resilience. For me, this is less about learning to fail and more about the ability to bounce back. Given how the world is, you need to be incredibly agile. You have to understand how to make things happen quickly. Open-mindedness, resilience and agility: I think those three elements make a very good leader.
How do you think your co-workers would describe you?
I think they would describe me as very agile. I tend to be extremely fast, especially compared to what is expected from a global leader. Usually, people think that you’re going to be slow because it’s a big organisation. But I always say to people, “Tell me what you need and I’ll make it happen.”
Also, I think I’m a very warm person. Understanding people and knowing a lot about them, personally, is key to my leadership style. I believe that’s what people would say – at least, I hope so!
What do you look for when hiring your leadership team?
People who are really smart and experts in what they do, as well as being very empathetic and having a strong work ethic.
I once read an interview with a famous actress in Brazil who said she looked at the job of an actor as being like a worker. And I look at my job in the same way. I work hard every day, so I look for that same work ethic in other people.
Also I always look for a little bit of weirdness. Everybody has something very unique and very specific that they bring to the team. I love working with people who have a hobby or a passion or something that is unique – it brings a lot to the team. I always look for this diversity, and people who are very different to me.
What’s the best bit of business advice you’ve ever been given?
I got similar business advice from my best friend, who is a marketing professor in São Paulo, and from Steve Miles, who used to be the CMO of Dove. Their advice was to always have a high regard for knowledge.
They taught me to look at behavioural science, research and data before making decisions or coming up with new ideas. I have done this throughout my career and guided the Dirt is Good marketers to do the same. I always ask: What is out there? What data is available? Have we examined the data in depth to make sure we understand everything we can about a given subject before coming up with new concepts?
In the end, life is a reinvention of what is available out there. Honouring knowledge is something that both of them gave to me and something I take quite seriously.
What is the biggest challenge for your company at the moment?
Making and selling laundry detergent comes with a big advantage: it is a product that everybody needs. I’m not selling something that can change according to the seasons in terms of consumption. The challenge, then, is about gaining consumer confidence and proving value. How can I make sure that people buy my laundry detergent and not another? In the situation we are in now, with all the economic uncertainty, that is something that I have to constantly focus on.
The other is new audiences. Laundry is related to the type of machines or the lifestyle or the type of fabrics that someone wears and this changes from one generation to another. Some people want to do laundry faster or have an easy-dose type of product or, suddenly, they may want more fragrance. Recently in the UK there has been a rise in skin conditions, so we need a product with fewer ingredients or no enzymes. You need to be very in tune with what is happening in society.
These are the challenges I face: proving, and constantly improving, value and monitoring what people want so we can change to suit their needs.
What is one book every business leader should read at least once?
The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt. It talks about the new generation and their relationship with screens in general. It offers insights into the unique pressures that generation Z are facing, having spent several of their formative years in Covid lockdowns, and at the same time being the first generation that has lived with screens since they were born. This is creating a more anxious generation.
This is something that I’m particularly interested in as a mum. My son is 12 and my greatest challenge is to stop him from staring at his screen.
From a business point of view, I think it’s really important to understand these new audiences; to know how to develop products that can target them effectively and, at the same time, be very clear about how we can contribute to a better world. What we don’t want is to increase their anxieties. That’s something I’m very conscious of.
What one piece of advice would you give to your successor?
Protect the Dirt is Good idea. It has to be sacred. If I think about all the big brands, what makes them unique is the fact that you can protect the idea. Think about Nike – Just do it. Or Dove – Real beauty.
You have to adapt the expression of the brand, of course, but the essence of the brand has to remain the same. I always tell my team: never change the tagline, never change the brand principle and this is what I will eventually tell to whoever comes to replace me.
When the Dirt is Good tagline was created 20 years ago, it was really about showing that dirt is not the enemy. The more you can use that idea to make this world a better place, the better. I know how that sounds – what can laundry detergent really do for the world? But I can give two examples: one is period stains. Seven in 10 girls stop doing PE because they are afraid of period leaks. If our brand can advocate for washing away the taboo of period stains, why wouldn’t I do so?
The second is about ensuring people stay more active and spend more time outdoors. Kids between nine and 14 years old spend nine hours a day in front of a screen. If we can tell them to spend at least one hour of this outside, it might be better. So I would tell my successor: do whatever you can to make a laundry detergent idea into something that can mean more to people than just laundry.
Tati Lindenberg finds laundry fascinating. The global vice-president of Dirt is Good (known as Persil in the UK) has been interested in the daily lives and household habits of people around the world since she was a child.
A marketer by trade, Lindenberg started her career in retail before joining Persil-owner Unilever in 2004. After working on other laundry brands, including Surf and Radiant, she had a stint as marketing director for Dove DermaSeries, before returning to laundry five years ago to run Dirt is Good. Now she sits at the head of Unilever’s third-largest brand. Here, she shares her insights on leadership, branding and the true power of laundry detergent.
