The Future Legacy and Leadership Roundtable with Havas and NFL | Celebrating the AAF Hall of Fame

0:00Hi, I'm Jim Stengel. I've helped hundreds of major brands discover and activate their purpose. Because when a brand's purpose is clear, compelling, and authentic, profit naturally follows. Each week, I welcome the CMOs, the chief marketing officers of your favorite brands, to speak to how their job is so much more than marketing. These leaders share their inspiration and challenges, along with how they try to build a full, healthy, and happy life in and out of the office. And it's that energy that reaches everyone they touch. And we're glad you're here to feel that energy and to learn from these remarkable leaders.

0:35So here we go. This week, I want to take you back a few weeks to a really special morning in New York City at the headquarters of the agency group of us. A group from across the industry gathered ahead of us for a conversation around legacy and the future of leadership. It was a room filled with people who have shaped brands, businesses, and more importantly, each other. For a change, I was not the moderator. Maggie Connors, the Chief Marketing Officer of the Havas Creative Network, and a friend, moderated. I was on the other side of the microphone, joined by the CMO of the NFL, Tim Ellis. Tim is someone I deeply respect and was honored to be alongside him as part of the Hall of Fame Class of 2026.

1:18What you will hear reflects the spirit and emotion of the Hall of Fame annual event. We'll talk about the decisions that define a career, especially the ones that didn't feel obvious at the time, and the role of creativity and courage in building something that lasts beyond us. But more than anything, the conversation kept coming back to people, how you build teams, how you earn trust, how you show up for others in moments that matter, and how over time those choices become the real measure of your legacy. Here's our in-person conversation recorded in front of a packed house at Havas' Hudson Street offices.

2:03Good morning and welcome. I had to write notes because I was afraid I'd get emotional with Jim. Because those of you that know me, in events like this, when people are close to my heart, I often tear up. So I thought it was best if I had some cues here. So first of all, Jim, we're so proud of you. It's amazing. Tim, it's such an honor and it is so well deserved. But this is a special morning for us. I think this is almost more intimate than tomorrow night. Tomorrow night will be fantastic to recognize him. But to just recognize Jim with this group of people who care about him and we're all here together is amazing.

2:38And we all know what Jim has done, right? The impact he's had on the industry, on brands, on across the world, but most important, the impact he's had on people. And I want to share a story with you. So a couple of years ago, I was anointed. I don't know if it's good or bad. More responsibility within Havas. And when I left Paris, I went to the airport and I sat at the gate and the first call I made was Jim. It's a true story. And I said, Jim, I just got elevated. it. I need help from you. And he said, I'm here. He's grounded. He's honest. He gave me clarity, and he gave it to me straight, and he still does today.

3:19And he's helped me to be a better leader. But not only me, people across the world he's done the same thing for. The impact he's had on people and leaders in this industry is bar none. And it's absolutely fantastic what he's done for brands. I think that's your legacy, Jen. So thank you. Over to Maggie. All right. So this morning's topic is about legacy and leadership. And we all know that our world is changing drastically around us every moment, every day. Last year seems like 100 years ago. We are acting differently. We're connecting differently. We're getting together differently, right? But when we think about the inductees for tomorrow night and we think about what legacy really means, it's what Jim is expressing.

4:04It's what Tim is expressing. And it's really about what Donna said. It's about generosity. It's about when you pick up the phone and call Jim, he's there for you. So we're gonna dive into that. And I would like to invite Jim up. And I'm gonna ask him a handful of hot questions. So we can dive into this topic. Sound good? Sounds good. Okay, so first off, how do you feel about being in the same class as Barry Manilow? I mean, that's unbelievable. Yeah. How did you ever think that you would be with Barry Manilow? I mean, we were listening to some of his music the other night. I mean, I actually like a lot of it.

4:35Of course. The Coco Cabana. No, he's great. He's amazing. He's resilient. He's still performing. He's still performing. Yeah. What is he, 85? Yeah. Talk about legacy. Yeah. Talk about legacy. Well, it'll be interesting to see if he performs. And he got his start with us. Right? Talk about that. Which jingle was? Oh, with Angie Jingles. I think we're going to hear a bunch tomorrow. Fair enough. I'm sure he would. In fact, I am going to have a little trivia question tomorrow night for the audience. And it's a jingle from the 80s. And it's a really corny one. My specialty. And I'm going to see if anyone can guess.

5:05And Barry might have written it. Oh, I like this. So we'll see. OK. I might call him out on that. We'll have a little prize. All right, well, Jim, when we think about legacy, we think about teams and organizations such as ones that you've built and around leaving the world a bit better than we found it, right? So when you think about your legacy, and you have so left the world so much better than when you found it and continue to do so, what does the word legacy mean to you? I think it's everything Donna just said. I think it's the people that you meet, that you put confidence in, that you help them figure out their work and their life, that you listen, and that you some small way make a difference in their life.

5:48And that's why this award that Tim and I are sharing tomorrow is it's about your whole self. It's about the person you've been throughout your life. And to me, that's defined by, and I will say this tomorrow night, it's the people who you've been on this journey with. And so I'm very blessed and I hope I've made a difference. And I guess I have, according to the letters. But it's about that. You know, you forget about the earnings and the quarters. And, of course, all that's important in the moment. But the longer impact you have are the people that go on and do extraordinary things that they did not know they had the confidence to do.

6:29So to me, that's about parenting. That's about business leadership. And that's about legacy. So you were at P &G for 25 years. You also have been so involved in our industry, changing it at the Cannes Lion. I think P &G was the first company to be awarded Lion. Fact check, Steve. Is that right? Right? Am I right? So what was that moment for you that you realized that that was your mission as a person, that you would put people first and your empathy first to be able to create all that success? What was the moment? I mean, I think it goes back a long way, right? My dad said to me once, I was hanging out with the wrong kids.

7:10Oh, come on. Shocking. That were, you know, smoking, smoking in the cornfield and, you know, drinking beer before they're a preteen. You know, just I was hanging out with the wrong people. And he said to me, he didn't impart that much advice. He was much more about leadership, by example. And he was a very quiet man. And he said, son, you are defined by the people that you spend your time with. I love that. And I didn't think about it that much, but actually I did. and now there are a bunch of guys who I'm still close with. One of them will be out there tomorrow night. We call ourselves the Alley Boys because we all played in an alley together.

7:50I mean, I've known them since I was four years old and we're still tight. We still get together and they are a big part of who I am and I'm a big part of who they are. So I think it goes back deeply and of course P &G was a consequential decision in my life to join them and to stay because nobody joined P &G to stay in the marketing world. You join to get the badge and move on. And who wanted to stay in Cincinnati? Who wanted to stay with this boring company? And I kind of got the bug. I kind of realized that this company was sincere about impact and human development and people first and teamwork.

8:30Michelle's in the room. Where are you? Yeah, I mean, it's real stuff. And I had a few mentors there, and they were always asking me about what I wanted to do next and where I thought I needed to develop and stretch. And I said, I want to go abroad. I want to go to developing markets. I want to go to an acquisition. They made it all happen. So that certainly was foundational. And a lot of stuff in my life wouldn't have happened without P &G. So I'm forever grateful about that. And they'll be there tomorrow night. I'm proud of that. And so many friendships I've had from those days continue. Amazing.

9:08We talked a little bit about Pampers, which is an example that you really love. So share with the crowd a little bit about what you really loved about that time on Pampers and the purpose that you put into that brand. Well, it was a transformational time in my career. I was working in the Czech Republic in Prague, the responsibility for all the company's business in two countries. I was a second general manager after the wall came down. So still very much there weren't any retail chains. I mean, I helped a few come into the market. But I was plucked out of that job one night, frankly. And my boss called and said, come to the Frankfurt airport tonight and meet in the Lufthansa Lounge.

9:44And he said, you're moving to Frankfurt and you're taking Pampers Europe responsibility for that. A category job, if you will, in our language. And he said, and it's a shithole. He said, we're losing. North America and Western Europe are fighting. The enemy's not inside. Kimberly Clark was just coming into Western Europe at the time. And they had great products, great team. And so he said, you're going to run. And so I started that job in Frankfurt. The first day in the job, I went to a focus group. It was brutal. And my team came to me and said, I think we have a different idea for what this brand should stand for and what this brand should be and what this brand should do.

10:25and we have to get out of the whole idea of the factory is the boss and to focus only on product superiority. How about the role we're playing in parents' lives and babies' lives and what can we do more about that? What would it be like if we became a brand that had an emotional connection to people? Which, by the way, in Pampers, it wasn't the case back then. Shocking. So that was, and there were some people who were on that team, Mathilde Delhomme, who's LVMH CMO now. and some people who were on that team that were courageous in that culture to say we need to do business a different way. And I listened to them.

11:03I had their back. I said, we'll go to Cincinnati together and make the case. And I believe in you. And the brand went from about a$2.8 billion brand to a$10.5 billion brand within a decade. That's amazing. To build a brand of that size in consumer products with that competitive set was a remarkable achievement by that team. That company promoted the CMO. There's no doubt. And because Laughley at the time said, take the lesson from Pampers and take it to the other brands. That's kind of your mission. So a very foundational experience for me on so many levels. And one of my favorite, I mean, many such creative work came out of Saatchi and Saatchi at that time based on that new purpose.

11:48And so it's a lesson on many levels. So leadership and legacy and purpose requires courage and risk. So that sounds like there was a lot of risk in that moment. Were you ever scared? Were you ever heading to Cincinnati with that team and thought, oh, my gosh, this is not going to work? I don't lose my cool, Mike. I lost my cool on a trip to Cincinnati. We flew from Frankfurt. We all landed, I don't know, at 2.30 in the afternoon. We had a meeting with the management team at 4 o 'clock. None of us went to the hotel. None of us showered. We all showed up. We walked into that room. And basically, my team was presenting the vision for the brand.

12:27We weren't even five minutes into the conversation when a couple senior leaders cut them off and said, this isn't how we do business. This is not what this brand stands for. This brand is about dryness, superiority, over and out. And I lost it. I went berserk. and I took that guy down and I stormed out of the room and I took my team with me and I said we'll be back tomorrow if you want to talk with an open mind but if not forget it we're good for you so I don't lose my call much I did it then I was tired I was angry and and it was a good thing but you knew the purpose of what you were trying I believed in it and you believed in it there was not another way there was not another way and you fought for it no matter what would have happened Absolutely.

13:16So wait, how did it turn around? They said, we changed our mind, come back? The most senior person, the people who kind of interrupted us were heads of a few different functions. Michelle would know what those functions are. And the most senior person in the room called me and said, come back in the office tomorrow and we'll start the conversation again. And that person went and left P &G to do amazing things to me, by the way. But that's a testament to the trust and the relationships that you created around you that lifted you up and had your back. And by the way, he was in the room when all this happened.

13:51And, you know, a good leadership lesson, he didn't say anything. He let it happen. He let it unfold. And then he kind of, after the dust settled and the tempers were down, he said, let's talk. Picked his moment. Yeah. That's amazing. So when you look around you at your peers, other organizations, brands, who do you admire today? Who do you think has the drive for purpose like you do? Well, there's a lot of people tomorrow night in that room. I mean, I would say Tim Ellis right here, who I've gotten to know in the last year. He was on the podcast last fall. I don't know if I told you this, but when Dawn Hudson was in the role, she called me and said, could you be a little bit of a support for me to try to move the NFL to be more fan-centric?

14:36And those early seeds, which you've taken and taken to a whole new level. But I think what has happened in the NFL is nothing short of extraordinary. This guy deserves and his team so much. I mean, it has been such a beacon of hope and love and excitement and passion for so many brands. So that's a person and an organization I've admired. And I would say AC Eggleston, Bracey, who's not here today. I think she had something going on with the dress. Is that right? Yes, it was a dress, it was a hairdo, it was all the things. There are priorities. There's a gala tomorrow, I get it. But I knew her when she was a rising star at P &G, a very young, and P &G saw the talent in her and elevated her.

15:21Not an easy place back then to be a black woman, and frankly not even an easy place to be a white guy. But AC learned from it, she got through it, and she's had a remarkable career since P &G. and I think she has touched so many brands. I mean, Dove gets a lot of energy in our industry and it should and it continues to. She wasn't complacent with Dove. So I think she's a remarkable person in so many ways. We'll hear more about her personal story tomorrow, which is incredible. So those are a few people I admire. Tim Armstrong's in the room who, gosh, I met him, what were you, 17? But I mean, he was what, employee number what at Google?

16:05and reached out and said, I think we could help you at P &G. I mean, we didn't have any business with you. And I saw him in action as Google was a startup to what it is now. He had a transformational role there. He had the courage to leave Google and join Time Warner. AOL spun out. He had confidence and trust we could do something remarkable with AOL. And talk about a damaged brand. He put his own money into it. He formed an amazing board, an amazing management team, and it had a happy ending. So this guy takes risks, takes chances, believes in people. By the way, it's so good to be in a room with so many of you.

16:49Yeah, but I could go on and on. I love it. Okay, a few more, a few more. And then we have a special guest star. So today is different in how we work. Purpose has always been your foundation, as we've just discussed. Do you think it's harder today to be purposeful in this new world and how we're evolving? and things are changing, do you think it's harder to be purposeful? I think it's more important than ever. I think people want to find, I just did a podcast this week about hope. Hope has taken a beating. Yeah. And you were on that, and the brand St. Jude's has all been about hope. And we talked about how hope has changed and how hope is shifting and how it's such a space for brands.

17:28So I think it's more important than ever. Our consistency in who we are as a person, who we are as a company is more important than ever. People are watching. They get it. We're in a challenging time, but they want us to be who we are. Integrity is more important than ever. We have a lack of integrity in so many leadership roles in the world now and in this country. So it's a time for businesses to realize their potential and to realize that we can make an enormous difference. And we are in many ways, but we need to keep stretching. And we need to do the right thing. I mean, that's every senior P &G leader said to you, do the right thing.

18:10That's the principle. Let's not make it complicated. Do the right thing. Do the right thing. I love that. All right, let's invite our friend Tim Ellis to come up and join us. As we just talked about the NFL and the amazing work. Tim and I are Volkswagen. But obviously through Tim's career, He's had amazing success and the NFL is a feat. So the same question I asked Jim, what is the definition of legacy for you? You know, listen, I, well, first of all, I was writing furiously all the things Jim was saying because I'm going to be redoing my speech for tomorrow. You're not allowed to do that. No, I was an amazing, amazing visionary man here.

18:51I always think about the inspiration, right? Like you're inspiring people. And I think what's most rewarding to me is I'm at an event or something or I'm at some conference. And somebody walks up to me and says, you know that, you may not remember that thing that you said in that meeting and that we had this discussion or when I watched you when I was at the agency side and you were the client. It's changed my life and it's changed the way I think about advertising and marketing. And that to me, you just realize the mentorship is incredibly important. And I'm going to have to leave here in about 45 minutes.

19:25I'm going to go over to a special event with Big Brothers, Big Sisters. I'm a board member there. The reason I do that is because I believe so much into the mentorship and what it means. And so I always feel like as I'm grappling for the right decisions and the right strategies and how to sort of inspire people to go the direction I think we should go in, I'm also thinking about there are people in that room who are listening very carefully. how do you handle that situation how do you what's your rationale like I always when I when I for example I give my opinion on something whether it be with my own team or whether it be with an agency I'm always thinking about giving back to them so they understand why I'm making a decision right so they see or in or if I decide to go a different direction I always go back to those folks and say I made this decision I know it wasn't maybe the thing that everybody here wanted to do, but here's why I did it.

20:21So you understand. So you don't feel like I just didn't listen to you or just went on and did something like that. So I think, you know, respect is obviously earned, right? You have to earn it from not only your peers, but everyone around you. And if you're going to be a leader of teams, you have to really earn their respect and you have to inspire them. Right. And I think my, my success is certainly, as Jim said, has, sure, it's been my instincts and believing in myself and believing in the things that I just felt and saw. But I also, you know, I built teams, right? I created teams and these teams were incredibly talented, but they also were generous with the way that they worked and they wanted to help their colleagues.

21:05And like, you know, that no asshole thing that people talk to, I don't care how talented you are. I want you to be on my team and to be a part of what we do if you want to help others. If you want to be generous with your time and your heart and your thoughts, then we'll together be stronger. And having that empathy and the generosity is so core to, I think, probably all of our success. And we can share many stories. So that generosity has gone into the NFL brand as well and what you've given out. So we were talking earlier about when you came into the NFL, it was going through a rocky time. So talk a little bit about that and that pivot that you made with the brand.

21:45Yeah, I mean, I laid it all out. And the first time I, they had been looking for somebody for quite some time. I didn't realize that when this recruiter told me that they were looking for their CMO, I almost grabbed him by the throat. I'm like, how come you didn't tell me that? Like, what an amazing opportunity, right? Because I love the brand, but they were really struggling at the time. It was right after you know Colin Kaepernick and Kenny Stills and Eric Reid and so many others were were making such important statements and trying to move the league in a direction that they were resistant right and They had lost the trust of the players.

22:19They had lost the trust of a lot of their their fan base They definitely lost the trust of all of their brand ambassadors. So the Entertainment industry and in particular the music industry they just sort of abandoned and alienated the NFL And so for me, it was important in order to earn that trust is to really work in an earnest way in a genuine way with the players And so I simply called it the Helmusov strategy Nobody knows what they look like obviously from a pure like logical perspective But also they don't know who they are as human beings, right? And so we need to partner with it with the players and have them be the face of the league Which would provide a much more human much more compassionate expression of the league.

23:00And obviously it had to be real, you know, so, so I worked hard with the players to sort of help them build their own personal brands and to understand what, what things that they care deeply about. And then I would get behind them with the massive platform that the NFL is, I would get behind them in order to sort of help them be successful both on the field and off the field. And by taking that approach and, you know, we did a lot of other things of course by leaning into youth culture and you know sort of expanding the expression of culture not just from classic sports but also into art and fashion and you know you know things that maybe were adjacency to the sport but not really embraced before which just opened up the NFL to a different fan base I focus religiously on girls and women flag football was part of that you probably all have seen that the growth of flag over the last couple of years because it's the most inclusive expression of our sport, right?

23:56And it sort of invited people in. I reached out in a very earnest way to the LGBTQ community, right? And sort of said, yeah, you're part of our brand. You're part of our fan base. I did an ad after the first player who came out, the active, first active player who came out as gay. And the first line of the ad was, football is gay. And man, when I showed that to the boy, first of all, I didn't ask him, I didn't ask anybody's opinion or, not opinion, I didn't ask anybody's permission to do it. I just created it and I worked closely with our internal group, right? And together with the folks from GLAAD and just put the ad out there, right?

24:36Put it on TV. And man, when I went into the boardroom, you could have heard a pin drop when they saw that ad. But you believed in it. But believed in it. And guess what? It was incredibly meaningful to the LGBTQ community and our engagement and the growth of that segment, which is pretty big, it's a pretty big segment, particularly for the youth organization, like one in five, youth from 12 to 24 identify with that community. Anyway, you could call it risky, you could call it provocative, and not everybody liked it. And I always try to remind people that you cannot really move forward if you're not willing to make some people uncomfortable.

25:19right and so you know and that's okay it's so it's okay and and guess what we didn't lose any people like they kept watching the next week the ones who didn't like it but anyway so i think that having that level of openness when we came here you know adding humanity building the trust of the players and of the ambassadors around the nfl has really helped us just continue to strengthen in our base. And now that we've done it, I've been in the NFL now almost eight years. Now that we've done it consistently, it's really made a difference over time. Because in the beginning, no one's going to really trust you, right?

25:56If you've been behaving a certain way, it takes time to earn people's trust. It takes time to earn your fan base's trust. I also was very instrumental in the approach that we took after George Floyd in 2020. And the players were incredibly upset. And all these sort of mistakes from the past started coming up again, right? Racism and, you know, the inability to sort of connect with players and so forth. And so, you know, and it wasn't, and I felt deeply, it wasn't that the values weren't there. It wasn't like we were trying to create something that wasn't there. It's just that they, until that time, they weren't willing to say it.

26:35They weren't willing to sort of just, you know, be open about it. and probably because it's controversial, right? There's a lot of people politicize these things. And when I was there, I just said, we cannot think about this as a political discussion. We have to think of it as a human discussion, right? And ultimately, that allowed us to sort of show a level of contrition and allow us to talk about things that we would have done differently had we had the chance to do it all over again. And, you know, and in the beginning, not everybody accepted that. There were a lot of journalists and there are a lot of people who thought it was bullshit.