2024 Star Women in Grocery Award Winner Louise Jansen (Q&A)
Louise Jansen
Director, Commercial Strategy
WK Kellogg Canada Corp.
How did you get your start in the grocery/CPG business?
I started in CPG with Procter & Gamble over 20 years ago and was lucky enough to be at the forefront of working on new shopper-focused strategies and building my expertise across both market-level and regional roles. It was an exciting time and an excellent training ground. Since then, I’ve touched strategy and brand communication across different industries, but I find myself gravitating back to the commercial side as it’s so dynamic and fast paced.
What are some career highlights/greatest achievements?
My career highlights are grounded in creating something new and seeing team members grow and reach their full potential, which is the most rewarding part of the job. Supporting someone else’s development helps your own growth and learning. Sometimes it means you have to adapt your leadership style and it’s so powerful as it has impact beyond any specific year’s deliverables. When it comes to creating something new, I’ve been fortunate enough to work on developing new research techniques when virtual store testing first started, identifying approaches to measure effectiveness of investments or, most recently, being part of the core team leading the spinoff and set-up of WK Kellogg as an independent company.
Describe your leadership style/philosophy.
Empowering and supporting the team is so important as that drives motivation and the confidence for team members to make suggestions, solve problems and take ownership of their work and contribute to the team’s success. Open communication is also essential as collaboration helps us to find creative solutions and challenge the status quo. Then also lead by example, “walk the talk” and model the behaviours you’re looking to see in the team to build trust and set the culture.
How do you stay motivated at work?
Continuously learning and taking on new challenges keeps me motivated. As CPG is such a dynamic industry, there’s always a new and diverse challenge to tackle! Staying connected across the organization and building relationships helps to solve problems together and enables team wins, which is very important because, as they say, business is a team sport.
Best career advice you’ve received?
Know your strengths, value your strengths and tap into those strengths. Understanding your strengths helps you adapt to new challenges and opportunities. If you think of business as a “team sport,” then it’s often through each person bringing their strength to the forefront that helps the team win or exceed goals.
How do you spend your time outside of work?
Time with family and friends, ideally keeping active and being outdoors, which involves different activities during summer and winter. I enjoy planning and taking trips to explore new places or share places I love with my kids. But, all of this also has to fit around being a soccer and hockey mom “taxi” first and foremost.
Click here for the full list of 2024 Star Women in Grocery award winners.