The Leaders: Lessons from Simon Laroche, president of Kraft Heinz Canada
What is your leadership story?
First, I studied finance [at HEC Montréal] because I wanted to be an investment banker. But, when I graduated, before starting my career in finance, I decided to take a summer job in Quebec City at Labatt Breweries as a merchandiser. I ended up staying for 15 years! (Laughs.) At the time, there was a merger between Interbrew (then owner of Labatt) and AmBev.
So, there was a new leadership team coming to Labatt in Canada, with a new culture that I thought was very interesting. They offered me a new job and I decided to give it a go, and that’s how I got into CPG. And I really loved it. So, I started as a merchandiser, as I said, but I did pretty much every sales role all the way to being in charge of Canada here in Toronto. That was a 15-year journey. Then, I was invited to join Kraft Heinz. I loved Labatt, but it was time for me to do something else and to learn a new industry. I moved to Australia with Kraft Heinz—with my then girlfriend, now wife—where I was in charge of the [business] in Australia. After a bit of restructuring, I ended up running Australia, New Zealand, Japan and Korea. We had amazing years there. Now, I’ve been back in Canada for a year and a half in this role.
READ: Kraft Heinz rounds out North America executive team with key appointments
What is your leadership philosophy?
Leaders should be judged by the strengths of their teams; I strongly believe that. I think the role of a leader is to build a strong team and to set the vision with them. And I believe in empowering team members to be the best version of themselves and to do their best work. Another thing is that as a leader, I always say I can do serious things, but I don’t take myself seriously. Meaning, I believe it’s important that people can be themselves—that we can be humans, we can be vulnerable and we can laugh. That’s how I see leaders today being successful versus the old image of a boss that knows it all and is always serious.
What things do you prioritize when it comes to company culture?
The No. 1 thing, and something I’ve believed my entire career, is ownership. Everybody in the company should feel they’re an owner in the business; we talk about that a lot at Kraft Heinz.
I’m also a big believer in a growth mindset and acknowledging that we don’t know everything and we need to learn every day and get better every day. One of our corporate values is ‘dare to do better every day.’ And the last one, for me, is about consumer obsession. It starts and ends there. Consumers vote every day with their wallets and we need to earn their trust and loyalty. So, I’m big on having the consumer represented at every meeting in the company.
What would you say is the biggest challenge facing leaders today?
Listen, it’s acknowledging that you need to adapt continuously to the new pace of change in the world—whether it’s geopolitics, whether it’s technology or whether it’s politics. It’s accepting the fast pace of things and making sure everybody’s in the mindset that what we know today will not necessarily be true tomorrow and we will have to course correct and change. It’s great to have a direction, but you have to accept that you’re going to need to pivot and change your mind and change your strategies down the road.
READ: Industry execs share their strategies in dealing with tariffs
How do you continue to learn and develop as a leader?
I’m a big reader, I love to read about everything. I also have a personal coach that I can bounce ideas off of; she’s neutral and doesn’t have the bias that maybe my friends or colleagues would have. I like that a lot. But, I would say the most valuable thing I do is spend time with customers, peers and leaders in the industry, learning from them because we are all facing the same kind of challenges.
What qualities do you look for in up-and-coming leaders?
There are two things I really value in younger leaders coming up—it’s a good mix of being ambitious, but also being humble. It’s acknowledging you don’t know everything, but also that you're not afraid of dreaming big, trying things and taking risks. And ownership, as I said, that people care as an owner would. That’s very important for us here.
As a leader, what is the biggest risk you’ve taken? What did you learn from it?
Leaving Labatt and joining a new company, Kraft Heinz, and moving to the other side of the planet was a big risk. I didn’t know what I was getting into; the business was in a more difficult place than I thought. I'm very proud of what we were able to do with the team there, but it was a big risk. And listen, it was difficult at the beginning—and every time you get out of your comfort zone it's difficult—but that’s also where you learn the most. It was the best experience and decision of my career, to go learn a new industry in a new country with a new company. I would encourage everybody to get out of their comfort zone, go and do something else, go and learn something else. Looking back, I really would not do it any differently.
What’s the best advice you’ve received?
One that’s stuck with me is that “in order to keep your job you have to be willing to lose your job.” There’s a degree of risk that as leaders we all have to take and it’s about owning that risk. And I really like that. It’s really about a mindset of taking big swings at things, changing things, pushing the status quo—that’s the only way I know to grow. And I remind myself of this when I might have butterflies ahead of a big strategic opportunity.
How do you approach making difficult decisions?
I keep telling my team, business is a marathon not a sprint—so it’s about keeping the long-term in mind when making the right short-term decision. I think that recipe will always work. And, of course, being able to adapt to situations. Sometimes you have to make many quick decisions every day; sometimes it is better to take a step back and develop a proper strategy.
READ: Grocery code could spur investment, stabilize prices: Kraft Heinz Canada president
How will you define success as a leader when you look back?
Obviously, value creation and financials at the end of the day, but for me it’s also the legacy that I will leave behind—it’s leaving the place in a better place than I found it. But, what really makes me tick in life is the positive impact I can have on people. What really brings me joy is to see someone who maybe started as a merchandiser who is now a vice-president of a department. That is really special for me. It’s also about innovation and just standing in the line of a grocery store, watching people buy something we launched that is better-for-you or that is a solution for their kids that they didn’t have before. Seeing that kind of impact is really what defines success for me—the true and tangible impact on people.
This article was first published in Canadian Grocer’s February 2025 issue.
