Unilever

M. Scott Whitson

Danielle Coppock

Assistant Customer Brand Planning Manager, supporting Knorr Hispanic and Ragu pasta sauce

Danielle Coppock grew up with an interest in consumerism. From a young age, she was intrigued by the science of buyer behavior and displays in the grocery store. With this interest in mind, she chose to pursue a marketing degree in college. Then through INROADS, a nonprofit that places minority undergrads in paid corporate internships, Coppock was contacted for and accepted an internship at Unilever, one of the world’s largest consumer packaged goods companies. Now working in customer marketing, she plays a leading role getting many of Unilever’s products featured on grocery store shelves into consumers’ hands.

How did you make the transition from intern to full-time employee?
I interned with Unilever during both my junior and senior years, and at the end of my senior year internship, Unilever offered me a full-time position. After graduation, I joined Unilever’s retail development program where I was assigned a territory of stores to visit every day. At these stores I’d set up displays, fix out-of-stocks, and make sure we had our fair share of shelf space.

After the six-month retail program, I was offered a new position as an Assistant Customer Brand Planning Manager, and transitioned to Unilever’s North America headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. The six-month program gave me a great foundation from which to enter the corporate environment. I really see the value in working your way up in a consumer products company, and starting on the retail side. The result is a much clearer picture of how things operate at the store level, and in the end that is where the success of our hard work is realized.

How does a typical day at work look?
My particular role requires a lot of reporting and providing analytical support for our planning managers. There’s a monthly process we go through for setting forecasts for our brands and my job focuses on managing the expectations among our internal and field teams. There is a great deal of collaboration across the brand team, supply chain, sales team and our customer accounts.

Why is diversity important at Unilever?
Unilever is a global company—160 million times a day someone in the world purchases one of our products. If you think about the amount of lives we touch, there is no way a unilateral-thinking company could make this operation work. Without understanding different cultures and ways of life, and maintaining the human capital necessary to respond to those needs, Unilever would not be able to compete in the global marketplace and be successful.

Can you share an experience when having a diverse outlook helped at work?
During a performance review for one of our Hispanic brands, the consultants were telling us that the advertising on Hispanic television wasn’t delivering the expected incremental return. I remember thinking that one reason for this outcome could be because many people in the Hispanic culture are already very familiar with the brand. Introducing this traditionally Hispanic item to a new non-Hispanic market might help stimulate additional growth. In this instance, I was able to create an advertising direction for the brand to explore by looking at the problem from an outside perspective.