Unilever

Rich Green

Elizabeth Lebron

Senior Assistant Brand Manager, Global Multicultural Hair Care

As a part of her business minor curriculum, Elizabeth Lebron took an advertising and marketing class during her junior year. She loved the class, and knew she’d stumbled upon her future career path. Now at Unilever, she has a chance to combine her knowledge of the Hispanic market with the products she works with everyday.

What surprised you the most when you started?
The different touch points that products go through to get on shelves. Many consumers speed through their shopping and purchase things on impulse. Because of this, brand managers like me spend countless hours thinking of product concepts, the packaging’s look and feel, and the advertising strategy for those products. We need to be able to catch a consumer’s attention. There are so many people involved before a product gets on a shelf. When I first started, the process was extremely eye-opening to me.

What are you most proud about in your work?
Prior to this role, I was part of the Hispanic marketing team at Unilever, where I led the digital activation for a Hispanic multi-branded scale program. Along with an agency, we developed a Facebook page from scratch and it was great to see the number of fans grow, read their comments, and see how engaged they were with our products. I had the chance to see our consumers’ personalities come to life. It was like free research!

Why is diversity important at Unilever?
Diversity is important because the company has realized that the market itself is diverse. In order to target our evolving global market, the company needs diverse employees. And while we work for Unilever, we’re still consumers at the end of the day. Our diverse backgrounds help foster new ways of thinking about ingredients, product usage, and more.

Can you share an experience when diversity had a positive impact on your day-to-day work?
When I was working within the Hispanic marketing team, I was literally thinking about the importance of diversity every day. I met with brand managers or different functions of the team daily to help incorporate diversity into our work. Whether it was recruiting talent for commercials, or having bilingual copy on signage, I brought the Hispanic voice to our marketing campaigns. Now with my new role in the global multicultural hair care team, I have an even greater responsibility to ensure that as a company we’re grounded on diverse hair textures and have products to help meet these needs. So I guess for me, it’s tough to give one example because diversity has been such a huge part of my job!