Interview with Paola de Almeida—Global Director of Corporate Innovation at Mars
On a Friday morning in late March, I hopped on a call with Paola de Almeida to talk about global leadership. This is the advice and experience she shared.
Paola started with Mars Inc. 16 years ago as an America’s Treasury and Benefits Manager. Before Mars, Paola worked as a financial engines programmer. Her career progress has been non-linear. Her leadership abilities play a part in that non-linear progression.
As a naturally curious person, Paola was interested in multiple disciplines. At Mars, Paola began to notice the mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures and this open a new territory for her to explore. She became interested in corporate strategy and was also exposed to technical functions like research and development (R&D). Mars’ R&D department needed someone to leverage strategy. This led to Paola’s first major leadership position—Global Head of R&D Capability and Operations and later rising to Global Director of R&D Strategy and External Partnerships.
Paola didn’t have the technical knowledge that R&D typically requires, but she had the strategic knowledge and drive. And, she had mentors who were willing to take a bet on her. After seven years in those R&D leadership roles, Paola was promoted to a position created uniquely for her— Global Director of Corporate Innovation.
Paola’s personal leadership style is authentic and contextual. She cites ‘contextual leadership’ as key to leading (and leading well) on a global level.
“Contextual leadership is being able to read your stakeholders and their needs, in real time, in the moment,” she said, “and still staying true to the ambition. But while having the ability to adapt the plan.”
Like most leaders (especially successful ones), Paola has her own leadership style that is informed by her personal style.
1. Authenticity
How do you speak your truth into a system like business? For Paola, you approach situations with your authentic and true self. By being authentic in her approach, Paola engages other to create awesome innovation and deliver the future portfolio to consumers.
As a Brazilian American, Paola is often told by Brazilians that she is too American. Americans tell her she is too Brazilian. Sometimes, she can’t bring her full self to the business roundtable right away. Learning to contextualize the situation and read the room is key for knowing when to present your full authentic self.
2. Accept Complexity
People are complicated. The businesses and systems we live in and work for are complicated, too. Nowadays, everything tries to appear simple—siloed off into specific categories and small, neat boxes and kept within 140 characters or less.
“embrac[e] the complexity because it's beautiful, right?,” said Paola. “We live in systems, and they all have interdependencies. And you can't resolve for all aspects of the system. But being targeted in your interventions, and the sequencing of how you go about it is primarily what … drives me as a leader.”
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3. Doers are key.
Paola’s current role at Mars is really unique because of her positionally between upper management and those who execute—the doers.
“I'm two degrees of separation from the CEO of the company, but I am one degree of separation from the people that are actually on the front lines of innovation and doing stuff,” she said.
Paola says it is extremely important for leaders to stay close to the front lines. When you are a leader on a huge global scale, it can be easy to see things from your ivory tower—you are removed from the action and execution. Having empathy for the doers and understanding the realities of the business as it's being delivered is necessary for global leaders.
“People like to say strategy is everything,” she said. “You could have a mediocre strategy, but execute the socks out of it and still be ahead. Or you could have a really sophisticated strategy and botch the execution and you're behind.”
4. Contextual Leadership
Contextual leadership pulls everything together. It is the ability to adapt in different contexts and situations that arise and being able to read stakeholders and their needs in those moments.
Paola cited Mike Tyson’s famous quote “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.” Leaders have to be prepared to fail, and to have alternatives. Plans cannot be hard lines. A global leader needs to adapt and flex to changing situations and environments.
Part of contextual leadership is the importance of feeling uncomfortable.
5. Embrace Discomfort
If we look back at moments of progress in history, these moments weren’t easy. Often change happens after and because of difficulty and discomfort.
“Innovation is messy,” said Paola, “it requires, you know, falling flat on your face and standing up again and trying again. You're gonna have failure, you're gonna have risk, you're gonna have uncertainty, and it's not always going to be comfortable. I think for you to progress as a leader, you need to embrace discomfort.”
Showing up and acknowledging difficult contexts or situations that don’t feel right is important to figuring out a different approach—and doing so with empathy.
As a curious person who cares about leading with empathy and authenticity, Paola’s contextual leadership really resonated with me. I found her advice extremely valuable for myself, or for anyone looking to become a leader one day. Have elegance, speak up, remember empathy, be flexible, embrace discomfort, and be prepared to fail. Its only a matter of getting back up and putting one foot in front of the other.
Thank you to Paola de Almeida for your time and words—they are invaluable.
