If strategic planning in the consumer goods sector feels different right now, you’re not imagining it. For the past 15 years, leaders in CPG categories have struggled to build plans that deliver the kinds of predictable, reliable profit of days past. Former General Mills Chief Strategy Officer, and a leading independent voice in long range strategic planning, Peter McDonald joins us to discuss the shifting expectation of corporate strategy, where it is necessary to provide a long range lens into the future beyond a short term fiduciary focus. At the heart of this strategy challenge today is a preoccupation with old playbooks in new competitive landscapes, prioritizing the shareholder at the expense of the consumer, and operating with false confidence - denial, even - that things will revert to the way they were.

We start season 3 digging deep into human values, while speculating on their evolved expression into the future, with futurist and Associate Professor at University of Houston's Foresight Program, Dr Andy Hines.

Having authored a book on the topic of values, ConsumerShift, Andy shares how defining what a value is and how it is expressed by people with differing typologies, helps us perceive them as something less static and therefore shows us their potential evolution into the future.

For Episode 6 of Looking Outside we invite thought leader, Maneesh Kaushik on the show, Insights and Trend lead at PepsiCo. Today we’re looking outside Insights.

Maneesh outlines how he breaks apart conventional thinking used in business to understand humans of today and showcases how his team pushes to the human of tomorrow.

In Episode 4 of Looking Outside we’re joined by down-to-earth insights & marketing rockstar, Michelle Gansle, Vice President of Global Strategic Insights at McDonalds.

Together Jo and Michelle discuss what it means to truly be human-led inside and outside of work, both by humanizing the people we work with and ourselves. And how understanding yourself as a human being more deeply can help pull you out of your comfort zone and into curious new spaces.