President of Global Ice Cream Mars Exec Anton Vincent on How He's Having Fun at a Century-Old Brand
Anton Vincent has been the President of North America and Global Ice Cream at Mars since 2019. Throughout his career, he’s drawn on his experience dealing with pressure and staying confident while playing high school basketball, applying these skills to his approach to business leadership.
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00:00I have fun what I do and I try to create an environment where we have incredibly high
00:05expectations but we have fun as well and so I try to create an environment where people
00:08want to be there because I think if they want to be there I'm going to get their best work.
00:12I mean you're the president of global ice cream. Of course you're having fun.
00:15If you're not having fun what are you doing?
00:17Well as we say we can't have fun, nobody can have fun.
00:24Anton, thank you for joining us.
00:25Thank you, thank you for having me.
00:26This is a series aiming to explore the strategies and elite mindsets of
00:32professionals both in sports and in business and trying to learn how, you know,
00:38help our audience basically propel their careers onto the next level whether that's
00:43the sports field or the boardroom, whatever it is.
00:46You know you are, I think your full title is
00:49Mars Wrigley President of North America and Global Ice Cream.
00:52Yes.
00:52Is that correct?
00:53Yes, correct.
00:54I don't care whose definition of success you're using,
00:57President of Global Ice Cream is pretty phenomenal.
01:00It's pretty cool, yeah.
01:01Your kids must have been delighted when you told them you're going to be
01:03President of Global Ice Cream but what is your proudest achievement in your career?
01:09Yeah, I think I got a couple of proud achievements in my career.
01:11I think first of all is just being able to have a sustainable career and to do,
01:15I would consider, pretty cool things over the arc of time.
01:18I think that's first and foremost.
01:19I think the second piece is being able to do that and still have a very engaging family life.
01:24My wife and I have been married for 25 years.
01:26We have three great kids and I like to think that I'm a pretty significant part of their lives.
01:30And so being able to execute my profession at a high level for a long time
01:34and still being present, I consider those things very successful for me.
01:38So I think those are things that I can look back on and feel proud about.
01:40You know you've sustained a very long career over a long time.
01:43Was there ever a particular point where you thought or you ever considered yourself
01:48that is a success or you know I'm so proud of that moment?
01:53Well, I think it's interesting when I think about that question.
01:56It's more of a conceptual piece for me.
01:57I think at some point in my career, I recognized the impact that my decisions have on people.
02:03Both on the people that I lead and the organizations I lead,
02:05but because I have a consumer-facing business,
02:08the decisions I make and my team make, they impact millions of people all around the world.
02:12And so I think when you sort of think about that responsibility of leadership
02:16and understanding around, wow, how am I successful in making sure that I'm making great decisions
02:20and I'm making them for the right reasons.
02:22And I'm making them hopefully so that my company
02:24and our marketplace strategies can be successful.
02:26I think when I really understood sort of the awesomeness of that, I said,
02:30okay, wow, all right, maybe what I'm doing is having some significance
02:33and therefore I feel successful about it.
02:34What are the key non-negotiable behaviors that you use in your everyday life
02:39to reach your goals and ensure that, you know,
02:42you keep making the right decisions for you and those around you?
02:45Yeah, I think I have a few simple ones.
02:47I think the first thing is that my foundation is about high accountability,
02:51high individual accountability.
02:53That's very fundamental to me.
02:54I'm an athlete sort of, you know, in my lifetime.
02:56I played all through college sports.
02:58And the first thing you learn as an athlete is you do your job.
03:00You do your job.
03:01Everybody does their job.
03:02We do it collectively with the right plan and the right strategy.
03:05We put ourselves in a position to win.
03:06So high accountability, I think, is first.
03:08I think secondly is just having high curiosity.
03:11You know, the world is changing at a certain pace now.
03:14Our minds can't really keep up with it.
03:15And so I don't think you can be successful over time
03:18unless you have an innate curiosity, I think, from that perspective as well.
03:21And I think the third thing is just learn from failure.
03:23And a lot of people talk about how successful they've been.
03:25They've really learned from failure.
03:27I know I have.
03:28And I look to learn from my failure.
03:29I look to really understand what went wrong.
03:31What was my contribution to it?
03:32What was the contextual situation as well?
03:35And so I think putting those three things in place for me
03:36have helped me to understand my leadership better.
03:39It's helped me to execute it better.
03:40I think it's helped me to be successful in different situations.
03:43And that's a key one, I think, learning from failure.
03:45And, you know, that comes up a lot with the people that I speak to.
03:48Yeah.
03:49How do you cope with mistakes?
03:50And how do you deal with those mistakes?
03:52Yeah, well, I would say it has changed.
03:54I would say when I was a younger leader, I would get very frustrated
03:57because I didn't want it to happen.
03:58Obviously, we set a plan and a strategy and we expect to be successful.
04:01I think as I've gotten to be an older leader,
04:03I really try to make sure, again, that I just learn from it.
04:06You recognize you're not going to win all the time.
04:09You recognize that maybe your effort is not right.
04:11Your strategy is not right.
04:12Maybe even your plan is not right.
04:13So I always look for, again, back to the accountability piece.
04:16Where did I go wrong?
04:16Where did the team go wrong?
04:17Where did the organization go wrong?
04:18And now what do we learn so that we minimize the risk of going wrong in the future?
04:22So I really look at failure as a tremendous learning opportunity.
04:25But I had to evolve to that.
04:27I wasn't always that prescient to sort of say, oh, we failed.
04:29Let's learn. Let's keep going on.
04:31But I think it's fundamental, really, because in certain endeavors,
04:35particularly innovation, for instance, you're failing more than you're winning
04:38by a pretty large slot.
04:39That doesn't mean you stop doing it.
04:41It doesn't mean you still have an innovation appetite
04:43because it's necessary for the future.
04:45So that's critical.
04:46And not only for me as a leader, but how do you get that ideology
04:50inside of an entire organization?
04:52Because I need them pushing the envelope most of the time.
04:54Do you use any key habits or rituals or anchors,
04:59some people call them, in your day-to-day life to help set you up?
05:03I'm an early riser.
05:05I always have been.
05:055 a.m.?
05:06Yeah, 4.35.
05:08Yeah?
05:09Yeah.
05:09I also go to bed early so people know me know that I have a cutoff time.
05:13What's your cutoff time?
05:148 o'clock.
05:16Yeah.
05:17Not sleeping, but I don't want to be out after 8 o'clock.
05:19So I try to have early dinners and all that kind of stuff.
05:21But I think for me is that I know that I have an intellectual need
05:25to absorb information and process information.
05:27So what I try to do is to sort of get my intellectual needs met first.
05:31Otherwise, I'll be thinking about it and so on and so forth.
05:33Because like most leaders, once my day starts, it's not my day anymore.
05:36It's my calendar's day and I'm off to the races.
05:38So I try to make sure the things that I think that drive me,
05:41that help feed my curiosity are fed first.
05:43So I wake up, I read, I do all the things I need to do.
05:46And it's not always about my business or the category's business or the industry.
05:51But it's feeding all those things around me.
05:53So I think that's pretty important.
05:55My goal is to be physical in the morning.
05:58I'm somewhat consistent with that as well.
06:00So I try to take care of my needs first, the intellectual needs and physical needs.
06:05So when I hit my environment, I'm ready to go.
06:07I am 100% locked into what I'm doing.
06:10I'm available to my team internally, externally, what have you.
06:13So I think this helps me have purpose to my day,
06:15helps me have a bit of a symmetry to my day as well.
06:18And whatever comes my way, I feel like I can handle it.
06:20So you're an exercise in the morning kind of guy?
06:22Yes, yes.
06:22Because if it doesn't happen in the morning, it's not going to happen.
06:26You've been president of Mars Wrigley for just over five years, I think.
06:30You had 15 years at General Mills.
06:32You've obviously encountered a lot of great leaders
06:36and a lot of top executives in your time.
06:39What is the best advice that you think that you've come across during your career?
06:46First of all, I've had the opportunity to have some great mentors in my life as well.
06:49Always going back to my legendary high school coach.
06:52I think the one thing he helped me to understand is how to execute under pressure.
06:59And if there wasn't pressure, he would create the pressure.
07:02So by the time we got to a game, we knew how to handle it psychologically.
07:05We know how to handle it physically.
07:06I try to take some of that into as well.
07:09I think the second piece of advice I've gotten is really it's just
07:12don't put too much pressure on yourself because things happen.
07:16A lot of things that happen really are not in your control.
07:19One of the things as leaders, the trap we fall into is that we assume
07:22that we control everything.
07:24And that is mostly not the case.
07:26And so just taking some of that pressure off.
07:28And the third thing is just making sure you have context to every situation that you're in.
07:32Every situation is different.
07:34Every situation, yes, may have some foundational principles
07:36in terms of how you manage through it.
07:38But it's all context, whether it's in the geography,
07:41whether it's on a market or whether it's in a brand.
07:43You know, there's just different contexts as well.
07:44And so just making sure your situational leadership is at a high level.
07:48That's really, really important.
07:50And I think the last thing is just learn from your mistakes
07:53because you will make them.
07:55You will continue to make them.
07:56But the key is not making a mistake.
07:58It's what did you learn from it?
07:59How do you apply it moving forward?
08:01And if you've been in anything for any length of time, hopefully you know that.
08:04But the practice of learning and to applying
08:07and those types of things really have helped me for sure.
08:10But I would say I evolved for that.
08:12You know, when I first became a leader, I didn't have all that wisdom.
08:16But people have so much access to information and insight these days.
08:19You don't have to wait deep into your career to have some of that wisdom coming your way
08:23and then try to activate it and practice it.
08:25I'd say the last thing is just talk to people.
08:29I think some of my greatest learnings are talking to people,
08:31whether it's colleagues, whether it's older mentors,
08:33whether it's younger people as well.
08:35I get insight from every conversation that I have with a person.
08:39I feel like I can learn from anybody and that's been helpful.
08:42So I've been open to that curiosity.
08:44However it comes at me, I just try to embrace it.
08:46I try to look forward and then just learning that I try to apply it.
08:49It's interesting that you mentioned your high school coach
08:51had one of the most formative impacts on you
08:54and considering the career that you've had and that's crucial.
08:59And I'm sure you can get it from anywhere at any point in your career,
09:02no matter who it is or no matter how young you are.
09:06There can always be someone who can offer you that
09:08or set you up for the rest of your life.
09:11Absolutely.
09:11No, absolutely.
09:12Yeah, the key to it is you got to be able to look for the learning.
09:15What are the most important attributes do you think that leaders have
09:20that you've experienced your career and like a theme that runs through them all?
09:23Yeah, I think a thing that runs through them all is,
09:25and I've come to this one somewhat lately.
09:27I think I've practiced it, but just appreciating it more.
09:30It's just focus.
09:31Focus is critical because as you start to grow as a leader,
09:35everybody has an opinion around what you should do,
09:37how you should do it, what your strategy should be as well.
09:39But you got to be able to incorporate the information
09:41that you're getting that you should get.
09:43But then you got to be able to have a core
09:45and then be able to really sort of synthesize that into action.
09:47And so I think that idea around focus is just absolutely critical.
09:51I think if I talk to 10 leaders,
09:53some form of focus is going to sort of show up
09:55in the advice that they've given to me over the years.
09:58I think the second thing is just to trust yourself as well.
10:01You're going to come into a lot of situations, a lot of dynamics.
10:04Confidence, you mean?
10:05Yeah, trust and confidence.
10:07But trust builds confidence.
10:08I think if you trust how you process information
10:12and how you execute information, how you set up an organization,
10:14I think that builds confidence over time.
10:17But sometimes I've found leaders that are just searching for an answer
10:20and not really having a core.
10:22So I think that trust element for yourself,
10:24for how you process and how you execute, I think is very important.
10:27You know, when you were coming up,
10:30there may not have been that many role models that you could look to.
10:35Who were the people that you could look to?
10:37And who were the people that inspired you on your journey?
10:39Yeah, so I'll start from the beginning.
10:41I think my parents were fantastic.
10:42I think I had some of the best parents in the world.
10:44They were educators.
10:46They were in the classroom when I was growing up as well.
10:48And so I think I saw people who invested so much
10:51in other people for their success.
10:52And so I thought that was a beautiful thing for us.
10:54I thought they taught us some pretty basic values around
10:56working hard and treating people right
10:58and just having a limitless mindset around what you're capable of doing.
11:02I think it was very important.
11:04And the second thing is just my high school coach,
11:06legendary coach, legendary person.
11:09Put about 12 players in the NBA as well.
11:11And just his idea around how he prepared us for victory,
11:15both physically and psychologically,
11:17and using sports as a metaphor for life.
11:20You know, some of the things I still go back to, I think to this day,
11:23I think are pretty important.
11:24And then I think for me, you know, I had a lot of heroes growing up.
11:27But the one that sticks in my mind today is just Muhammad Ali.
11:31Not so much for his boxing capability and all the things he did in the ring,
11:34but sort of what he represented outside the ring
11:36and how he carried that throughout most of his life.
11:39I thought it was incredible.
11:41Especially as an African-American, you see someone that has confidence.
11:44You have somebody that has incredible athletic capability,
11:48who is working hard, but still has a broad worldview
11:51and is really and truly trying to help people as well.
11:52So I thought I saw somebody that had multiple dimensions that went beyond sport.
11:57Looking back to young Anton, you know, when you were first starting out,
12:01what do you wish you could tell him that you know now?
12:05Yeah, I would tell him so many things.
12:07I mean, the first thing is just slow down.
12:10I don't think I was unlike most people my age.
12:13I always wanted to get to the next thing fast.
12:15And I had a timeline in my head and had to be at this time.
12:17So it's just slow down.
12:19Like a little bit like let the game come to you versus chasing it.
12:22I wouldn't do it differently again, because I think that was my motivation.
12:26That was my energy.
12:26And it pushed me to do what I needed to do.
12:29But it took a lot of emotional energy, a lot of psychological energy.
12:31So I would just sort of say slow down.
12:33I think the second thing, you know, I talk about this a lot,
12:35is just having a better relationship with feedback.
12:39When I first started getting feedback early in my corporate career, I took it personally.
12:43I didn't take it as developmental conversation.
12:46I took it as, oh, you don't like me.
12:48You don't like what I was doing.
12:50But man, it really is powerful.
12:51I think when someone invests and helps you to understand how you can do better, be better,
12:56it's a beautiful thing.
12:57And if you act on it in the right way, it actually elevates you.
13:00So I think that's what I would tell myself.
13:01Just take the feedback a little bit more broadly and making sure that you're getting
13:05the development message and not that we don't like your message.
13:09I took it very personally, I would say.
13:11I'd say the third thing is just I wish I would have spent more time in learning
13:14as a youngster around what made me special.
13:16You know, I thought I had confidence.
13:17I thought I had skills.
13:18I thought I had capabilities.
13:20But I didn't really understand it in a way that I can understand it now.
13:23And so I think just making sure you're spending time with yourself,
13:27investigating yourself, understanding what turns you on, why you do what you do.
13:32I think it's pretty special.
13:32Once I started to do that later in my career, I started having more appreciation around me.
13:37And I started to make sure that I was really trying to spend time with those things that
13:42was going to leverage my capabilities.
13:44So I think that's pretty cool to understand that I had a self-awareness at a younger age.
13:48And speaking of self-awareness and what you know now,
13:51what do you think matters less than you thought it did?
13:55That is a really good question.
13:57I think what matters less is I would say definitions of success.
14:02I would say I had a very classical definition of success as a younger person,
14:06which was probably more things, things and titles and more, more, more.
14:11I think now it's just impact.
14:13My understanding of what success means, how do I impact people,
14:16individuals, organizations, broader swaths of communities,
14:20particularly where we serve and where we have businesses, is pretty important for me.
14:24Because success now is a long-term impact.
14:26It's not something that is acquisition oriented, getting this thing, getting that thing.
14:31So I think that's how my success definition has evolved over time.
14:35That's where I try to spend my mental time and making sure I'm having
14:38maximum impact in people and communities that we serve.
14:41Lastly, if you had to make one decision today
14:45that would have the most positive impact on your life going forward,
14:49what do you think that could be?
14:51Well, if I had to make one decision, I think today is taking care of myself.
14:56I think a lot of leaders spend so much time in doing the thing
15:00and executing the thing and achieving the thing.
15:02They really forget about the foundation that allows the thing to happen,
15:07which is yourself, which is taking care of yourself physically,
15:09mentally, spiritually.
15:11Because this is a long game.
15:13It's a truly long game.
15:14And I can't be successful at the game if I'm not at the top of my game physically,
15:19spiritually, and mentally as well.
15:20So I think it's just making sure we focus on that,
15:22putting the right kind of attention to it,
15:24being consistent about it, I think is pretty important.
15:27Because that is the foundation for everything else that sort of jumps off of as well.