RAW MATERIALS
As head of corporate affairs at a global leader in plastic packaging, Claire Jenkins has an environmental communications challenge on her hands. Jenni Marsh profiles her rise to the top
When multinational tobacco giant Gallaher Group was taken over by Japan Tobacco in 2007, communications expert Claire Jenkins did something rather unusual – she took a break.
The game plan was to spend 12 months exploring Hawaii, South Africa and visiting old friends in Europe. ‘After the last trip, I’d look for the next full time executive role, drink cups of coffee and be back in full time work by Q1 of 2009,’ she says. But while big swells broke in Waikiki, an economic tsunami struck the global financial markets. ‘I could have panicked, but I was incredibly pragmatic. I believe if you’re ethical and work hard, things will eventually work out.’
Of course, for Jenkins they did. Consultancy work paid the bills, then in 2010, Rexam approached her with an offer too good to refuse. Would she become group director of corporate affairs at the world’s largest manufacture of beverage cans, a global leader in plastic packaging? With over 80 plants in four continents and an annual turnover of nearly £5 billion generated by 19,000 employees, it was no small task – particularly given that this burgeoning company had a topical PR challenge.
As the green agenda flashed onto the political and consumer radar, this global consumer packaging giant needed to help commentators understand the true effect of its products on the environment. ‘Packaging is highly visible so in a world of very scarce resources it can attract a lot of negative attention,’ Jenkins says. ‘But, in fact, the perceived wisdom that packaging creates problems for the environment is a myth. For the average carbon footprint of a household good, only 6.5 per cent of that will come from its packaging – far more environmentally harmful are the transportation of goods and raw materials.’ Of course, on a supermarket shelf those carbon expenditures are harder to identify.
Sold on a gritty brief, Claire accepted the role. Somehow, while big banks like Lehman Brothers sunk, Jenkins had yet again managed to scale the corporate ladder. Professional karma or the result of a formidable track record, she is far too modest to comment.
There’s no doubt that Jenkins’ résumé, from crisis comms to seven years at the heart of the financial sphere, has enough USPs to command the attention of any director. Her CV begins at the University of St Andrews, where she read not economics, but theology. After graduation, she went straight to the City. In today’s climate, where the press exult in super-traders, such as Fred Goodwin, being stripped of knighthoods and bonuses, like criminals being shamed in the stocks, I put it to her that moving from theology to trading was quite a leap of faith. ‘Religion has been the basis of rather a lot of important decisions, so university struck me as a golden opportunity to glean an understanding of something that was so vital to the way we live, and to do it at St Andrews, the scene of the Scottish Reformation. Back then, there were more graduate vacancies than graduates, so I knew going to the City afterwards wasn’t going to be a problem.’
Jenkins joined Laing and Cruikshank in 1981 - boom time. One of two female traders, and the first the firm hired, she learned to dominate in a male domain and, more importantly, absorbed an intimate understanding of the inner workings of the City that would lay the foundations for the rest of her career.
Excelling as a trader for a respectable seven years, in the end the confines of dealing solely in figures began to frustrate. ‘I wanted to get closer to companies, to be nearer the end product, so investor relations was a very natural progression, advising clients on their communications with the market.’
In 1997, an in-house opportunity presented itself. Jenkins was invited to set up an investor relations arm from scratch at a subsidiary of American Brands, which was preparing to float its UK arm, Gallaher Group, on the London Stock Exchange. Gallaher was battling misconceptions among investors that the litigious climate in America, where tobacco firms in the late 90s were being sued for billions of dollars by U.S. states, was applicable in the UK. All Jenkins saw was a sumptuous challenge. ‘It was like being given the keys to the toy cupboard,’ she says. ‘On the one hand, the tobacco trading market was in its infancy so I had to explain to investors what this business was, how it made money. So that was one challenge.
‘Then there were the specifics of understanding the company I had joined and dealing with bigger issues surrounding tobacco. I really relished that. I enjoy a healthy debate, as long as I’m dealing with people who are open minded enough to enjoy a reasonable argument.’ In 1997, Gallaher had little press coverage: ‘the papers in America didn’t care, as we were European-based, and equally the UK press saw us as a subsidiary of a U.S. firm’.
Jenkins, as has become her trademark, took a thorough approach to communicating the right message, ensuring every employee on the payroll was briefed on the Gallaher missive. ‘When we finally got into the spotlight, it suddenly became a huge topic in the newspapers so there had to be a very close cooperation between corporate affairs and investor relations. We did an awful lot of work on internal communications, working hand in glove so our employees were telling the financial press the accurate story.’
Nigel Northridge, CEO of Gallaher, remembers Jenkins clearly. ‘Claire always presented her views forcibly and with great conviction. She’s blessed with the ability to think both strategically as well as tactically, so her ideas were always of great value. More than that, she was great fun to be around, at work and away from the office.’ In a decade, Jenkins expanded her role as investor relations expert to director of investor relations and planning, but after ten years at the communications helm she was ready to be stretched elsewhere.
The now famous gap year followed, and the unexpected hiatus (‘I don’t regret it, I’d do the same again’). In the interim, she was approach by Sports Direct, and invited to become a non-executive director of the board, advising on corporate governance issues and best practice. What’s more, Jenkins became the only corporate communications non-executive board director of a PLC - another accolade for that illustrious résumé. Keith Hellawell, of Sports Direct, says Jenkins has more than illustrated why such positions should be more widespread: ‘I first met Claire at a meeting to finalise an interim announcement by the company. Claire was there to advise how a presentation by the executives prepared inside the company could be improved – and to gauge how it would be received by investors. I was struck by her attention to detail: her ability to reduce complex explanations into concise easily understood language and her “no nonsense” style.
‘She contributes fully at board meetings and her vast experience of investor relations coupled with her executive positions in other companies has added much value to our proceedings. Claire is a larger than life character who is respected and liked by every member of the board.’
It’s her breadth of experience that makes Jenkins so successful. While Rexam was already aware of the issues it faced, her task was to step up the format and content of sustainability reporting, to consolidate the message. As at Gallaher, she was tasked with communicating a reality that confounded investors’ expectations, and the company’s future would essentially hang on her success.
Jenkins started by going back to basics. With a team of seven direct reports, based in the U.S. and the London HQ, and inside a 50 hour week, she has refined the comms message on sustainability both internally and to investors.
Her first step was to set up a task force, drawn from all echelons of the company, who interviewed 300 members of staff on their perception of sustainability and what aspects of this were important to Rexam. Involving and listening those around you, Jenkins says, is the hallmark of an effective communicator: ‘The most important thing is to help your team perform well. This means fostering a culture which motivates them in a positive way to excel. The same applies to communicating – put trust and respect at the heart of everything you do.’
| Determined that every Rexam employee be singing from the same hymn sheet, she targeted internal communications. Expanding the intranet saw a 400 per cent uplift in user activity. Jenkins was pulling together the good groundwork at Rexam into a unified message – a well-trained army that would march the firm forward.
Central to this idea were the 12 commitments she developed under three headings (products, people and operations). Simple objectives such as ‘we will reduce our waste to landfill’, ‘we will support the most relevant recycle system for our products’ and ‘we will encourage our teams to be constructive members of our local communities’ encapsulated the message in precisely the way her past colleagues have praised. The refined targets were presented in the 2010 report, published last year, where sustainability was given more prominence and discussed in the context of the dozen commitments. Jenkins says the 2011 report, to be published this year, will show Rexam hitting nearly all of these targets. Jenkins has also expanded what Rexam understands as sustainability. ‘A lot of people think sustainability is only about the environment but it’s also about the products you make going forward and whether or not in 20 years’ time what you’re doing now is going to be a problem. It’s about the issues that we need to be cognisant of today, because they could blow up in 15 years from now and damage the viability of the business. ‘So now sustainability for us is about recruitment and retention, your place in the local community, as your local community gives you a licence to operate. We are very comfortable with where we have got to.’ Jenkins is proud of her achievements and proud to work for Rexam. ‘It’s a company that has changed immensely over the past ten years, through mergers and divestments, but its core values really appeal to me.’ With investors, employees and directors now all sold on the same vision, Jenkins’ eye has turned to public affairs.‘ Initially, that wasn’t a priority,’ she says. ‘And up until now it’s largely been done by a third party. That may well still be the correct route for us, but I want to take a fresh look. That’s my next challenge.’ |
 Curriculum Vitae: Claire Jenkins Past directorships: Investor Relations Society (2002 – 2011) and Retro Classics Fund Ltd (2006 – 2010) |
