Earn It Every Day

As chief supply chain officer for one of the world’s leading consumer products companies, Luciano Sieber TEE’20 is often asked the question: “How do I get a job like yours?”

His go-to response is refreshingly straightforward.

“Earn it every day,” says Sieber, who first joined Colgate-Palmolive as a project engineer in 1995. “Whatever your job is now and no matter how well you’re progressing at the moment, you need to keep that mindset of working hard, exceeding expectations, and not taking anything for granted.”

Another piece of advice Sieber frequently offers is to seek out learning opportunities in favor of specific job titles—a strategy that has served him well throughout his career.

“Most people, when they think about their goals and expectations, they have a certain job or position in mind,” shares Sieber. “I always tried to think instead about how to expand my knowledge and develop skills. Ideally, any next role is one that expands your functional knowledge, or geographical knowledge, or stretches you in some other way.”

Learning to lead across different cultures and geographies has been a central theme during Sieber’s three-decade run at Colgate-Palmolive where he has worked and managed teams in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. His ascent into global supply chain roles has extended that reach even further into Asia.

Sieber says he was always interested in travel, and innately curious, which made him naturally open to a global business career. Working for a company firmly rooted in its purpose, mission, and values has made managing teams in foreign markets easier, he says. Still, with each new assignment, Sieber has put in the time needed to better understand the heritage and nuances of local culture.    

“I’ve read a lot of books on history and sociology, which thankfully, I enjoy,” says Sieber. “Even with a company culture that is strong, reading and studying has given me a much richer understanding of the context in which people are coming to work, what motivates them, and how I can best communicate and inspire our teams.”

Among several examples, Sieber cites his productive engagement with trade unions in South Africa as a direct result of striving to understand how different groups have been uniquely impacted by the nation’s history—a complex story that he says is often oversimplified.

He was working in Switzerland as vice president of supply when he was selected by Colgate-Palmolive to participate in Tuck Executive Education’s Global Leadership program. As a participant, Sieber traveled to India where he was able to interview residents in a small farming village. In one home, he noticed a TV and asked the couple that lived there what they enjoyed watching. After learning that the wife enjoyed Bollywood movies while her husband preferred cricket matches, Sieber followed up by asking if they ever saw things on TV they would like to have or own. Initially, both answered, “no,” but after a short pause, the wife answered: “Actually, there is one thing I see that I would like to have—running water.”

“It’s a conversation I will always remember and reflect on,” says Sieber, who also took away several frameworks on leadership and strategy that he routinely draws from. One concrete example is the concept of future-back thinking, a strategic approach that begins by imagining a desirable future scenario five or ten years on the horizon before working backward to determine the steps needed to achieve that goal. 

“For many leaders, it is so easy to get stuck in the trap of managing the present and trying to push for continuous improvement from where we are rather than taking the time to think about what a bolder future could look like,” says Sieber. “A lot of the work I am doing now day-to-day is directly tied to future-back thinking.”

In fact, future-back thinking is so much a part of Sieber’s work that Colgate’s 2030 supply chain strategy is named “Moonshot” after JFK’s famous moon-landing speech, frequently cited as a famous example of the future-back concept.

Colgate-Palmolive has sent many of its senior leaders through the Global Leadership program in recent years, a relationship Sieber says gives executives across the company a shared framework and knowledge base to work from as they set and execute strategy across various functions.

Reflecting on initiatives he has been most proud to support, Sieber mentions Colgate-Palmolive CEO Noel Wallace’s leading voice on the topic of AI transformation.

“We were one of the first companies of our size that granted full access to different AI language learning models to 100 percent of our employees,” says Sieber. “It’s a credit to our CEO and leadership recognizing that AI is going to change how we look and operate in substantial ways. We’re focused as a company on removing the fear and making this an exciting opportunity for everyone to dig in and contribute.”

On the sustainability front, Colgate-Palmolive has developed a recyclable High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE) toothpaste tube and made the technology available to other manufacturers for free. The effort aims to promote the circular economy and establish a shared industry standard for sustainable, recyclable toothpaste tubes.

“This all ties back to purpose and what keeps me motivated and engaged in the work I do every day,” says Sieber. “As a company—no matter what your role is or how you contribute—we all share the same purpose of reimagining a healthier future for people, pets, and our planet.”