Consumer Services
Retail
Farming, Ranching, Forestry
Technology, Information and Media
Manufacturing
Active

Julia Isdale

Unlocking the Next Wave of Profitable and Sustainable Growth for Consumer Brands

Jurisdiction

United States | United Kingdom | Spain | Portugal | France | China | Germany | Japan | Switzerland | Belgium | Poland | Romania | Greece | Italy | Denmark | Sweden | Norway | India | Brazil | Mexico | Canada | Russia | Ukraine | Czech Republic | Kazakhstan | Uzbekistan | Austria | Belarus | Bulgaria | Croatia | Finland | Lithuania | Malaysia | Serbia

Notable Employer

  • Chief Innovation Officer at The Hershey Company
  • Chief Innovation/Marketing Officer at Carlsberg Breweries
  • Chief Commercial Officer at Trident Seafoods

Experience

Seniority LevelC-Suite
Years of Experience20+ years
Current StatusActive
Chief Innovation OfficerNotable
2016 - 2021

Business unit P&L and 250+ cross functional team leader. Recruited to reinvent growth for Hershey’s slowing US and global business. Positioned the company for success by leveraging future forward consumer insights to create an innovation and renovation growth portfolio to outpace the competition. Reinvented the portfolio to deliver on Hershey’s new global vision the ‘Innovative Snacking Powerhouse’, unleashing peer leading profitable, sustainable growth across sweet, savory and better-for-you. Reported to Chief Growth Officer. Member of the extended Executive Team. o Reinvented Hershey’s snacking portfolio to successfully expand beyond indulgence to ‘better for you’ and savory snacks, enabling revenue growth from $8BN to $10BN under the new ‘Snacking Powerhouse’ vision o Led the $1.5+ billion P&L and cross functional leadership team across sweet and savory from insight to shelf, consistently outperformed annual and strategic plan targets, 3x winner of Nielsen’s breakthrough innovation and 5x winner of annual NCA innovation award o Crafted the better-for-you strategy, winning pipeline and marketing and sales plan for US sweet and savory portfolio resulting in market share turnaround, driven by successful launches with Thins, Zero Sugar, Organic and Plant Based extensions in chocolate, sweet candy, jerky and snack bars o Led the ‘Champion the Consumer’ transformation, identified $2 billion of incremental growth opportunities from Hershey’s first Snacking Demand Landscape, new breakthrough ‘Jobs to be done’ insight identification o Established Hershey’s first agile, AI enabled Innovation Incubator to test, iterate, scale disruptive innovation in snacking, delivered $100+ million revenue from new brand ventures D2C and strategic partnerships o Partnered to create new brand strategy, repositioning, architecture and creative for Hershey’s key global brands. Increased base velocity by 13% and core and seasonal share gains o Created a new strategic partnership growth vertical, unlocked incremental +34% growth o Established new agile stage gate process and portfolio management capability. Increased speed-to-market increase by 28% and project cost reduction by 17% through optimized process and prioritization

Chief Innovation/Marketing OfficerNotable
2008 - 2015

Responsible for global innovation P&L and strategic growth platform leadership for Carlsberg’s extensive beverage portfolio. Led strategic growth platform identification and commercialization for global and local brands, the creation and commercialization of new brands to capture white space growth opportunities, consumer segmentation and insights, innovation process and portfolio management. Managed a 200-person cross functional leadership team, project teams and global network of Innovation Directors. Reported to Executive Vice President Sales, Marketing and Innovation. Member of Global Leadership Team and extended Executive Team. o Established Carlsberg’s Global Innovation Business Unit to unlock the power of agile, scalable, sustainable and profitable innovation across Carlsberg’s 150+ markets o Developed a consumer centric beverage demand segmentation, identified $1.2 billion in new revenue streams beyond the core, informing the global portfolio strategy and global and local brand strategies o Created 6x growth in the innovation portfolio with a focus on more transformational, category defining, margin accretive innovation in beer, cider, malt and functional cereal-based beverages o Created distinctive new categories, new premium brands and omni channel marketing campaigns to capture attractive profit pools and increase incrementality and sustainability of the innovations: o Somersby: The first premium refreshing global cider for females. Expanded portfolio with highly successful and incremental $60 million wine-inspired growth platform o Garage Hard Seltzer: The first hard seltzer brand for Carlsberg, strengthened the portfolio with Gen Z and Millennial consumers. Successfully launched globally o Draught Master: Sustainable one-way keg technology for craft beer to enable portfolio premiumization. Launched across Europe and Asia o Alcohol free brews: New product technology breakthrough and brand development for this margin accretive growth platform. Led global scaling, delivered market leadership and 3x revenue growth o Snap Pack and Fiber Bottle: new breakthrough sustainable packaging innovations, delivered significant packaging material reduction and increased of recyclable material usage o Significantly reduced new product development costs by 18% and speed to market by 50%+

Chief Commercial OfficerNotable
2021 - 2023

Responsible for the $2.5B global P&L, leading 750 cross functional team across 6 global Business Units. Leader of the global commercial function, overseeing marketing, sales, insights, category management, innovation and R&D. Focused on unlocking seafood category growth across retail, foodservice, B2B and private label. Reported to the Owner and CEO. Member of the Executive Team. o Transformed Trident’s global vision and strategy – Where to Play and How to Win - identifying $600 million of organic growth opportunities and M&A targets. Strategy and roadmap endorsed by the Board of Directors o Spearheaded the business turnaround in priority markets US, Europe and Japan. Delivered double digit top line growth and 2X margin expansion, driven by the portfolio premiumization and commercial excellence o Centralized R&D and aligned the organization around a $100 million consumer centric global innovation pipeline, including the repurposing of by-products to expand into margin accretive pet and supplement categories o Championed Trident’s commercial excellence transformation, resulting in significant value creation across all business units, driven by product and customer segmentation and prioritization, strategic revenue growth management, value added product portfolio transformation and SKU simplification and rationalization o Redesigned the B2B model to provide differentiating added value to customers with insight driven innovation, category expertise, fast product proto-typing, test market launch support and strategic joint business planning

Skills

Core skills0
Languages1

Languages

English