Chief Change Officer - Complaint Handler Turned Moët Hennessy’s Change Leader, Greg Morley: Everyone Should Be a Chief Change Officer

Episode Date: August 2, 2024

How did managing wild complaints at a call center prepare you to lead people operations and champion DEI initiatives at one of the world's most culturally diverse wine and spirits groups? Fun fact: Part of the LVMH group, Moët Hennessy includes 26 houses, generating €6.6 billion in 2023 revenue. Renowned brands like Moët & Chandon, Krug, Veuve Clicquot, Hennessy, and Château d’Yquem epitomize prestigious origins and terroirs. This global portfolio blends heritage with innovation, authenticity with creativity in its exceptional champagnes, wines, and spirits. A former account manager at GM, Paris-based Greg Morley began his HR and People Operations career at Walt Disney World, where he worked for over 15 years. His career has taken him from Paris to Hong Kong and Shanghai. Subsequently, he joined Hasbro to continue his work in talent management and HR. He was also part of the organizing team for the first Gay Games held in Hong Kong in 2022. Currently, Greg is the Global Head of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and Regional HR Director for Asia Oceania at Moët Hennessy. He serves on the advisory board of Simmons University's Institute for Inclusive Leadership and is about to launch his first book, 'BOND,' which explores building a sense of belonging at work and in life. Episode Breakdown: 4:06 — Greg's Odyssey: From a call center to Walt Disney and Moët Hennessy. 5:44 — Leveraging Experience: How did Greg's frontline commercial role prime him for a longstanding career in HR and People functions? 8:00 — Strategic Alliances: Mastering CEO partnerships as a senior HR leader or CHRO. 10:01 — Transforming DEI: Rewiring systems from the inside out for local, regional, and global impact. 17:52 — Navigating Complexity in Diversity: Balancing the blessings and burdens of Moët Hennessy’s diverse, multi-layered culture. 25:17 — Unveiling 'Bond': Greg's upcoming book—its inspirations, its goals, and what it hopes to solve. Connect with Us: Host: Vince Chan | Guest: Greg Morley Chief Change Officer: Make Change Ambitiously. A Modernist Community for Growth Progressives World's Number One Career Podcast Top 1: US, CA, MX, IE, HU, AT, CH, FI Top 10: GB, FR, SE, DE, TR, IT, ES Top 10: IN, JP, SG, AU  1.3 Million+ Streams 50+ Countries

Welcome back to the Chief Change Officer podcast. I'm your host, Vince Chen. In this episode, I've got a special trip for you. A trip to Paris. Today, we are joined by Greg Morley, a leader in the world of human resources and a master of diversity, equity, and Inclusion at Monette, Tennessee, one of the oldest and largest wine and spirits conglomerates in the world. Greg has an amazing story to share, covering the unique experiences that have shaped his

leadership style and his strategic approach to DEI. Let's explore what we'll uncover today with Greg. First, we'll discover how his early days handling customer complaints at call centers helped him develop empathy, quick thinking, and communication skills that became the cornerstone of his leadership at Disley, Has DEI agenda at Monat, Tennessee, Greg will share how he's been listening intently to the people who embody the heart and soul of the group's businesses, fostering an inclusive culture that's grounded in reality. In our third segment, we'll dive into the complexities of managing DEI across Monat Tennessee's diverse array of brands. Greg will explain how he tailors the DEI strategies

to respect and reflect each brand's unique identity while aligning with the group's overarching corporate values. Lastly, we certainly can't overlook Greg's upcoming book, Born, where he shares invaluable lessons on building meaningful connections, not just within the workplace, but in our everyday lives. It's about fostering a sense of true belonging and deeper inclusion everywhere. So if you're eager to learn how to make your own laws of change and hear from one of the leading voices in human transformation today, you're in the right place. Let's get started.

Thank you, Vince. We had the opportunity to meet at an out-leadership event in Hong Kong during the Hong Kong Gay Games. So I'm really happy we finally made it happen. Welcome. I'm very excited to have you on board. You're in the people function with a specific focus on DEI. Can you talk about how your early career experiences shape what you do today? What did you learn back then that still has implications and relevance for you being a

people leader with a change in Abelman mandate? Maybe I can start there as a place to introduce myself. So while I recently relocated to Paris working for Mowat Hennessy, which is the leading luxury wines and spirits company in the world, part of the LVMH group. I spent prior to that 17 years in Hong Kong with Moet Hennessy, with Hasbro, and before that Disney, which is the reason I ended up in Hong Kong. And I was very pleased to be part of the original organizing committee of the Hong Kong Gay Games, which was the first time Gay Games had come to Asia. And it turned out to be a huge success with great support from participants and an amazing team of volunteers that made it happen.

I'm originally an American, still an American, but become a bit more of an internationalist, I think, during my career and have now worked outside the U.S. longer than I worked in the U.S. And way back when started my career in commercial sales and marketing and distribution world, which was a great platform for me to spend then a good bit of my life in HR, in diversity and inclusion. And now I'm on the verge of publishing a book that I've been writing, which I'm quite excited about. You have been in the people function, in the HR function for long, but then you were in the commercial world for like eight years. Tell us more about your transformation or how your commercial experience prepared you going into the HR area? Good foundation and good question. The first professional job I had was working in a call center. And there's nothing like working in a call center

to prepare yourself to be a good communicator. 80% of the incoming calls were complaints. And so you really had to be able to think quickly and help people solve problems. When I was in high school and in university during the summer, I used to work in a warehouse, pulling orders and preparing orders. And then after my graduation and my call center experience, I worked in an outside sales role for GE, General Electric Company, in different roles. Why is that very critical to my life now?

Is that I understand things like a supply chain from the very basis of it in a warehouse. I understand what people who work for the companies I work with, when they're trying to handle customer complaints, customer solutions. I understand what it looks like to be a sales rep with targets and pressure from your boss about getting things done and sold. So those things were helpful to me and I continue to have an appreciation for those people. I'd like to be out with those team members, even doing my current role in diversity, equity, inclusion, and certainly within HR because those people, those individuals are the ones that make the business come to life

and make the business alive and are basically the client for HR and DE&I. So I love that part of the business and the energy there. And I feel like I understand it from working in the summer in a hot warehouse in less than ideal conditions, but that's where work happens. You come from the client phasing and operational side. In your experience, how important is it for people leaders to work closely with other leaders like CFOs and CEOs? Can you share with us how this chemistry, this teamwork impacts the success of a modern day company? The most savvy leaders of people are those that know how to work with an HR team or with their HR partner. I've worked for a number of individuals who quite rightly said to me, on my right hand is my CFO and on my left hand is my CHRO. And that's the way I run my organization because most organizations are fundamentally made up of people who then work with teams who deliver the business. So the business is

an outcome of having a great team and great leadership. And so smart people leaders, smart organization leaders know that it's important. For example, you talk about the HR people potentially not knowing the business is to bring a new HR person and say, hey, let me tell you about my business. Let me tell you what we're trying to achieve here. Let me tell you about, you know, what successful profiles look like in this business or not. And that's where a good HR person can come in and help that leader think about what's the change or what's the profile that is going to accelerate their business. If I think about when I've had conversations with leaders and they've struggled to build enough competence in their organization or enough depth in their organization to have real success. That's a partnership that we can have together where I can help them.

Again, the business is being driven there, not by HR. HR does play certain roles in an organization, certain control roles, certain investment roles, development roles, hiring roles, all of those are part of creating a dynamic, resilient, evolving organization. And I think the best partnerships are those like I explained when a senior leader can say, on my right hand is one function, but on my other is HR. Throughout your career life, you've been involved in the DEI efforts at different points in time. Now, at Monat Tennessee, have your approaches to DEI changed over the years? Are there any big lessons you pick up along the way?

Sure. If I think about my experience within diversity, equity and inclusion, even that has changed since I was first involved with diversity at Disney, say, 20 years ago and been leading it for a while at Hasbro. And then, of course, leading it within my most recent experience in Moet, Tennessee. I would say that my experience was one of learning from my own failures in the past in this space. Also trying to diagnose over time why in the organizations I worked and in other organizations where we had really not made significant progress over such a long period of time on something that's so fundamental to the business. And I'd start with why is it fundamental to the business? In any business, it's fundamental that your organization understands the consumer, the end user, the client. And that understanding, I think, comes mainly through the people who are on the front line of the organization working with those clients, consumers. It comes from the people who work in the research part of the organization. It comes from the leaders who are reflective of the markets in which we work.

So representation is critical. And then making sure that when we have a representative company, that people can be fully participating and heard and work in a safe space and really be adding value to the organization. So those things are part of how I sort of, when we started to kick off this effort four years ago in Moet Hennessy, thinking about, okay, how do we get started? And one of the things that I recognized from my experience, and again, some of my failures, is you really have to start with the end in mind. So what was it as an organization we were trying to impact positively by becoming more diverse, more inclusive, and more equitable. And for us, it was creating an organization that was more reflective of our consumers and customers

so that we could make sure that as we were growing the business, that was able to scale up because we understand better the consumer and the customer and that we create more of a reason to be in the company. So one could take two different approaches. One could immediately go out and start saying, okay, I want every profile of every recruitment to have a diverse candidate slate. That's an approach, which we did some of that in some organizations. The other way to go is let's rewire the system. And so we took very much, I would say, a rewire the system. I mean, making sure that the processes, policies, structures in the organization

were prepared to host a more diverse and inclusive workforce. So things like making sure we had domestic partner policies, making sure that we had a relatively clean hiring process that was as free as possible of bias, making sure that when we were selecting people for development opportunities, it was done in a equitable way, not in a way that maybe there was some bias or unconscious bias.

And then making sure that our communication to the whole organization was consistent and thorough about what was happening. And over time, we started to see impact in certain metrics. important in this success story, which is still being written, is to make sure that we had senior leadership, not just supporting, but advocating. There's nothing more powerful than the CEO saying something's important and saying it over and over and over for the rest of the organization to think that must be important if he keeps saying that. And that created, I would say, a bit of a sandwich, which was we had this top direction from the top, voice at the top, sort of passionate way of speaking of diversity and inclusion.

And then we were firing up the organization, so you had a bit of a grassroots energy as well. In advancing the DEI agenda, can you describe the initial challenges and strategies your firm faced? How did you begin to tackle issues like, for example, unconscious bias and change company policies to be more tickly inclusive, rather than using DEI simply as part of corporate branding jargon? I think the first challenge was, in a way, rewiring the way people thought about themselves. So on the surface, if you ask somebody do you discriminate i would say 99 of people are going to say of course i don't discriminate i have a equal view to everybody on my team i'm open i'm accessible so the the way we started was we took every employee through an unconscious bias train. And that gave people a sense of, oh, maybe I do have some bias.

It may not be intentional, but it could be for whatever reason, where I was raised, it could be through experience. So that allowed us to create the first rewiring, which was everybody having a better understanding of themselves. And it also opened the door for people to be having conversations about bias, about diversity, about inclusion. I'm at a very early stage. And I would say then we moved to the next level, which was like, OK, how are we going to make sure that our policies, processes, and procedures are at least contemporary,

maybe progressive? We went to the next step, which was to open the door and train employees to be able to start employee resource groups. We also then went to the stage of starting to put some measurement in place, measurement around representation, measurement about employees, a sense of well-being, measurement around employees, sense of inclusion in the organization. Certainly it had to be reinforced by communication and a sense of what was our message internally and externally and how are we going to amplify that? So each one of those pieces was a kind of change management agenda, which continue to this day, although we've now pivoted more towards speaking specifically to the topics of representation, inclusion and leadership. And those things that were the rewiring are really embedded. If I think about the kind of benefit things we were working on four years ago versus

what we're working on now, the landscape's changed, hugely impacted by COVID and people's expectation of the organization and the organization's expectation of people. But a lot of those fundamental early pillars still exist and are still part of the constant rewiring. There's for sure constantly change. Monarch, Tennessee is a diverse group with brands all over the world. Given this depth and breadth, diversity becomes a source of complexity. I can imagine that in such a multicultural, multi-layered enterprise, you must respect each brand's uniqueness while maintaining alignment with the firm's overall values. How do you tailor the DEI initiatives to manage this complexity?

Great question, and one I could probably speak with you on for hours, but let me try to condense it. One benefit for us as an organization, when I say we're the leader in luxury wines and spirits, is from the business perspective, we know what our place is. And it's, there's wines and spirits is a huge category globally. And we very much play in the luxury, maybe more select area of the market. Now that being said, if you go from spirits to champagne, to wines wines to the other products and maisons we have in the organization, it's a complex culture. On the surface, you can imagine there's the culture of I work in France, so I deal with French culture. Or I work in Hong Kong and I'm dealing with Hong Kong culture.

Or I work in Argentina and I deal with Argentinian culture. So there's that cultural element. Then there's the layered on cultural element of our different maisons and where they're from. We have some maisons that are French, some maisons that are in the U.S., India, China, around the world. So that puts a different sort of cultural complexity on the U.S., India, China, around the world. So that puts a different sort of cultural complexity on the work. And then there's another element of what I would say, which is sort of the maturity of the business. So when I was talking with you about visiting a Maison, I was visiting specifically the Hennessy Maison. Now Hennessy is the largest Maison we have in Moet Hennessy and it's the

third largest Maison within all of the LVMH group. So it's a huge part of the business and it has an incredibly diverse consumer. The consumers of Hennessy in China are very different than the consumers of Hennessy in say North America or the UK. So from the perspective of knowing the consumer, we know that Hennessy is a very diverse consumer around the world. When you go back to where it came from, which is Cognac, France, which is in the southwestern part of France, this is not a very diverse part of the world. It's a relatively small community where people know each other. And even within our facility in Hennessy, oftentimes you have people who have worked in the organization for many decades, and maybe their parents worked in that same role they have, and maybe their grandparents worked in that role. So diversity in Cognac,

France looks very different than what we would say of diversity in say, Hong Kong or New York or London or Paris. So why this, you know, kind of sandwich approach is important to the success of any diversity and inclusion initiative or strategy, is that there needs to be some strategic orientation. And I talked about that, which is understanding the consumer, being close to the consumer, having a representative organization. Can you be more specific about a representative organization? What does it look like? What does representative organization look like in Konya?

Or what does representative organization look like in Tokyo? What does representative organization look like in Kuala Lumpur? It looks different, right? We're not talking about the same demographic and the same representation in all of those places, yet we are talking about being diverse and close to the consumer. So we have to make sure that there's a structure and an overall strategy and an overall direction, yet each business unit, each maison, each location

is left to really imagine their own success in this space while understanding that no one's exempt from the discussion. That we could say just because we're in a certain place in a certain part of the world that we're not taking part of this discussion. Back to my recent visit to Cognac, they're doing some amazing work on the cognitive diversity element. They're doing some great work

on bringing different ability individuals from the community to work in the facility there. So in terms of diversifying the way they work, they're doing it really well in their context. And that's what I think it looks like when it's done well anywhere in the world. Can you give us an example where the cultural shifts you've worked hard to drive within the organization have helped real people, your

colleagues, take more control over their careers? How do these changes manifest in individual employee experiences? I was talking with somebody earlier today and we were talking about career management. And this person said a number of years ago, I would have been very hesitant to even raise my voice in terms of being interested for other roles. I mean, you imagine like that kind of energy and enthusiasm for one's career and the person felt, I'm not sure that that's the right call for me to raise that. So what happens in that situation is that person would ultimately leave the organization because they would feel safer somewhere else than in the organization. I think that has, as she said to me, fundamentally changed so that she feels liberated to have those discussions. And that's what I hope those are the kinds of conversations we can have more of to help

organizations and the leaders in organizations understand that bringing forth the ideas of everyone in the organization is good for the organization and good for them as leaders so there's personal interest as well in their success yep i'm thrilled to have heard that from this individual and i was even more thrilled to have heard it from this individual because she's a person of color. So she feels like in an organization like ours, which can be traditional and relatively male dominated and relatively not color oriented, that she feels like now she has a place. So that to me is huge progress. And I felt very good about that. And it's not to say that we have finished the job because i i hope that there are more

individuals like her who feel like they have a place to grow and they have a voice to be here so in that way if i think about your intention in this podcast when we first met You told me about publishing a new book. The title is Bond. What drove you to write the first book in your life about creating a sense of belonging and bonding in organizations? How do your own experiences tie into the bigger picture of diversity and inclusion you lay out in your book? The more I get close to finishing the book, the more excited I get about it. So this is an effort I started a couple of years ago, and it was an idea that actually somebody gave to me and said, hey, you know, you've got these experiences that you really have an obligation to share.

And I had never really thought of my experience as an obligation to share. And I had never really thought of my experience as an obligation to share. But when this person gave me that advice, I thought, OK, maybe I could do this. So we started to pull together some ideas about what does it take for any organization to create that true sense of belonging, Whether it's a big organization like LVMH or a volunteer organization like Hong Kong Gay Games, there are certain elements that bring people closer to the mission, create a safe working space, and create a place where people want to thrive and grow.

It was also informed a lot by what I saw in terms of the discussion that was happening around DE&I, which I think were amplified by the loudest voices on the margins. So whether someone was considered woke or anti-woke or pro-this, anti-that, my view has always been about diversity and inclusion, that those voices are always going to exist and that they've certainly been amplified in recent years. But the reality is that most people that I know want to work in organizations where they feel like they're listened to, where they feel like they can come to work and it's safe. They feel like they are heard

and that they can do their best work and grow their career to whatever extent they want to. That's to me the essence of belonging and the essence of inclusion and connection. And that's really what I wrote the book about. I was able to meet some incredibly interesting people and highlight their stories and their voices in the book. And I hope that it's something that will help others some incredibly interesting people and highlight their stories and their voices in the book.

And I hope that it's something that will help others to understand that this middle ground in our world is one that's much larger than oftentimes we maybe like to believe by the loudest voices on the margins. Please do share a copy with me when it's available. I would like to host you again to talk more about your book, your ideas. From what I heard, this book is not simply about DEI. The world of work is changing. Building bonds, building bridges,

building spaces across individuals is not limited within the walls of organization. It's simply the basic need of human beings. I can see that your book applies to a lot of real scenarios. I hope so. I hope that the inspiration people take from the book is that connection and belonging happen in many, many different ways. And again, it's not a discussion of sort of woke or anti-woke, as one would be led to believe by reading social media these days. That, again, people want to generally feel included. I want to, wherever I live or work, I want to feel like I belong there.

And when I have that sense of belonging, I'm willing to do more. I'm willing to give more. If in my neighborhood, I feel like I belong in my neighborhood, maybe I'm more willing to pick up trash on the street when I see it. If I feel like I belong in my organization, I may be willing to do a little bit more on a project because I feel like I'm connected to the organization. I'm connected to my team and my boss and the mission of the organization. So that's the power of a sense of belonging. It's not just a safe space or a buzzword. It's really a business driver and organization driver and a mental helper. And I think that this is the right time to have this discussion.

I think actually the role of chief change officer is imperative to the success of anybody in a company now because where the best ideas come are certainly not always from managers. So the best ideas come from anybody. Yes, and we will have more chief change officers around the world. Thank you so much. Thank you. With great pleasure. Thank you for including me in your primary and first effort, and I'm really excited to be part of it. In the next episode, we will fly back to the U.S., East Coast, in particular, New Haven, Connecticut, which I call home for two years. In particular, I'm talking about Yale, Yale University.

I'm going to speak to my classmate from business school, George Gable. He's a Yale loyalist, or another term, double blue. He graduated from college, Yale College. Then after a couple of years, he returned to get his second Yale degree, MBA. That's where him and I met. And over years, now he went back to Yale. He's now becoming the builder of the whole innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem for the university. One is helping a particularly very accomplished PhD me, scientists, learn how to talk about their idea in a way that resonates with potential investors or potential founding teammates, as opposed to what they've been used to most of their career, which is how to present at an academic conference or an academic environment. Very different things. And so that's certainly one area. Another is helping to make connections that help them get their venture off the ground.

And that can be connections to investors, people who might be excited about that idea and want to fund the seed round or the series A to help get the company formed, or connections with people who could become the founding CEO or the founding chief scientific officer, let's say, or other early employees who could take that founding CEO or the founding chief scientific officer, let's say, or other early employees who could take that idea and run with it because if it's a faculty member, they're not going to leave their job at Yale and we need to find a team that can help them get it off the ground. Or if it's a student, oftentimes it's a more kind of educational experience and we run a number of programs that complement what our students learn in the classroom to help them learn to become innovators and problem solvers and understand what good next

steps in their careers might be because the reality is very few of them will become founders right away most of them will go get jobs at other companies large companies other startups but help them prepare for their career journey and help them understand that if they do become a founder in the future, how to know when is the right time to do that and how to organize to be successful at that point in time as well. Once again, thank you for listening and staying with me till the end. If you like the show, subscribe, follow us, and be inspired. Share with friends. You can also listen to the show on any major platform.

Apple, Google, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon Music, and many more. If you have any questions for me, you would like to get in touch with me, my handle on a number of social media is in the show notes. Reach out to me. Perhaps you can win the chance to get coached for free live on the podcast. Until next week, thank you so much again. I'm your host, Vince Chan.