AB InBev CEO on Adapting in the Face of Crisis

HBR IdeaCast

Harvard Business Review

Teams, Business/management, Marketing, Strategy, Management, Innovation, Finance, Entrepreneurship, Economics, Hbr, Business/entrepreneurship, Harvard, Business, Leadership, Business/marketing, Communication

4.3 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 30 June 2020

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Carlos Brito, the CEO of Anheuser-Busch InBev since 2008, has worked to build a culture of adaptability and customer centricity at the global brewer. Many of his leadership principles are paying off during the Covid-19 pandemic, as empowered employees have quickly changed course to respond to the crisis. Brito explains the challenges his company faces in a making beer for social gatherings at a time when people need to stay apart for safety, how the company has shifted operations and supply chains thanks in part to early lessons in markets such as China and South Korea, and how he’s leading strategic efforts to position AB InBev for a new reality.

Transcript

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0:00.0	How do you navigate gender in your workplace?
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0:16.0	Women at Work wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the HBR Ideacast from Harvard Business Review. I'm Kurt Nickish.
0:37.0	There's a common perception in business that scale slows you down, that it takes a long time to change the course of a big ship, which should be a disadvantage at a time like now,
0:56.2	when a pandemic is forcing businesses everywhere to adapt quickly to new realities, to change course.
1:06.1	But sometimes being a big ship gives you a view that smaller boats just don't have. Turns out that can be critical when the waters are
1:11.1	really choppy.
1:13.0	Our guest today is the CEO of one of the largest consumer goods companies in the world.
1:17.6	Anheuser-Bush Inbev, the global brewer of Budweiser, Stella Artois, Corona, Bex, Castle Brahma, and hundreds of other beers.
1:27.0	Carlos Brito has been at the head of AB and Beves since 2008, and he's here to talk about
1:32.1	how he's leading it through the crisis response and
1:34.6	recovery and why seeing beer sales fall early on in China may have been one of the best things
1:40.9	to happen to his multinational enterprise.
1:43.8	Brito, thanks for speaking with us.
1:45.8	No, you're welcome.
1:46.8	Thanks for having me.
1:47.8	One thing I didn't know before prepping for this interview is that the biggest market for Budweiser and Corona beers outside of their home markets is China, which was the first place affected by COVID-19
2:05.7	what would become a pandemic. When did you know that you had a major challenge on
2:10.5	your hands? It was interesting to say that because in January this year, the first thing I did was I went to China.
2:18.0	I travel a lot to visit our country.
	...

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