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Welcome to the HBR IDA Cast from Harvard Business Review. I'm Kurt Nickish.

Today's guest grew up in the Netherlands, one of six children, the son of a school

teacher, and a tire company executive. He first aspired to be a priest, then a physician,

and when there wasn't a place for him to study medicine, he studied business, including

an MBA in the United States. Then he built quite a dazzling career in the corporate world.

He stayed in the US at Procter & Gamble for decades, then became Chief Financial Officer

at Nestley, the Swiss Food Giant. Eventually, he reached the pinnacle that many people

aspire to and few do. CEO of a Fortune Global 500 company. At the British Consumer Goods

Multinational Unilever, Paul Paulman stopped issuing quarterly reports and guidance, and

he embraced stakeholder relationships to help turn the company around and fend off a hostile

takeover bid from Kraft Heights. He led Unilever for ten years, and his experience showed

him something he had always believed that the doctrine of shareholder capitalism is wrong,

that there is a better way to do business. And so when he retired from Unilever in 2019,

he set out with new goals for today's business, to fight climate change, to fight the use

of corporate lobbying and government to make an even bigger impact. Paulman founded a group

called Imagine, which aims to help CEOs fight these fights, and with Andrew Winston, he wrote

the book Net Positive, how courageous companies thrive by giving more than they take. Paul, thanks

for joining us. Thank you, Kurt, for the opportunity.

Do you consider yourself a capitalist? Well, actually, to be honest, I've never really spent

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