Unilever sustainability chief Rebecca Marmot steps down
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Rebecca Marmot, who has been part of Unilever’s sustainability strategy for almost 20 years and its chief sustainability officer since May 2019, is leaving the company for an undisclosed new role.
Her replacement is Michael Smith, a long-time communications strategist, who joined Unilever on Oct. 1 as chief corporate affairs and communications officer after serving in a similar role at accounting and consulting firm PwC.
Though Smith will lead global sustainability, it won’t be reflected in his title.
Marmot’s role expanded to include public affairs in December 2024, a move reminiscent of the early days of corporate sustainability when sustainability and social responsibility were often integrated into marketing and public relations. She kept the title of CSO even though operational management of sustainability initiatives is handled at the business division level.
That change came one year after former Unilever CEO Hein Schumacher overhauled the company’s approach to the function, giving individual brand managers responsibility for stewarding environmental initiatives.
Unilever’s groundbreaking Sustainable Living Program, introduced in 2010 by then-CEO Paul Polman, was an inspiration for many other companies, but powerful shareholders pushed back on that agenda.
“We have too many long-term commitments that failed to make sufficient short-term impact, and the latter is what the world really needs right now,” Schumacher said in announcing the shift.
Marmot recalled the “grand goal-setting days” in a July interview with the Two Steps Forward podcast, co-hosted by Trellis Founder Joel Makower.
They “were brilliant at the time, having vision and being able to galvanize and bring enthusiasm behind an agenda,” she said. “But now I think business skills and acumen are absolutely critical. If I don’t understand — and my counterparts don’t understand — what we need to do as a business, we won’t be able to truly embed sustainability.”
Career trajectory
Marmot left L’Oreal to join Unilever in April 2007 as an external affairs manager, eventually launching the company’s first foundation before being asked to lead a team that combined global sustainability strategy, advocacy and policy and partnerships, such as Unilever’s relationship with the United Nations Global Compact.
She was the face of the company’s high-profile reviews of its trade association relationships, which examine the potential for the organizations’ policy stances to align with Unilever’s own goals.
“I feel excited about the future but it’s also been a wrench to leave,” she said in a LinkedIn post. “Leading Unilever’s external engagement and sustainability work globally has been absolutely brilliant.”
Marmot’s replacement, Smith, led communications, public policy, sustainability and reputation management at PwC.
Previously, he was part of the executive committee at the world’s biggest public relations firm, Edelman, which Unilever uses. The longest tenure of his career was at consulting firm McKinsey, where he left as global director of communications and marketing. He has worked on projects with the U.N. Global Compact and the Prince of Wales International Business Leaders Forum.
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