Profile... Carnegie sets out to build P&G's profile in Asia

There’s a lot riding on Maile Carnegie. As the woman charged with drawing together Procter & Gamble’s (P&G) Asian operations, she has been handed one of the most high-profile jobs in the FMCG giant. But so far, she seems to be showing no signs of feeling the pressure.

Energetic, articulate and refreshingly down-to-earth, Carnegie is a hardcore ‘Proctoid’, having worked for the company for 26 years. She has marketed all manner of consumer goods in markets across the world. Last year, she moved from P&G Australia and New Zealand to become head of marketing for Asia.

Carnegie is clear about what is expected of her. “My core responsibility is to look at building marketing capabilities and design capabilities,” she says. “What that means at a practical level is looking at the aspirations that the company has for Asia for a five-year time frame and working back from there. Considering that P&G is such a marketing-driven company this is a critical capability.”

Even though this role is established outside of Asia, it is relatively new here, Carnegie explains, saying that it signifies the way the FMCG company is expanding its organisation and accelerating innovation in Asia.

“Asia is critical to the future of P&G. We have over 900 marketers in Asia. We are very committed to make sure that P&G is the leading Asia organisation.”

Her comments chime with some of the sentiments expressed in the US. Procter & Gamble’s newly appointed global CEO Robert McDonald recently admitted that the company had “arrived late” in Asia and needed to make up ground. Emerging markets now make up 30 per cent of P&G’s business, up from 20 per cent three years ago, but the pressure is on to raise that figure even higher.

Carnegie admits P&G could have a higher profile. “We have prioritised delivering our presence through our brands so people are quite aware of Pantene or Gillete. But if you talk about P&G as an entity they probably have less knowledge and understanding of the contribution that P&G has made in the region, and that’s a bit different from the West.”

It is one of her goals to change this - she says that the company will be looking to performing consistently across its portfolio. “The next focus for marketing at P&G is to be able to deliver innovation and creativity more systemically versus having pockets of brilliance. We want our brands to win consistently in all key markets.”

This is certainly welcome news for her agencies. Fernando Berreta, Asia-Pacific head of P&G business at Grey Asia, says that Carnegie “has a lot of fresh energy. She is highly inspirational, straight-forward and also has a big push on creativity.” He adds: “Not a lot of people understand rock ‘n’ roll as well as her, either.”

Carnegie is considered a rising star, having been involved in several innovative initiatives within P&G. A highlight was joining a P&G start-up called Tremor, a US venture into marketing services. The idea was to create a word-of-mouth service and to sell this to external brands. She helped to create the Tremor product offering and ended up running client service and creative teams for companies such as Coca-Cola, Dreamworks and AOL Time Warner.

Her current role was created as part of a restructuring process called Asia One. This initiative saw the centralisation of its operations for Asia under one operation in Singapore (it previously had three hubs). The objective of this restructuring was to ensure that brand and media strategy is developed centrally for the whole of Asia. The downturn, she insists, will not derail the process. “[We are] using this opportunity to ensure we are deeply focused on core fundamentals. There is so much noise around the economic situation at the moment - I feel like some other organisations are incredibly distracted by it. We need to be agile so that we are responding to it in a way that leaves the organisation focused on core fundamentals.”

So what will success look like? For Carnegie, it is more than just boosting sales. She says she wants to make sure the structure is sound in the region, and that includes increasing the Asian-born talent within P&G. She concludes: “Being really successful means leaving the business in a dramatically stronger place, but also leaving the organisation in stronger and healthier place.”

Maile Carnegie’s CV
2008 General manager, marketing and design, P&G Asia
2006 Marketing director, Australia, New Zealand
2003 Marketing director, Aussie, Styling & Super Premium, Cincinnati
2001 Marketing director, Tremor, Cincinnati
1999 Marketing director, Tampax and femcare, Cincinnati
1998 Associate marketing director, femcare, Pringles, homecare, Australia,New Zealand, Korea
1996 Brand manager, Always, Clearasil, Australia,New Zealand
1994 Brand manager, Olay, Woolworths customer team, Australia, New Zealand
1992 Assistant brand manager, Always/NapiSan, Australia/New Zealand
1993 Assistant brand manager, Olay, Clearasil, Australia, New Zealand