CEO on the spot: eight questions with Innocent’s Nick Canney

No, I think, is the honest answer. I started work in 1992 in manufacturing and logistics. Then, as my career progressed, I worked in marketing, then commercial, then progressed to general management. 

I’ve worked for some wonderful companies and what I found was that I had a bit of a superpower of being able to make the complex simple. And also the ability to explain to people where we were going, but, more importantly, why. If people understand the why behind your thoughts, then they tend to trust you, which is very important.

As the dots began to join up and as my career progressed, I’ve been fortunate enough to be put into positions that have given me more and more of a chance to do the things I love. 

The thing that still makes me push myself is working for companies that are joined to my purpose. I grew up on a market garden, next to my grandfather. He grew strawberries and raspberries and vegetables, and so now, being part of Innocent and creating things from natural ingredients and wanting to do business in the right way for the planet – all my purpose, drive and goals seem to line up. 

I think most of them would say I’m quite commercial. I like to win – people sometimes get a bit anxious about that, but I think it’s okay if your values are strong. I have this idea of the triple win: if you’re doing the right things, it should work for our consumers (the people who enjoy our products), our customers (the shops we sell products to), and it should also work for Innocent. So I try to make sure we’re thinking about that all the time. 

I have a strong drive to improve processes and outcomes, so my co-workers might say I can get a bit frustrated at times – but it really comes from wanting to make everything the best it can be.

I’m drawn to people who are both results-driven and values-led.

I look for individuals who are motivated to deliver, improve and make a real difference. As a company, we hold our values closely and use them to recognise not just what people achieve, but how they achieve it. That balance, between being results-focused and values-driven, is incredibly powerful.

I have had some great mentors over my career, but the best bit of advice came from a coach that I had when I first became CEO at Innocent. 

Back then, the company was having a pretty tough time. We were losing money and we needed to turn things around. And the advice that I got was: ‘you need to get everybody behind the why.’ 

This coach suggested a framework for doing that: it starts with confronting brutal reality and awakening possibility. You want people to believe in the future you’re working towards but you can’t make it so ridiculous people think it’s impossible. At the same time, if you confront reality and you’re too down about it, people check out. So you’re trying to balance these two concepts.

So we redefined the purpose of the company, then we defined our strategy, our culture, our leaders and then we reorganised processes and communication. And the advice this coach gave me was: ‘take this model and let’s pick our way through it.’ 

It took patience, it took skill and it took quite a long time – almost 18 months to go through it all – but, we’ve turned the business around on the basis of following this model.

The biggest macro challenge we face is climate change. Because we source fruit and vegetables, every climate issue – whether it’s rain, heat, wind, or hail – directly affects the ingredients we depend on. Our priority is to ensure those ingredients remain available despite these disruptions. That’s our biggest challenge as the weather becomes increasingly unpredictable.

In the last four years we’ve turned the company around. We had a pretty tough year four years ago and then three years ago, we started to improve. I’m really proud of the team for how we’ve done that, because it takes a lot of effort, time and resilience to do bounce back.

Then there was opening up our HQ, which we call the Blender, our carbon-neutral, all-electric drinks factories. I love the idea that we have done something that improved the quality of our product, reduced our carbon footprint and diminished cost for our drinkers.

When you choose to do something new, the investment is one thing. But we were a sales and marketing company, really, and we chose to become a manufacturer, which is a big change. I’m really proud of what we’ve done, because we had to shift culturally too. And now there’s 280 people over in Rotterdam that we didn’t employ four or five years ago.

So, there are two I think are really important. The first is Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works by A.G. Lafley. He talks about where to play, how to win and the capabilities that you need. He also explores the idea of setting strategy, and then how you plot a course in that direction. 

The other is The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter by Michael Watkins. When you turn up in a new role, the way you’re going to handle yourself, the way you’re going to assess the situation, the way you’re going to define the next few years depends on the situation you find and the team you work with. And so the idea that you start with an idea of the first 90 days is a really powerful way to set in motion change and impact.   

It’s actually the advice my predecessor gave me: be really clear on your purpose, be really clear on your ambition and be really clear on your values – and keep restating them. They may move a little bit, but they shouldn’t move too much. You need to focus on them to know how to keep everybody energised and thoughtful – that’s the most powerful role you can play as CEO.