Ag Lafley: Leadership

Who Is the Leader?

Alan (AG) Lafley’s background can be broken down into three time periods: early life, joining Procter & Gamble, followed by leading Procter & Gamble.

Early Life

Alan was born on June 13, 1947 in Kiev, New Hampshire. His life changed when he enlisted in the Navy, where he was assigned to a military base in Japan. At the base of 1 million people, he became responsible for the management of retail and service organizations. This duty entailed him to oversee the whole retail and service organizations which were grocery stores, department stores, and specialty stores. This was his first time working as a general manager and with it; he fell in love with it. When he left the Navy, he went back to school, but to get his MBA at Harvard.

Joining P&G

He joined Procter & Gamble in 1977. In the coming years as laundry power and clean service department manager, his team achieved several accomplishments. One of these was the “Liquid Tide”. In 1994, he returned to Japan, where his job this time was to oversee the whole P&G business in Asia. He helped lay the foundation for P&G’s Japan location to have rapid growth. Before he came to Asia, product sales were barely 90 million dollars, but before he left in 1998, they approached 1 billion dollars. He helped lead the company pass a currency crisis very smoothly. His experience in Asia helped him obtain more confidence and assertiveness that would eventually translate into his success of CEO and chairman of P&G .

Leading P&G

In 2000, Lafley was elected as president and CEO of P&G and became responsible for over 100,000 employees across 60 countries. When promoted, Lafley made a new company policy, “Continue to promote the growth of the core advantages of resources and profit from it” . He replaced half of the senior officers and cut nearly 10,000 jobs in order to make P&G more flexible. The core concept that Lafley believed was innovation. During his tenure, sales of P&G nearly doubled, P&G became...