Welcome to a special RCC STORE 22 bonus episode of The Voice of Retail podcast! In these STORE bonus episodes, we'll be meeting the keynote speakers that will be joining us to share their insights and wisdom with the Canadian retail industry. My guest on this episode is Jacquelyn Kankam, Senior Director of Sustainability & Social Impact for Toronto-based global beauty brand and retailer Deciem.
Welcome to a special RCC STORE 22 bonus episode of The Voice of Retail podcast! In these STORE bonus episodes, we'll be meeting the keynote speakers that will be joining us to share their insights and wisdom with the Canadian retail industry. We talk about their background, business, and a preview of the knowledge they will be sharing at Canada's most significant in-person retail event of the year.
My guest on this episode is Jacquelyn Kankam, Senior Director of Sustainability & Social Impact for Toronto-based global beauty brand and retailer Deciem.
Jacquelyn started her career in Sustainability, Social Impact, and DE&I over 14 years ago. From the natural resources industry to beauty, she is helping Deciem be the change agent and joins us on day one on the Driving the Sustainability Opportunity panel.
Thanks for tuning into this special episode of The Voice of Retail. If you haven’t already, be sure and click subscribe on your favourite podcast platform so new episodes will land automatically twice a week, and check out my other retail industry media properties; the Remarkable Retail podcast, the Conversations with CommerceNext podcast, and the Food Professor podcast. Last but not least, if you are into BBQ, check out my all new YouTube barbecue show, Last Request Barbeque, with new episodes each and every week!
I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company & Maven Media, and if you’re looking for more content, or want to chat follow me on LinkedIn, or visit my website meleblanc.co! Have a safe week everyone!
About Jackie
Jacquelyn started her career in Sustainability, Social Impact, and DE&I over 14 years ago, after gaining a degree from the University of Toronto in Environmental Resource Management, a degree Jacquelyn chose to explore after studying the environmental aspect of International Relations.
Inspired by her surroundings – living by the old Imperial Oil office building in Toronto – Jacquelyn was driven to make an impact in an industry that arguably needed it most, and began managing large-scale oil projects. This path could have been deemed ‘untraditional’ for someone in Environmental Studies where many would opt for non-profit, for Kankam the company was right, the impact would be greater. Starting out as a project coordinator, working alongside teams detailing the optimum environmental impact of various oil sands projects, named Environmental Impact assessments, she set out to make the meaningful change the industry so desperately needed.
Driven for not only a curiosity of the environment but a yearning to do better for a lasting planet, Kankam set her sights on real estate, addressing ecological and social issues, whilst building future-proofing strategies in commercial and residential builds.
As Jacquelyn continued to set out on a mission to do better within many industries she changed focus to aviation joining Air Canada, to manage environmental sustainability. Here Jacquelyn looked into ways to engage customers and industry on aviation’s sustainable journey while focusing on many topics including plastic and reporting.
Growing a team of emerging professionals and mentoring the younger generation on preserving our future, Jackie saw a huge opportunity to create a powerful and good impact within an industry ready to overhaul preconceptions of its sustainability practices.
That brings us to today, where Jackie holds the position of Director, Sustainability and Social Impact at DECIEM. Jackie leads the overarching company initiatives towards doing good to our people, planet, and animals. Kankam’s role develops, communicates, and executes the sustainability strategy across internal departments and external stakeholders, collaborating on all facets of the business and needs. She is passionate about diversity and inclusion, mental health and mentors young emerging professionals. In addition, Jacquelyn co-chairs the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion strategy alongside the VP of People. Together they set out to be an impactful voice and counsel, on behalf of the whole DECIEM family. Pushing to create a workplace environment idolised and considered by other companies around the world to do even better. Their work has been recognised by industry leaders, winning The Best Ethical Initiative for the Community and Family Funds, as well as the voting and protesting days available to the DECIEM family in the Marie Claire Sustainability Awards 2021.
About Michael
Michael is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience and has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. He has delivered keynotes, hosted fire-side discussions with C-level executives and participated on thought leadership panels worldwide. Michael was recently added to ReThink Retail’s prestigious Top 100 Global Retail Influencers for a second year in 2022.
Michael is also the producer and host of a network of leading podcasts, including Canada’s top retail industry podcast, The Voice of Retail, plus the Remarkable Retail with author Steve Dennis, Global E-Commerce Tech Talks and The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois. Most recently, Michael launched Conversations with CommerceNext, a podcast focussed on retail eCommerce, digital marketing and retail careers - all available on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music and all major podcast platforms. Michael is also the producer and host of the “Last Request Barbeque” channel on YouTube where he cooks meals to die for and influencer riches.
Michael LeBlanc 00:04
Welcome to The Voice of Retail. I'm your host Michael Leblanc. This podcast is brought to you in conjunction with Retail Council of Canada.
Michael LeBlanc 00:11
Welcome to a special RCC STORE bonus 2022 episode of The Voice of Retail podcast. In these STORE bonus episodes, we'll be meeting the keynote speakers that will be joining us to share their insights and wisdom with the Canadian retail industry. We talk about their background, business, and a preview of the knowledge they will be sharing at Canada's most significant in-person retail event of the year.
Michael LeBlanc 00:30
My guest on this episode is Jacquelyn Kankam, Senior Director of Sustainability & Social Impact for Toronto-based global beauty brand and retailer Deciem.
Michael LeBlanc 00:39
Jacquelyn started her career in Sustainability, Social Impact, and DE&I over 14 years ago. From the natural resources industry to beauty, she is helping Deciem to be a change agent and joins us on day one on the Driving the Sustainability Opportunity panel. Let's listen in now. Jackie, welcome to The Voice of Retail podcast. How you doing this afternoon?
Jacquelyn Kankam 00:58
Good. Thanks for having me just dealing with the remnants of a Toronto storm we had last week, which I think everybody is.
Michael LeBlanc 01:05
Well, and you have a very specific perspective on that with your background with. But okay, so is it just making up names for weather patterns? Because now that what was the name of this weather pattern? Like I've never heard of such a thing, and now that's all I hear about. Right? It's crazy, right?
Jacquelyn Kankam 01:20
Well, I think the, the day will, when I get a weather pattern, pattern named after me, then I'll know I made it big. But it's always funny. There's that debate on a lot of people have with I think everything, it's do is it that we just hear more things, right? The news is just more, more polarizing and global, or are things actually changing? I think it's obvious where I aligned to that things are changing with my background.
Michael LeBlanc 01:44
Yeah. Yeah.
Jacquelyn Kankam 01:45
But yeah, I think we're just in a, in a time in history where there's just going to be more frequent and extreme just weather. And, you know, I always think of my dad, he's in his 70s. And, you know, immigrant to Canada, from Ghana. And you know, when you hit that, that generation who started to talk about climate change, you know, you've made it big.
Michael LeBlanc 02:08
Something's going on yeah, something's going on. Where am I finding you in the world today? Where are you based out of?
Jacquelyn Kankam 02:12
So, I, I live in Toronto.
Michael LeBlanc 02:14
Fantastic. All right. Well, listen, let's jump right in and tell us a bit about yourself. Your, your background, looks like you've got lots of depth of experience in the subject matter and what you do for a living and, and who you do it for.
Jacquelyn Kankam 02:28
Yeah, so, obviously, Jacquelyn Kankam, Senior Director of Sustainability & Social Impact at Deciem. I started off it's, it's you know, if you ever heard me talk or read anything I've ever done. I tell the same story where I started off in business and moved from Winnipeg to Toronto and bombed my first year like absolutely bombed. Academic probation, like, I was like, oh my God, there's nightclubs. I can like go out, why would I go to school. And then quickly decided to move back to Winnipeg. And go to University of Manitoba, and like the week, the last week to register, I just couldn't do it. I'm extremely competitive with myself. So, I decided to try U of T again, and I got into international relations. And because I registered so late, I got into the environment end of international relations. And a field that I, to be honest, made fun of.
Jacquelyn Kankam 03:21
I quickly fell in love with and it wasn't easy, because at that point, my parents were terrified. You know, I, I started university in 2001. So, it wasn't what it was now, right? It wasn't where governments have targets, private companies have targets, like it's, it's everywhere. So, it was a little bit of a scary time to go in to the space. But I did it much to the disappointment of my family and graduated and decided. I lived right by the old imperial oil building at Sinclair and Avenue. And I, I was like, you know, you have this time where you're in this field where you can go into nonprofit, you could do the Greenpeace, which I admire people who go that route.
Jacquelyn Kankam 04:04
But for me, I was like, you know, why not go into an industry that arguably needs the environmental lens the most. And that for me at the time was oil and gas. So, I moved to Alberta and moved to Calgary and I worked in oil and gas for just under nine years for a variety of companies, including spending three years at site doing a fly in fly out. So, they fly me up on Mondays, fly me home Thursdays. And then oil tanked and I just was didn't want to spend my whole career in one area. So, moved back to Toronto, did sustainability in buildings. So, worked on waste and water and then hated that. I have a lot of friends who love building work, but I'm like it's a building. It doesn't move. It doesn't change. Like it's a thing that's around forever. It's not exciting. And I'd always love to travel so I went to Air Canada and it was great, very complex as you can imagine. Just by nature of like my old boss used to say like we fly things, rockets into the, the, the sky and just by nature, just really exciting and then COVID hit and not a great time to be in aviation. So [inaudible].
Michael LeBlanc 05:11
Nobody's, nobody's flying anything anywhere at that point.
Jacquelyn Kankam 05:14
Exactly. I'll, I'll never forget being like woof, I, I made the dumbest comment when it first hit. To, to an employee who'd been there for like, 25 years. I'm like, well, at least now we know standby is going to be really easy to get on. She's like, but we won't have jobs. I'm like fair, fair.
Michael LeBlanc 05:28
Fair. Like, it's kind of like when the, the old, not complement with, you know, you can always get a parking spot at your store. That's not a good [inaudible].
Jacquelyn Kankam 05:38
Yeah, exactly, exactly. I was like very short sighted, like, I'm gonna go everywhere, it's gonna be so easy to get on a plane. So, anyway, I, I left that and I enjoyed Deciem. And it's been just absolutely amazing. I've been here for just under two years. I report into the Chief Brand Officer. And I think even with that, having me report into C Suite just shows the company's commitment to really just, you know, one of our, our, our goals is to use our growth to power good. And a lot of brands say that like you hear that a lot. But we, we really mean it. And it's, it's a pleasure to come to work every day and work for a leadership team and a company that really looks at how they can just try to make the world better.
Michael LeBlanc 06:25
Now I know of Deciem and, and the listeners will know, probably know, something of them. I've had Nicola on the podcast a couple of times. Had the pleasure of that kind of big discussion about global movement and, and as a big global firm. But tell us a little bit about Deciem for those who may know it, but may not know enough about it. Give us a scope.
Jacquelyn Kankam 06:45
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 06:45
Scale, where you operate what you do for, you know what the company does kind of thing, what, and what makes it remarkable.
Jacquelyn Kankam 06:51
Well, we are the best skincare company on the planet. We're, we are nine years old. We're Canadian, our CO sits in the UK as well as my boss. We have stores in North America, some parts of Asia, Australia and Europe. And, you know, we really started out as this like, humble beauty brand. We're most known for the ordinary. So, I'm sure your listeners, soon as they hear that will piece it together.
Jacquelyn Kankam 07:23
But really just came and changed the industry. And I, I always say I wish I was part of it in the early days, because the stories are just remarkable. It was our co-founder Brandon, who's unfortunately no longer with us and Nicola who just really decided that they need to, to break the beauty industry. And it should be founded on transparency and access, and I co-chair a DE&I strategy. And one thing I love is that you can get our products for $5 or for $6. And to me that's even speaks to the core of equality, right and equity, and you don't need to have $300 to get a cream to have, you know, clear skin. And, and if you think about, we say beauty as being human, and it really is it's, it's it doesn't rinse off. It's not, we don't sell for people to buy, it's not about you come into our stores, and they have these, you know, KPIs to sell a million products.
Jacquelyn Kankam 08:13
It's really about education. And we've just been founded on the education and the transparency. And we try to carry that through to our sustainability and our social impact strategy, because this is really confusing stuff, right? Like, if, if, if we can figure out climate change, and DE&I and how to be a corporate, a good corporate citizen. God, it would just be so much easier, but it's, it's not. And we were very, very transparent with our customers about where we are. And we, we were we said last year, maybe it was this year, we're not a sustainable beauty company. And people were like, what, we're like, well we're not. Yeah, I was like, I don't, I don't know how to have, you know, a net zero emissions for scope, one, two, and three without using offsets. I, I don't know how to do it. I don't know how to not put out a bunch of waste in the environment. And yes, we have in store recycling. But the beauty industry is responsible for billions, billions of waste that sits in landfills. And until we can look at our, our customers and our, our internal Deciem family, our employees and say like, hey, we have a roadmap, and we're kind of there. We still have some things we don't know, then we're not comfortable saying we're a sustainable beauty company. And we are very transparent, and we might never get there.
Michael LeBlanc 09:31
Well, let's talk about your role, you know, the full title and tell me if this is if I got this right, Senior Director of Sustainability & Social Impact. So, that's a big remit, right? There's a lot packed into that.
Jacquelyn Kankam 09:42
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 09:42
Particularly for a company like Deciem, who's really mandate is very focused on, on their contribution or their impact. So, talk about, you know, when you first take a, a gig like this on. What's, you know, what are the KPIs? You know, how do you, how do you measure yourself? What, where do you start the journey in assessing, and then where do you point the ship towards, so to speak, to a point of, a point of arrival? Just give us a sense of, of, of how you approach your job, really your tradecraft.
Jacquelyn Kankam 10:10
Well, it's funny, if you were to talk to me, my first week I would have been like, I don't know. [Inaudible] first week. I called my old, one of my mentors and was like, ah, and I, and I think it was just, you know. I tell my team, we were the most beautiful times, and one of the most people times in your career, because we have such a strong leadership team that's like, you guys are the experts, we trust you. That was great, you know, with that responsibility, your mind can just, just go anywhere. And it's, it's just such a beautiful time at the company for that.
Jacquelyn Kankam 10:41
So, the first thing I like to give the old analogy as you, you, you can't change what you don't know. So, the first thing we did, I would say like was weigh ourselves, as many people did after COVID. And realize they weighed a bit more than they wanted. So, the first thing we did was really like, look at our actual impact. Like, we didn't know how much we were contributing emissions wise, or water wise or waste wise, like how could you even start to make any targets or impact change? So, from a sustainability point of view, it was really figuring out how much we impact everything, and then looking at how do we mitigate that. And we're really lucky in that we manufacture ourselves in house, so we like have an end-to-end process. And like I said, we have such a great leadership team that's fully supportive. Like we'll get emails from staff, it's like, you know, we want to change the tape from this tape to this tape on our boxes, will affect recyclability? And that sounds really, really, like, small and not important. But to me, it speaks to the mindset of a company that people are thinking like, oh, we want to make the change, let's just pulse check to make sure that we're not, it's, it's not impeding any sort of sustainability goals.
Jacquelyn Kankam 11:50
So, from the sustainability side, that's kind of where we started. And then from social impact, we've always been about using our growth to power good. But we didn't really have like a systematic, I'd say like, what causes do we support? How much do we support? So, one of the first things that started when my role started was the good fund. So, it was about just doing good and showing up for, you know, whether it's Ukraine or Afghanistan, or the typhoon in Philippines or, you know. What, ensuring that we, we not only stood behind causes, not just financially but, you know, can we, we have a large social media platform. Can we lend our name to help bring awareness to a cause? And how do we [inaudible].
Michael LeBlanc 12:32
That, that can be a challenge, it, it can be a challenge, right, as, as a brand, because you want to help everybody. Because.
Jacquelyn Kankam 12:37
Exactly.
Michael LeBlanc 12:38
[Inaudible] brand like yours which is very inclusive, you've got a very broad swath of the population who loves your product. But, but then you've got to kind of, to I guess, to have, tell me, if, if, if this resonates. To have real impact, you got to kind of choose a few, which means saying no to some, but then really focus. Is that kind of your approach or talk about that for a few seconds?
Jacquelyn Kankam 12:58
Yeah, I think we we're really lucky in that we haven't really had to say no often. For us, I think it's more figuring out. Like, we, we, we started off pretty grassroots, right? Like we were startup, a disrupter. So, one thing we're really passionate about is not just when, when we're supporting a cause, not just picking the like, big, you know, charity, or the big organization. Really finding that small grassroots like, hey, someone and their cousin started this and they're really in their community making a change versus always going big and global. One of my favorite charities is, that we supported is Beauty to The Streets. And they're this in LA, there's a lot of people experiencing homeless shelter, or sorry, homelessness. So, you can imagine large homeless, I mean, if you've been to LA I think no one would be surprised homeless camps. And they just go in and they beautify people, and they like help people wash their hair and put on makeup. And it sounds so simple. But for somebody experiencing homelessness, that's a really big deal. And that might not be you know, if you, you know do a Google like the top 10 charity in LA. But they're just doing great grassroots work, which speaks to you know how Deciem started and who we want to be. So, I'd say our, the, the struggle is finding those. I won't even say struggle, I'd say what we, we try to do is find those grassroots organizations on the ground. As much as you know, sometimes if there's like Ukraine happens, you're like, kay, we need to like, get money there quick. Let's go to the Red Cross. But really trying to make sure even within our giving, that we're focused on transparency and education and making a real impact.
Michael LeBlanc 14:38
Well, you're on your upcoming, you're on the main stage upcoming very soon at STORE 2022, 2022. Day one, a, a great panel Driving Sustainability Opportunity. Great panelists talk a little bit. Last question, about what you'll be talking about on that panel? What's that panel all about?
Jacquelyn Kankam 14:56
Yeah, I don't want to give too much of a preview. But one thing, and you kind of alluded to it with my roles, is one thing I'm really lucky is that we're not, I'm, I'm not siloed. So, I get to look after the sustainability and the DE&I co-chair, and then the social impact. So, it's really about, like, how we've been able to take a really holistic view to all of our, our strategies. You know, traditionally, you'd have one person who does each and then you know, maybe like, once or twice a year, they'll get together and say, oh, we're doing, oh, you're working on this. But with us, even for our renewable energy strategy, because it's all under one umbrella, we've been able to take it from an employee perspective to like supporting indigenous communities with their renewable energy transition. And then Deciem itself using renewable energy, and renewable energy credits, which is we're just really lucky that because we have this holistic approach, we're able to do everything.
Jacquelyn Kankam 15:13
So, we want to talk a bit about that. And then really, how you know, we just like I said, try to use our growth to power good. Like one of my favorite, favorite stories. One of our sales directors in Europe, we were talking and she's like, you know, I tell my team, we need to sell more so Jackie's team can use the, the sales to power more good. And I like what else can you ask for, right? If that's, if that's, like exactly. It's funny, because she said it in passing. And I've said to her every time we talk, I'm like, I still think about that. She's like but you know, I'm like, but no like that in itself. Like for someone in you know, my type of role is a dream, because that's the way a leader is looking at it and talking about it to her team. And that doesn't happen often.
Michael LeBlanc 15:50
[Inaudible] culture right, now you're talking motivation culture.
Jacquelyn Kankam 15:57
Exactly.
Michael LeBlanc 15:58
Right.
Jacquelyn Kankam 15:58
Exactly.
Michael LeBlanc 15:59
Which is kind of, I, I, I'm sure it's one point of arrival of many for folks who do what you do is, is how does it permeate the culture? And because you're, you're one individual, very talented, but you can only do so.
Jacquelyn Kankam 16:47
Exactly.
Michael LeBlanc 16:47
Much, right.
Jacquelyn Kankam 16:48
Exactly.
Michael LeBlanc 16:49
Organization needs, needs to transform. Well, listen, very exciting. You're at three o'clock three fifteen on the main stage day one. What a great, a great preview. And, and Jackie, thanks so much for joining me on The Voice of Retail podcast. It was a real treat having you on and I look forward to seeing you in person and wish you continued success in everything you do.
Jacquelyn Kankam 17:09
Awesome. Thanks.
Michael LeBlanc 17:10
Thanks for tuning into this special episode of The Voice of Retail. If you haven't already, be sure and click and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so new episodes will land automatically, twice a week, and check out my other retail industry media properties; the Remarkable Retail podcast, Conversations with CommerceNext podcast, and the Food Professor podcast with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois. Last but not least, if you're into BBQ, check out my all-new YouTube barbecue show, Last Request Barbecue, with new episodes each and every week!
Michael LeBlanc 17:10
I'm your host, Michael LeBlanc, President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company & Maven Media, and if you're looking for more content or want to chat, follow me on LinkedIn or visit my website at meleblanc.co!
Have a safe week everyone!
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
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