Mahesh Madhavan: This is all very capital intensive. So, not many people have the ability or the capital or the appetite to do what we are doing. But as we have done it, then we will continue to do it.

Whereas, in the case of, say, gin, it’s very easy to craft something, even if it’s a small batch. Therefore, you start to see a proliferation of brands coming into gin… everyone wants a piece of the pie. So, they call themselves craft, they call themselves small batch, but are they really differentiated, or are they just taking a piece of the pie while things are going well?

That’s something that we have deliberately stayed away from, especially with Bombay. Because it’s so easy to fall into that way of saying, ‘Okay, let me have a pink gin, let me have a purple gin, let me have a blue gin.’ But we’ve seen this in the past and I’m sure you’ve seen it too. It tends to be a fad, it goes up and it comes down equally fast.

Whereas, we are in this whole space of building premium brands for the long term. Our philosophy, as a company and as a team, has been let’s not talk about today, let’s talk about the next 100 years. And what is it that we want to do, as leaders, to leave a legacy? Not only for this company and for the brands, but for the people and for the [Bacardi] family.

So, it’s about choosing very wisely what you want to get done for the brand. Determining the impact of your decision over the long-term. And if the decision is going to be hurting the brand or the company or the people in any way, let’s not do it.

–Mahesh Madhavan

Mahesh Madhavan: Maurice is looking after this area. We call them incubation brands. They include brands such as St-Germain, Santa Teresa, Teeling Irish Whiskey, Facundo Rum Collection – there’s lots there.

Maurice Doyle: Incubation was designed to keep these small jewels focused and allow them to grow in the right way. We’re not looking to grow them, say, for fiscal year 2020… we’re looking to grow them over ten years, over 100 years. It’s like putting in the foundations, rock-solid foundations, to allow them to grow.

Brands like St-Germain and Oxley – a cold-distilled gin, a real pioneer. So, while we are doing a huge amount of work on our core brands, we are also going to polish these jewels and allow them to grow in the right way.

It’s very exciting and I think travel retail will play an important part because it can be a shop window for our incubation brands. I’m working very closely with Mike on that.

Mahesh Madhavan: When I look at Patrón, the growth that we are seeing is largely from the US and Mexico. The US is growing at 7-8% and Mexico at a similar level.

Outside of that, when you look at the overall tequila category, it’s very small outside of the US. And in the US, we see this trend continuing on the back of a lot of new players coming in, and they’re stimulating the whole category. So, as you get more players, there is more money to build the brands.

But the real opportunity for us is to see tequila growing outside of the US, in places such as Europe, Eastern Europe and Asia. That’s where we say, it’s not going to happen tomorrow, it’s probably not going to happen in the next 20 years, or maybe the next 50 years. But it will happen. And when it does happen, I definitely see Patrón being the brand taking a large share of that. And in travel retail Patron grew 15% year-on-year in 2017.

What’s made this brand unique is ensuring that it’s hand-crafted, with great attention to detail. There was a whole element of getting the team together and looking at them as a family. And those are aspects that we have been saying from day one, we will never touch.

Second is marketing. One of the reasons that the brand has done so well over the last couple of years has been the marketing team. And so, to enhance that, we have actually given Grey Goose to that same team, to make sure that they elevate the Grey Goose experience in the same way they have with Patrón [In August Bacardi announced that Patrón Spirits Global Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Lee Applbaum had taken on the added responsibility of CMO for Grey Goose].

And the reason I say that is several-fold. One reason is that we desperately need stability as a company. We need that foundation of constant leadership. We need the foundation of brands standing for what they are, so that the consumer understands. So, he or she can say, I know what Patrón stands for, I understand what Bacardi stands for.

–Mahesh Madhavan

And the reason I say that is several-fold. One reason is that we desperately need stability as a company. We need that foundation of constant leadership. We need the foundation of brands standing for what they are, so that the consumer understands. So, he or she can say, I know what Patrón stands for, I understand what Bacardi stands for.

When you have frequent changes in leadership, then that percolates into brands, and then the consumer doesn’t know what the brand stands for. So that’s something that we are trying to change, and drive across the organisation.

The one aspect that I keep talking about is legacy. When you leave legacy, what do you leave? You leave legacy of two things. Brands and people. I always state that my number one priority is people, not brands. Because if you don’t have the right guys taking care of the brands, your brands are not going to go anywhere.

If you have the best people, they will take care of your brands, and your brands will automatically be jewels. To drive this, the only thing that I’ve been doing over the last year is talk about culture. And in that whole aspect of culture, we have talked about the three Fs – Fearless, Family, Founders’ Mentality.

We love the fact that we all grew up together. You know, Mike and I have known each other for the last 20 years. We know each other’s families. And that’s the spirit that we want to bring across to the company. It’s not rocket science. It’s about going back to the basics. It’s going back to what we were and getting Bacardi to really shine once again.

Mahesh Madhavan: I think we lost our way largely because of frequent changes of leadership. I’m the ninth CEO in 21 years. And that really tells the story. We don’t want to go down that road again. So, when I say that the next ten is going to be the best ten, I promise to be here for ten. And I keep telling the board and the family and my team that this is going to be a ten-year road.

It’s all about people, and that’s partly one of the reasons that Maurice has come back. I sincerely believe that our people are our biggest assets. I believe my job is to challenge my team and push them and get the best out of them. Push them to places where they feel uncomfortable, push them in places where they haven’t operated before. That’s how you really build a legacy of great people.

Mike Birch: Really, it’s about the shop window for brands. It’s about us being able to build equity with consumers as they travel. Our ambition is more about how we drive active advocates for our brands when they go back home to their domestic markets. We have KPIs, but that is the overriding objective for our channel.

That’s the specialty that Mike and his team brings to this channel – I would say the sense of uniqueness, the sense of pride, the sense of the fact that they believe they own this business. And you can see it in the way our brands show up. As a leader, there’s nothing that gives me more sense of pride than seeing our brands not only selling well but providing an overall experience to consumers that will last a lifetime.

You know, it’s not about just going into a store and buying. When you go and you feel a sense of what the brand stands for, either through a sensory experience or being taken through the history and the provenance of the brand, that remains in your brain for a long time.

Maurice Doyle: In travel retail, especially in emergent markets, we’ve got a great responsibility to be the entry point to our premium brands for our consumers. That’s a really big opportunity and it’s a big focus for Mike and his team.

Mike Birch: We’ve done some background work and found that increasingly our strongest sales growth is from emerging markets than from established market consumers, because of their propensity to spend. That’s a transformation versus what it was a few years ago.

Mahesh Madhavan: I’ve always said that I’ve never felt like a CEO, even in the last year. Although, every time I read the visiting card, it reminds me I am the CEO!

The reason I say that is that nothing has changed between what I did in the last year and what I did in my previous jobs. I’ve always treated this company as though it was my own, really treating my people and my teams with respect, making sure that they succeed first.

It’s not about my success, it’s about their success. I’ve always tried to create and foster a relationship – there is no politics, no bullshit, just one team that is there to take care of each other. And I’ve lived on those values.

I travel a lot, not for anything else but just to listen to people. It’s more to listen to customers, retailers, and my team. Because at the end of the day, they tell me what needs to be done. And we do it. I keep saying, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to be a CEO. You need commonsense. But sometimes commonsense is missing.