The Act of Love in Innovation With PepsiCo SVP & Chief Design Officer Mauro Porcini

In this episode of Redefining HR, I spoke with PepsiCo’s SVP and chief design officer, Mauro Porcini. Mauro and I discuss what great design looks like, how it ties to innovation and the insights from his recent book, The Human Side of Innovation. We also discuss why everyone is a designer in many ways.

Design, creativity and innovation have a long history in Mauro’s family. As the son of an architect/painter and poet, Mauro has constantly been exposed to the world of art. It was the drive that his parents had for their craft that showed him that he could go after what he wanted. His parents’ drive also showed him the importance of a humanistic approach to their art. 

And because of what he’s learned from his parents, Mauro has gone on to have an exciting career. He’s been able to elevate and develop a culture of design at major companies, including his current company, PepsiCo. 

“These 20 years have been very exciting and challenging years — not just doing design, but trying to build a culture of design and human centricity that didn’t exist in these organizations,” Mauro says. “My job is not just the one of being a designer, but is also the one of trying to build a culture within very successful, very established, big corporations at scale.”

Mauro has built a culture at PepsiCo that gets to the heart of innovation by keeping people at the center of design processes.

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Creating a Culture of Design

Mauro has had many firsts and accomplishments throughout his career, with the most notable being becoming the first chief design officer both at PepsiCo and, ten years earlier, at multinational conglomerate 3M. At both companies, Mauro was starting from scratch to build a culture of design with one goal in mind: “I’ve been working all these years to make sure that the company doesn’t need me anymore.”

Mauro has had many accomplishments close to his heart, but his most significant achievement is building a culture of design and human centricity. “I really hope [it] will last, no matter if I am there or not,” he says. “It’s a legacy.” Mauro wants what has been created to transcend him and continue for a long time. 

Mauro is most proud that the culture of design and human centricity he fostered at PepsiCo not only adds value to the company, but also to society. However, maintaining this culture is something Mauro understands is a journey rather than a task to be completed. He knew that he alone couldn’t sustain this culture without a team. 

“It’s not just me, it’s my entire team, but even that is part of the accomplishment. The realization that by myself, I could have done nothing,” Mauro says. “And I needed to surround myself with amazing design talent, and I needed to find amazing co-conspirators, as I like to call them, inside the organization to drive this change.”

Great Design vs. Culture of Design

Great design is something that anyone can see, name, and in some cases, touch. The culture of design is something that permeates everything within the culture. However, to develop either in an organization requires knowing how design transcends that department — and why the organization needs it. 

“First of all, you need to be clear about what design is and why design is relevant, at all, to your company,” Mauro says. “It starts with a lot of empathy and a lot of curiosity to understand, first of all, what drives these corporations in the short term, but mostly in the long run.”

Mauro shares two things that other designers looking to emulate or create a culture of design in their organization must understand. The first is to have a deeper understanding of the company’s future. When Mauro arrived at PepsiCo., he had to learn where the company was going and how to leverage the new culture to be prepared for the future. 

The second is ensuring the high-level executives understand the value of design to the company and that, as a designer, you can adapt. “The mistake that often a new community does when entering an established organization of any kind is that you don’t learn the language of the other person,” Mauro says.

For companies, the biggest adaptation is understanding the design community. But for designers, it’s the ability to learn the language of business, finance and corporations to translate the value of design. And to accomplish that, designers need to lead with empathy and understand what is relevant. 

Innovation: The Act of Love

The first acts of innovation happened when early humans built tools out of various resources to survive. These tools would later evolve and help people create buildings, prepare food, gather food and more. People have made all of these tools or innovations not only for survival but as an act of love.

“When you try to fulfill all those different needs, all of this is nothing else than an act of love for yourself and for the people close to you,” Mauro says. 

However, as we’ve evolved and innovators started to band behind big corporations, the love lessened, and the focus shifted to profits. In some cases, it benefited companies as they could scale the company to the point where competitors were creating innovation to fill in the gaps. But in trying to fill in these gaps to beat the competition, companies across all markets and industries lost touch with the true center of innovation: people. 

“Innovation needs to go back to its roots, [when] there was this idea of it being an act of love,” Mauro says. “Profit needs to be there, but it is a consequence of something extraordinary you build.”

People in This Episode

• Mauro Porcini: LinkedIn, Twitter, The Human Side of Innovation