Back to All Staff Doug Conant Founder and CEO, ConantLeadership and Former CEO and President, Campbell Soup Company Douglas R. Conant is the only former Fortune 500 CEO who is a New York Times bestselling author, a Top 50 Leadership Innovator, a Top 100 Leadership Speaker, and a Top 100 Most Influential Author in the World. Conant was appointed president and CEO of the Campbell Soup Company in 2001. He retired in 2011 and was recognized by the American Society of Training and Development (ASTD) as the recipient of the 2011 Champion of Workplace Learning and Performance Award. He was the 11th leader in this iconic company’s 141-year history, faced with reversing a precipitous decline in market value. Conant succeeded by dramatically transforming the company’s global leadership team, reconfiguring its portfolio, cutting costs and making strategic investments in Campbell’s products, marketing programs, innovation pipeline and infrastructure. Conant joined Campbell with 25 years of experience from three of the world’s leading food companies: General Mills, Kraft and Nabisco. He began his career in 1976 in marketing at General Mills. After 10 years, he moved to Kraft, where he held top management positions in marketing and strategy. Immediately prior to going to Campbell, he was president of the $3.5 billion Nabisco Foods Company, where he led his team to improved marketplace performance and five consecutive years of double-digit earnings growth. Conant is the co-author with Mette Norgaard of the New York Times bestseller, “Touchpoints: Creating Powerful Leadership Connections in the Smallest of Moments,” and is currently writing a second book, intended to be the definitive resource for empowering leaders to serve with greater impact in the 21st century. He is a featured leadership blogger at Harvard Business Review online and writes extensively about leadership that works on the ConantLeadership blog, LinkedIn and in various other print and digital publications. He is passionate about helping leaders of all walks deliver superior performance with effective leadership practices. To this end, he brings his unique expertise and deep perspective to his public speaking, delivering wide-ranging keynotes on enduring leadership practices for the new millennium. He also teaches leaders how to win in the marketplace and in the workplace at his signature leadership development course, the ConantLeadership Boot Camp, a course specifically designed to transform the contribution profile of busy leaders in the information age.
