In our PowerTalks with The Coca-Cola Company series, we spotlight trailblazing women leaders like Eileen Thanner, Chief Operating Officer at fairlife. In an industry where approximately three-quarters of leadership roles are male-dominated, Eileen shares how her journey with fairlife and NextUp has shaped her career.1 Learn how she’s driving bold innovation, sustainability, and inclusivity, and how fairlife’s motto to “Believe in Better” is transforming the workplace and advancing gender equity.
fairlife’s internal motto is “We Believe in Better.” What does this mean to you personally, and how does it resonate with your leadership role at fairlife?
I love the “Believe in Better” mantra that runs through fairlife. It feels perfectly appropriate for the culture and aligns with my experience leading the Demand Organization and working alongside some very smart people. Believing in Better is an optimistic mindset focused on the possibility of positive change and improvement. This comes through in numerous ways, including dairy innovation and nutrition, animal welfare and farming practices, sustainability initiatives, and quality standards.
For me and my team, it means finding better ways to collaborate, more efficient ways to deliver on behalf of our bottlers, customers, and consumers, and exploring future growth opportunities without limits. I truly believe that striving for improvement is a significant part of what has fueled fairlife’s success to date.
What unique challenges does the dairy industry face when it comes to promoting gender equity?
The great thing about dairy farms in the United States is that so many—a recent statistic puts the percentage as high as 97%—are family businesses, meaning everyone in the family gets involved in some aspect. Gender equity is also notable in veterinary medicine. Our head of animal welfare and sustainability, Dr. Marissa Hake, is a shining example of the growth of women leaders in this space.
What specific initiatives has fairlife implemented to create a workplace culture that supports women and promotes gender equity within the organization?
I have the honor of serving as the Executive Sponsor for fairlife’s WomensLinc. This group provides women and allies at fairlife with opportunities for growth, continuing education, and peer support throughout their careers.
How does fairlife engage all employees, both men and women, in advancing gender equity?
Groups like fairlife’s WomensLinc focus on recruiting members of all genders because we know there is something to learn from everyone’s experiences. It also helps that our CEO, Tim Doelman, walks the talk when we say we support, encourage, and prioritize gender equity across our business. We also leverage events through NextUp to provide additional opportunities to prioritize conversations and actions around gender equity.
In our mission to nourish the modern world, we believe we must value, respect, and include all our differences. Our approach to inclusion at fairlife is to meet the inclusion needs of our employees and create the conditions for everyone to thrive. We believe when everyone thrives at fairlife, our business thrives too.
How has the NextUp partnership with the Coca-Cola Company contributed to these gender equity efforts at fairlife?
The goal of gender equity efforts is to continue the conversation and create new opportunities. NextUp is a prime example of this, enabling us to engage actively in these efforts. This year, we sent almost 50 women from fairlife to NextUp Summit to provide growth and development opportunities and to help them make connections across the NextUp system. Many team members returned from NextUp Summit and shared recaps with colleagues who didn’t attend, extending the learnings and experiences even further.
Given that agriculture remains a male-dominated industry, what is fairlife doing to strengthen partnerships with female farmers and empower their role in the dairy sector?
I’d like to think that the industry is evolving, and we are seeing this reflected in our supplying farms and industry associations. In fact, I recently visited a farm run by a husband-and-wife team, with their sons, daughters, and their spouses playing important roles in the day-to-day operations. Each person clearly played an equal and essential role in running the farm and delivering high-quality milk to fairlife. On the fairlife side, since we don’t own farms, our efforts focus on animal welfare, where we promote, empower, and enable our female-led team to drive the agenda on how we best engage with our suppliers and maintain industry-leading care standards.
What’s the most unexpected thing you’ve learned about leadership since stepping into your role?
Leadership is an honor, and one in which I never stop learning new things. While not necessarily unexpected, my role at fairlife has been a great reminder of the power of empowerment. Providing air cover and support so the team can think big, try new things, all while delivering incredibly impressive results, has been so rewarding. I can’t wait to see what we’ll do next!
What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
I have two to share:
- Comfort and growth cannot coexist.
- To get the best out of people you must always treat them well.
What’s one thing people might be surprised to learn about working in the dairy industry?
The varied knowledge required to be successful in the dairy space is incredibly complex, demanding expertise in animal and human nutrition, ultra-filtration, pasteurization, and more. The attention to detail needed to create a product like fairlife is truly extraordinary.
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