Celebrating Colgate-Palmolive’s 2023 You Can Make a Difference Global Award Winners
Recognizing Excellence: Colgate-Palmolive’s 2023 YCMAD Winners Enjoy a Week of Celebrations in New York City
June 21, 2024
Colgate-Palmolive is a caring, innovative growth company that is reimagining a healthier future for all people, their pets and our planet. Each year, we celebrate the very best of our Company and our people through The Chairman’s Global You Can Make a Difference (YCMAD) Program.
What is The Chairman’s You Can Make a Difference Program?
Since 1986, The Chairman’s Global You Can Make a Difference (YCMAD) Award Program has been Colgate-Palmolive’s highest recognition of individual and team excellence – giving us all something to aspire to and smile about. It is a tradition made even more special because Colgate-Palmolive people nominate their peers for this honor.
The program has recognized thousands of Colgate People at all levels, whose outstanding achievements have contributed to the success of our business, enhanced our work processes and workplace, and helped the communities we serve. Many of the process improvements, product innovations and creative solutions recognized with YCMAD awards have become global best practices still in place today.
2023 YCMAD Awards
In 2023, over 10,000 people and almost 1,900 projects were nominated globally with over 3,800 people receiving a period award. Of these projects, 181 annual winners were selected; and among those annual winners, 45 caring Colgate-Palmolive leaders including our Chairman, President and CEO identified five global winning teams.
In June 2024 we recognized and celebrated these five amazing teams who demonstrated the highest standards of innovation, collaboration and execution – as well as our values and leadership principles.
Welcome to New York – Global Celebration Week Highlights
Our global winners and their invited special guests met with Colgate-Palmolive’s Chairman, President and CEO; Board of Directors; Senior Leadership Team; and Senior Executives based in the New York Tri-State area at a special breakfast as well as a gala dinner and awards ceremony at the iconic Rainbow Room.
Rainbow Room Gala Dinner and Awards Ceremony
The highlight of the week was a gala dinner and awards ceremony hosted by our Chairman, Noel Wallace. Our global winners and their guests met our Board of Directors at Rockefeller Center’s iconic Rainbow Room. Wallace presented each winner with a well-deserved medal for their caring, inclusive and courageous work achievements.
Global Technology Center Visit
Our winners visited Colgate-Palmolive’s Global Technology Center in Piscataway, New Jersey, where they were hosted by CP’s Chief Technology Officer, Chief Information Officer, Chief Supply Chain Officer and caring Colgate-Palmolive employee hosts. They explored how our Company innovates, including meeting with members of our R&D organization – 58% of whom are women – and learning from our scientists, including how to make Softsoap Body Wash.
They also visited the Company’s one-of-a-kind Volpe Oral Health Clinical Research Center, which is accelerating the development of Colgate-Palmolive’s cutting-edge technology and product formulas to help address the crisis of oral diseases.
Values in Action Panel with Colgate-Palmolive Executives
The YCMAD global winners had the exclusive opportunity to go behind the scenes and explore Colgate-Palmolive's reimagined values through the power of storytelling. Recognizing that stories are more memorable than facts alone, company leaders shared personal anecdotes to vividly illustrate these values. This engaging approach allowed winners and their loved ones to ask questions and foster a deeper connection and empathy.
Before the panel, YCMAD global winners and their loved ones mingled with panelists during a brief coffee reception. The esteemed panelists included Sally Massey, Chief Human Resources Officer; Stan Sutula, Chief Financial Officer; Ram Raghavan, President of Enterprise Oral Care; and Brigitte King, Chief Digital Officer.
Clean The Word Essential Health & Hygiene Product Kit
Each team worked together to assemble three thousand essential health & hygiene kits featuring Colgate-Palmolive products to donate to local shelters around New York City, in partnership with The Bowery Mission. The kits, which included toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap, lotion, and more, are a part of Colgate-Palmolive’s ongoing work with the nonprofit organization, Clean The World. Our teams’ contributions are one more step towards fulfilling our purpose of reimagining a healthier future for all.
Bracelet Ceremony – A Moment to Reflect
The Bracelet Ceremony serves as a moment for reflection on the year and our values. In addition to the special awards medal conferred at the Rainbow Room, each winner receives a commemorative bracelet, this year presented by CP’s Chief Human Resources Officer, Sally Massey. The bracelet symbolizes Colgate-Palmolive’s values and can be worn every day, reminding employees to live their values.
2023 Winning Projects
Let’s celebrate each 2023 YCMAD Award-Winning Team and their purpose-filled, impactful projects. Team Global Supply Chain
Corporate
Reimagining Our Colgate-Palmolive Values
Vigla Allison, Stephanie Bereday, Robert Goodfellow, Jean-Christian Heinzelmann, Kevin Jordan-Deen, Viviana Moreno, Balunji Nkhwazi, Priyan Pillay, Jenn Porter, Brad Watt
The team developed and implemented the reimagined values with a global communications campaign that reached CP People in record time. For almost 40 years, our values of Caring, Global Teamwork and Continuous Improvement have been an important part of our culture. But as our Company has evolved, the question arose if it was time to consider evolving our values as well. Working with neuroscience experts – and hundreds of Colgate-Palmolive employees from around the world – to evaluate the need to reimagine our values to better connect with our purpose (why we exist), and our refreshed leadership principles (how we lead), this diverse team ultimately recommended a new set of values: We Are Caring, We Are Inclusive and We Are Courageous.
Team C-P Vietnam
My Phuoc’s Digital Transformation with the Industrial Internet of Things
Chuong Nguyen, Dien Do Nguyen, Luyen Quoc Nguyen, Hai Pham, Hai Tran, Hai T Tran, Tri Vu
This team from the My Phuoc manufacturing facility in CP-Vietnam took the lead in finding an innovative way to transform the facility from using manual data collection processes to a cutting-edge Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). By designing a solution in partnership with a local university, they successfully integrated 95% of machine data – which helps to create efficiency – in a cost-effective manner. Significantly, they established a common IIoT architecture, which can be scaled to our other manufacturing facilities.
Europe Division
Innovative Soupline Hearts: Fabric Softener that is Convenient and Sustainable
Isabelle Blanchot, Priscila Blanco, Giacomo Casini, Yumiko Garcia, Pauline Le Gloanec, Barbara Maimone, Estelle Pingot-Genix, Earvin Reyes, Fanny Selosse
This cross-functional, multi-country team launched a first-of-its-kind sustainable and convenient fabric softener, Soupline Hearts tablets, for the Europe Division. This revolutionary solid form offers the same amazing fragrance and softness experience as a liquid fabric softener, but in a convenient mono-dose format. The unique heart-shaped pre-dosed tablets embody the brand's DNA and significantly reduce packaging waste, contributing to CP's purpose to reimagine a healthier future for all people, their pets and our planet.
Hill’s Pet Nutrition
Innovative Therapeutic Food for Pets with Cancer: Hill’s ONC Care
Madison Amundson, Iveta Becvarova, Mark Brady, Laura Fahrenkamp, Dru Forrester, Susan Lord, Luis Montelongo, Melissa Vanchina
This Hill’s team pioneered a specialized therapeutic food line for pets with cancer, creating a new category segment and fulfilling a critical gap in pet healthcare. Known in the U.S. as Hill’s Prescription Diet ONC Care (ONC stands for “oncology”) and in Europe as ONC-Care, this science-backed pet nutrition product is a breakthrough pet-centered innovation that nourishes and supports pets living with cancer, while supporting pet parents and veterinarians.
Africa/Eurasia Division
Creating a Colgate Bright Smiles, Bright Futures® Equity Ecosystem of Goodness
Vijay Ameta, Sophie Bailly Maitre, Stephanus Crous, Paul Finch, Chris Hall, Carrick Massey, Wanita Moodaly, Jimena Rodriguez
This team from Colgate-Palmolive’s Africa/Eurasia Division enhanced our Company’s flagship Colgate Bright Smiles, Bright Futures® (BSBF) program by evolving it from our four decades-long oral health educational initiative in schools to now also be central to a powerful demand generation ecosystem of goodness. This ecosystem now showcases BSBF in Colgate brand equity advertising to drive brand love among consumers; generates sales by connecting the in-school educational program to nearby stores through advanced geolocalization; and works with health ministries and nurses to elevate oral health to to a public health priority, bringing the program’s message to even more people in need.
