At a moment of growing inequality and division, who is advancing the vanguard of economic and social progress to bolster our most vulnerable communities? Whose work is fostering the inclusive growth that ensures every individual thrives? Who will set the ambitious standards that mobilize whole industries, challenging their peers to reach new altitudes of social impact?
In 2024, Impact Next — a new editorial flagship series from NationSwell — will spotlight the standard-bearing corporate social responsibility and impact leaders, entrepreneurs, experts, and philanthropists whose catalytic work has the potential to shape the landscape of progress amid urgent need for social and economic action.
For this installment, NationSwell interviewed Nishant Roy — Chief Impact Officer at Chobani.
Greg Behrman, CEO and Founder, NationSwell: Tell us a little bit about your leadership journey — was there a formative experience that helped you to arrive at this space and this position of leadership?
Roy, Chobani: I started my professional life in the United States Air Force, and had the privilege to deploy to both Afghanistan and Iraq. That experience got me thinking far more about overall civil society, economic empowerment, and the things that could have potentially prevented those conflicts from happening. I started to really think about the role the government and the private sector can play in addressing some of the systemic issues that are happening in countries and places all over the world.
After leaving the military, I took a job working for former President Clinton at his foundation in New York, and he actually recommended that I go to law school or get an engineering degree. He said that I had more lived experience than most of my peers because of my time in the military, and he saw that what I needed was a framework with which to identify the root causes of problems and come up with creative and thoughtful solutions to solve them.
In 2006, he ended up connecting me to a friend of his, Bob Harrison, who happened to be a former partner at Goldman Sachs, and he said that it was an easy decision — that I should go work at Goldman Sachs. He suggested that I go somewhere to deepen my understanding of what the private sector is all about, to understand how business operates and apply that into the public sector, and so that’s what eventually sparked the interest of marrying business and social impact together back in 2006.
Behrman, NationSwell: What makes your approach to your work at Chobani differentiated — are there any programs, initiatives, or partnerships that feel particularly exciting?
Roy, Chobani: To start macro, Chobani is trying to prove that businesses can be both purposeful and profitable at the same time. As Hamdi says, a cup of yogurt won’t change the world, but how we make it can — especially in terms of how we’re using the dollars we get in profits and investing them back into the community. If you look at the yogurt category in this country, it’s gone from 43 grams of sugar in a single serving on average to around 15 grams of sugar in a single serving. That’s truly disruptive in a category that’s been run by some of the biggest food companies in the entire country, and we’re doing that next with creamers, and with coffee.
So impact and the work that we’re doing starts with the product, and then our people are the next pillar of how we’re making this food. At one point in time, 30% of our workforce was immigrants and refugees, and we’re focused on paying folks in the 75th percentile and getting folks equity in the business. We’re getting childcare, we’re getting elder care, we’re focused on upskilling — there are a lot of unique things that we’re doing to support our people.
The third pillar of how we’re making our food is the sustainability side of things, and we’re always looking upstream to see how we can impact and empower our suppliers and find new ways in which we can use our purchasing power to influence better standards on farms.
The final pillar is how we’re spending our profits, and here we have this big ambition to get to zero hunger in the communities in which we operate, which is in central New York and in Twin Falls, Idaho. We’ve seen food insecurity rise in this country by more than 30 plus percent, and unfortunately 13 million children are food insecure. Our thesis is that we as Chobani can partner with a number of different retailers to help improve overall food accessibility, which also allows other NGOs to come and join us in our journey to start to look at the other social determinants of health, such as access to housing, access to transportation, access to healthcare. These are all things that are critical in order to truly address hunger, but it’s got to start with one of the social determinants that’s being solved for least, which is food accessibility.
Behrman, NationSwell: As you look at this moment for CSR and corporate philanthropy, how do you make sense of where we are, and where do you think we’re headed?
Roy, Chobani: The acronyms have changed so much, but the bottom line that I’m seeing behaviorally is that from a purchasing perspective, people want to see that the brands that they’re buying are actually doing something to really move the needle on issues.
There’s been this big focus from the citizens of this country to want to see that their government is delivering for them at the federal and state level, and in the absence of that, they’re deferring to businesses.
I think the fascinating thing we’re learning is that you can be profitable and purposeful at the same time: If you are operating your plants with a high level of efficiency, you’re going to be using less electricity, less water, and you’re going to be spending less money on overtime because you have a pretty efficient operation, which leads to better profitability in the long run. That profitability, in turn, enables us to then invest in our employees and our community.
And at the end of the day, we also make a great product that people love — it’s not just operational efficiency alone that makes us profitable.
Behrman, NationSwell: What are some of the resources that you might showcase or lift up that have helped to inform your leadership?
Roy, Chobani: Hamdi, of course, has been my biggest shepherd in all of this. As the founder and CEO of the business, he took a chance on me, and a hallmark of his leadership is the way he believes in everyone that works at Chobani; he sees something in everyone that we may not see in ourselves. He asked me to step in on projects and responsibilities not because I had experience in them, but because I did not have that experience and my perspectives would challenge conventional wisdom and the “regular/traditional” way of doing business.
As of late I would also say Rajiv Shah — his book, Big Bets was pretty inspirational because as we’re in this work thinking about food insecurity, we want to make a big ambitious bet by getting to zero hunger, and it can seem a pretty lofty goal at times. To address the naysayers and the skeptics and bring people along with you is probably one of the biggest challenges, and I think the book does a great job of addressing how coalition-building is a superpower.
The third person I would mention has been our COO, Kevin Burns. Kevin is a world class operator — he takes businesses when they’re at this level of efficiency and brings them up to another level that they probably never thought that they could ever achieve. As I talk to him about the work that we’re doing to address hunger, he’s constantly pushing me harder and harder about thinking even bigger.
Behrman, NationSwell: Who are some of the peer leaders you really admire — folks more or less in your role at other companies or organizations who you think are really great leaders doing great work?
Roy, Chobani: Jake Wood comes to mind right away — not only did he found Team Rubicon, but he’s also involved with a new venture called Groundswell. He’s always thinking about disruptive ways to be innovative and deliver on what’s needed at the moment in time, and it’s always done in such a way where it democratizes people’s ability to go and contribute towards solving a problem.
The other person that comes to mind is C.D. Glin over at PepsiCo. When I think about what he’s done with the PepsiCo Foundation, in terms of bringing in a level of focus, energy, and innovative programming, I just admire his work so much and his commitment to doing it in a way that feels long-term and sustainable.
