Mar 26, 2024
[00:00:00] Alberto Huerta: If I were to get a do over in life, I would have more consistently put family above my professional life. I would say a disproportionate commitment to my professional growth ended up not being the best choice when it came to prioritizing family.
I think on a day-to-day basis, we can also suffer from long days or lots of travel and my do over would really center around being able to still strive for excellence, strive for impact, but to more consistently be able to do that both in my marriage and with my kids and in my community, as well as professionally.
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[00:00:42] Alberto Huerta: Our guest today is Alberto Huerta. Alberto has brought his expertise in brand strategy and management, marketing and fundraising strategy, product development and innovation, and donor insights and analytics to such organizations as Visa, Kraft, Procter Gamble, Compassion International, and World Vision.
[00:01:03] Tommy Thomas: He's skilled in turnaround, startups, and global enterprise operations. Alberto, welcome to NextGen Nonprofit Leadership.
[00:01:11] Alberto Huerta: Thank you so much, Tommy. It's a pleasure to be with you today.
[00:01:14] Tommy Thomas: Before we go too deep into your professional experience, I always like to explore someone's childhood. So take me back to your childhood. What do you remember as being formative?
[00:01:28] Alberto Huerta: Certainly, the people in my life. Tommy, I had a mom who was always there for me. Unconditional love for sure. My dad modeled honesty and hard work and respect for others. An amazing brother who modeled kindness and generosity.
And I have to highlight my grandma who modeled Jesus for me. And it took me a while, but she certainly planted some seeds that sprouted later in my faith walk. Besides just the great people in my life, English was always a part of my life growing up in Mexico. My mom loved the U.S. She traveled to the U.S. when she was really young.
[00:02:04] Alberto Huerta: And instilled that in our family. I developed a taste for other cultures and languages living outside of the U.S. and in Europe and then back to Mexico where I chose to study industrial engineering. I never really practiced it, but it ended up being a really great school and a really great skill set for what I ended up doing.
[00:02:26] Tommy Thomas: What was high school like in Mexico?
[00:02:29] Alberto Huerta: High school in Mexico … I was in Colorado Springs for a couple of years with my uncles. They were kind enough to receive me and my brother for 9th and 10th grade.
So when I got back to Mexico, it'd been about seven years. I'd been away in Europe with my mom. And then, as I said, with my uncles in Colorado, and so getting back to Mexico to finish high school was, a really different experience. It was almost a reverse cultural shock getting back and getting acquainted with Mexico again.
I had the fortune of being in an upper middle class family where I had access to really great schooling, which led to the opportunity to go to the Monterey Institute of Technology to be able to study there. So really grateful for the opportunities my parents opened.
[00:03:17] Tommy Thomas: What's something that people are always surprised to know about you?
[00:03:24] Alberto Huerta: Oh boy! That I have only spent 15 years of my life in Mexico. I'm 52 this year which means that I've been around a lot of places, both in Europe and Canada, where my two daughters were born and then a variety of different places in the U.S. where different opportunities both with P&G and Kraft and Visa.
So, I would say the amount of exposure to different cultures and different cities. I just love languages. I love different cultures. I've really gravitated to global roles over the years because I really appreciate and enjoy the company of people from other countries and the friendships that I've been able to develop. So that's a big part of what has shaped me. And I credit my mom for that.
[00:04:05] Tommy Thomas: So, you spent the first 15 years of your career with P&G. What went into your decision to go with P&G?
[00:04:12] Alberto Huerta: The friend that introduced me to Brenda, my wife of 27 years, was the same friend who said to me one day, last semester of industrial engineering school, he said Procter & Gamble is on campus. It's really hard to get in. We ought to go try. And so, we did and that was my introduction P&G and brand management.
This whole idea of, at a very early stage in your career, being given a business to run and managing it from a brand and marketing viewpoint. So, the process itself, Tommy, was extraordinary and had multiple steps in it. The highlight for me was a three-day weekend in a hotel where they cooped us up, all 40 candidates of us, and just put us through the ringer.
[00:05:02] Alberto Huerta: Late nights being evaluated on our leadership skills. I made it somehow and was able to enter the P&G family. I am so grateful for my years there. The leadership that they teach. And enable you to practice the mastery, the collaboration across various functions and up and down the management chain. I am really grateful for my time with P&G, which actually started in Mexico, but then continued in the Czech Republic. That in and of itself is a long story. And then Canada, and then all roads lead to Cincinnati when you're at P&G. And so, I did my last year's working on fabric care, or more simply said, detergents.
[00:05:46] Tommy Thomas: Thinking back to your first management job when you actually had somebody reporting to you, what do you remember about that?
[00:05:55] Alberto Huerta: I'm still in touch with the three, four people that were with me in my first assignment. That was brand manager for Folgers up in Canada. And it was just such an honor to be able to recognize that I had the opportunity, even if just for a year or two or three an opportunity to shape the career of people with such talents and energy and deeply complex personal lives. So, for me to look for that opportunity to develop and play a valuable role in people's development has always been super, super motivating for me.
[00:06:31] Tommy Thomas: So, let's fast forward to today and if I had the privilege to come out to Compassion or World Vision and you let me talk to your direct reports, what would they say would be the most challenging aspect of working with Alberto? And then what would they say would be the most rewarding part of working for you?
[00:06:49] Alberto Huerta: The most challenging part, I would say my favorite movie is Rocky. And aside from my lack of true film knowledge, you could say, Rocky is relentless, and he doesn't give up easily.
And sometimes that can be tiring because there's always a higher bar. There's always the next goal. Taking no for an answer but working together to find ways to get around it. I think in a sense, I think that can be tiring. And I am very driven.
[00:07:21] Alberto Huerta: I am very high energy. So, one of the things that I've learned is to think about the way I was taught. What gear do you enter a conversation with? If you're always in 4th gear, 5th gear, 6th gear that can be unnecessary sometimes and that generally is my default. So, what does it look like to enter a conversation in first gear or second gear?
And really being able to connect and engage in a variety of ways based on the situation and the person.
[00:07:50] Alberto Huerta: Now about what might be exciting or fun for people to work with me, it's always the strength and the other side is the opportunity, isn't it? And for me it's exciting to see how people respond to the energy I can bring towards what is possible.
What are we building over time? What are we building over time together? That is meaningful. So, you can imagine that coming into Christian nonprofits has been particularly motivating because it takes it from something that can be very exciting and what you're doing with a package good or in financial services, but to be able to have that same kind of energy and transformational dream for us to work towards and against, I think is something that is motivating.
[00:08:33] Alberto Huerta: Based on the feedback that I receive in helping people find their particular way of contributing towards the greater transformation that we're aiming for as a team. And so, I think that's probably what services to the top. When I think about the feedback I've received over the years.
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[00:08:51] Tommy Thomas: Tell me a little bit about the mentors in your life. Who has been the most influential mentor?
[00:08:57] Alberto Huerta: I'll give you a person as well, a regular human being, but I do value the teaching of the Bible around praying continuously and being able to be sensitive to the Spirit is something that I strive for every day in this very conversation, what am I, why am I saying, what is helpful, what is not helpful, what is imbued with the direction and love of Jesus. He's my moment-to-moment mentor. And I love him for that.
I would say the second would be my brother. He knows me through and through, the highs and the lows. And what I appreciate about him the most is his listening and his ability to demonstrate unconditional love to tell me what I need to hear, whether it's easy to hear or not. And so, I appreciate him for that. I think he would be my longest-term mentor, I would say.
[00:09:46] Tommy Thomas: In 2015, you left what was probably a financially lucrative job with Visa to go to work with Compassion. Tell us about that move.
[00:09:58] Alberto Huerta: It's a move that really had its beginnings in 2010, five years earlier.
I realized in my faith walk, for me, it was not going to make sense to think about retiring in a for profit job. And so, I began conversations with Christian nonprofits that would value mass marketing skills, mass brand building skills. And that led me to start a conversation with organizations like World Vision, like Compassion and it was not an easy decision, but it was one that I felt really great about the point in time where this decision became most pressing was when I was working at Visa, and at the same time, my wife and I were co pastoring a small Hispanic congregation and I sensed a need a calling to integrate more of my lifestyle and be able to work for an organization that was in and of itself dedicated to advancing the purposes of Jesus.
And so ultimately that's what made that decision, although a big one, a very natural and easy one for me when the day came.
[00:11:13] Tommy Thomas: What's the most significant difference you've observed between the private sector and the nonprofit sector?
[00:11:24] Alberto Huerta: Oh, there's a lot of similarities, but there's certainly some differences. Probably at the heart of it, when I think about differences, I truly value the focus on a mission that is so clear and so compelling and really goes above any financial metrics.
Now, I know that's also true of some for-profit organizations. In fact, probably some of the ones that are most profitable and most successful over time are ones that do see beyond just the financial. But that is obviously much more common, I would say, and much more natural for a nonprofit to be able to value their mission to value the impact that they're making, and it truly changes how one contributes to it because it's not enough to be a marketer.
[00:12:12] Alberto Huerta: It's not enough to be a fundraiser. It's about truly understanding the impact that is being made. How is that impact made? What are the actions that drive that impact? How effective are we making that impact? I think that is so crucial in being a successful and an effective marketer within a nonprofit.
Being able to build a very strong bond and tight relationship with the programmatic leaders. So that would be one that I would highlight, Tommy, and that leads to the importance of end-to-end solutioning with programs which I've enjoyed a whole lot. It's one thing to solve for a supporter or a donor.
[00:12:52] Alberto Huerta: It's another in the much more complex model that the nonprofits have where there's more stakeholders in play to be able to solve for the whole and to be able to really value and understand the needs, not only of the end beneficiaries in the case of Compassion and World Vision would be the children in the communities around them, but also the various stakeholders, both near and far from the beneficiaries. And I found that particularly interesting and motivating.
[00:13:22] Tommy Thomas: What was your greatest adjustment in coming from Visa to Compassion?
[00:13:30] Alberto Huerta: Oh boy! A common understanding is that for a believer's first move into a Christian nonprofit, whether you like it or not you just imagine that you're stepping into heaven, right? A little piece of heaven. It's all believers. We're all following the same God. We're all following the same biblical principles. It must be heaven there.
You might not say that overtly, but you expect it, and you have a very high bar and imagination and then slowly, but surely you realize, hey, there's people like me in this organization. So, there's a bit of a high. As you first step into an organization like this, and then there's a realization that we're all a work in progress as individuals, as couples, as families, and as organizations as churches.
So that's definitely one of the key important realizations walking into Compassion. More broadly I would say it is true both of Compassion and World Vision that these are longstanding, mature organizations working within mature sectors, certainly from a product or fundraising perspective.
[00:14:39] Alberto Huerta: And what I particularly relish was, the intrapreneurship that that I was able to push into the opportunity to identify ways that the organization could change and grow and being able to help the organization embrace change from within, which, in my view, is particularly meaningful because it then leverages the strengths of the organization and it's able to operate and grow in a way that is relevant. And it continues to stay fresh and both for the supporters as well as for the beneficiaries.
[00:15:13] Tommy Thomas: In terms of a leadership role, how do you assess what's right for you?
[00:15:22] Alberto Huerta: And the way I'm understanding your question, Tommy, is how do I assess what's right as I think about leadership roles that I'm evaluating for myself? Is that the essence of your question?
[00:15:31] Tommy Thomas: What makes a good fit for Alberto?
I want to work for an inspirational leader – a true visionary.
[00:15:35] Alberto Huerta: I have several criteria. There's one that I added. Or I would say I moved up the list in recent weeks is working for an inspirational leader, a true visionary.
[00:15:49] Alberto Huerta: I think that's something that's particularly motivating for me right now. I feel if the energy and the big idea is coming from the very top that can really spell tremendous progress and success and accomplishment. So that's one that's really important for me.
[00:16:05] Alberto Huerta: The other one I would say it's certainly culture. A culture of understanding what the mission is and being able to be focused on accomplishing the mission. Being able to for there to be a sense within the organization that we can pour ourselves into the mission and the organization will take care of us as individuals.
[00:16:26] Alberto Huerta: That's a little bit idealistic potentially, but I saw that even at P&G and certainly at Compassionate and World Vision. So, I value culture and that selflessness to pour oneself into the mission as another key criteria. And if I were to pick a third one, I would say learning a learning organization, one that does not rest on their laurels.
[00:16:48] Alberto Huerta: One that is continuously finding ways to experiment. It can be so tempting to be hand to mouth, like in the performance engine, just producing, and it can suck the life out of experimentation and innovation and just even being able to bring one's full skillset into the job.
I want to work for a learning organization - one that doesn’t sit on its laurels.
[00:17:08] Alberto Huerta: So that'll be a third one, but it's great question, Tommy. And I think it’s a learning journey, isn't it? What is the best fit for us? Depending on the season as well.
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[00:17:17] Tommy Thomas: At what point in your career did you get comfortable in your leadership skin? Did you accept the fact that God had given you certain leadership abilities and it was your responsibility to steward those?
[00:17:34] Alberto Huerta: Wow, that's a great question. I gravitated to leadership because I'm driven. I tend to be more of a futurist. So I see where we might be headed. I like to see the big picture and integrate the various pieces as far as getting comfortable with it. I think that came fairly naturally. I think over time.
And it doesn't happen immediately, does it? Just realizing that the biggest job of a leader is, in fact, developing leaders. And it wasn't until the jobs started to get large enough that I just had no choice. As an example, my last job at Compassion comes to mind where I had anywhere between eight and 10 direct reports leading particular marketing disciplines.
[00:18:21] Alberto Huerta: It became so natural for me to be able to really focus on developing leaders because there was no way that I could be investing myself into that many different disciplines but rather really investing myself in my team, investing myself in my leaders and being able to carve a path for the whole.
So, I would say that the various roles invite new levels of leadership for each of us. And that's certainly been an exciting part of the journey for me.
[00:18:50] Tommy Thomas: Let's go to change and innovation for a minute. I read a recent Harvard Business Review Survey that said 37 percent of companies had energy for change but lacked focus. 20 percent were skeptical of change because of past failures. 24 percent were stuck because of a lack of energy and direction, and 19 percent were struggling to change.
If anything is certain, it is that change is certain. The world we're planning for today will not exist in this form tomorrow. (Phillip Crosby)
[00:19:15] Tommy Thomas: Phillip Crosby said, if anything is certain, it is that change is certain. The world we're planning for today will not exist in this form tomorrow. Talk a little bit about how you've led organizations through change and what that's looked like.
Organizational change is easy when there is no choice – not so much so when the need for change is not obvious.
[00:19:34] Alberto Huerta: When change is unavoidable it's so much easier, isn't it? I remember working on the P&G laundry portfolio. There was an economic crisis at the time. There were 2 or 3 competitors, both on the private label side, as well as value detergents that were eating our lunch in certain channels.
And so, change was inevitable at that point. And so, it became really clear. The energy was there. The expectation was there. We created awesome solutions. It was still really hard to create the right solution to fit the bill. But the need for change, I think, was felt. And that led to P&G really embracing the full scope potential of Tide as a mega brand playing across various categories and subcategories, but also and mostly the importance of the detergent laundry portfolio for P&G and being able to develop the various brands to be able to compete effectively in the marketplace.
[00:20:35] Alberto Huerta: However, when change is not obvious I think it is that much more rewarding when we can make it happen, but also that much harder because our organization will resist change that doesn't feel eminently needed because it's working and it's profitable and the momentum is there.
[00:20:57] Alberto Huerta: And it can lead organizations in my experience to a sales and fundraising mindset that starts to put to the side where the product should be going, where the brand should be going, where the marketing strategy should be going and it can start to, to let a problem continue to fester and ultimately become a problem that that, as we know, has buried organizations.
So, I feel that being able to clarify the case for change and build really strong unity around that case for change. I'm a big proponent of Cotter's eight steps to really seeing change through. I think those are so wise and so true, particularly when change is not obvious or well accepted.
[00:21:49] Tommy Thomas: Last year, Bed Bath & Beyond filed for bankruptcy and later will be purchased by Overstock. One writer attributes their financial woes to their failure to innovate. Is there a lesson there for the nonprofit sector?
[00:22:05] Alberto Huerta: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. There's certain mechanisms and approaches that work and we tend to get enamored by them.
And we all know the most visible examples of disruption of sectors and those are real and those are accelerating. And so, I think it's particularly important for organizations that are starting to get stale or starting to experience a certain comfort level to be clear on what is truly foundational of the organization and what is going to be a consistent truth that they can live into.
[00:22:45] Alberto Huerta: And what are things that do need to be revisited and sometimes broken and rebuilt? It reminds me of Jeff Bezos talking about Amazon and saying there are a few things that are not going to change, and we can bank on those people who are going to want more assortment. People are going to want to lower the price.
People are going to want to get it fast. Now, everything else can change, but let's anchor on those key pieces. I think particularly mature nonprofits that that have some strong foundational pieces that you should continue to push into should be very clear on what those are, and then start to innovate and differentiate and break down walls and barriers where they should be broken.
[00:23:27] Alberto Huerta: One of the common products across both Compassion and World Vision is the child sponsorship product. Such a beautiful product and so relevant to today. I think about subscription. So that is obviously a problem. We all have way too many subscriptions and we need apps to be able to manage our subscriptions.
And it's also a very relevant product because of the connection to a local team who's working locally, who's committed to that particular community. There are so many aspects of sponsorship that are so powerful. And yet it's been difficult for the sector to innovate at the rate that it could have.
[00:24:09] Alberto Huerta: It is encouraging though, to see organizations with both Compassion and World Vision, I would say really pushing into ways of bringing truth from supporters into the building and being able to work through those. World Vision's chosen sponsorship, I think, is a really great example of that one where there's a real empowerment of the child, the real listening to the supporter on the kinds of things that would be more motivating and make their connection to the child in, in a property context, more real and more meaningful to them.
It is not easy for organizations to innovate in such ways. It takes true commitment, and it can be very heavy lifting, but it's worth it.
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[00:24:55] Tommy Thomas: Let's go to something maybe a little bit lighter. If you were a judge on a nonprofit version of Shark Tank, what are the questions you would have to have solid answers to before you would open your pocketbook?
[00:25:08] Alberto Huerta: That's an easy one because I've been thinking about that in this season and that is would you invest your own money into that nonprofit and why I found that it is so interesting to think about the big shift that we've seen over the decades and years where it used to be that one would give to an organization purely because of their beliefs, their values, their trust in the organization.
They think like me. They value what I value. I'll put my money in their pockets. That's not today's world. I think donors are very sophisticated, increasingly sophisticated. We are very visible about the organization. And so, it is so important that we, particularly in the marketing and fundraising departments, are completely soaked in all things program.
[00:25:58] Alberto Huerta: We need to not be the flashy, smart, cool marketers only, we really need to be the representatives of amazing work that's happening in the field with our beneficiaries. And that we're able to represent that we know why it's believable.
We know why it works. And one of the ways that I think is particularly powerful is we know what needs to get better even in our program. And that is what donors I believe are looking for these days is transparency.
To be able to know that it is not perfect. It is well built. It is yielding results. And it is improving just like we would expect for profit to be improving.
[00:26:44] Tommy Thomas: Let me get you to respond to two quotes from Steve Jobs.
You can have a great product, but if communication fails, it's like watching a stand-up comedian do a gig in a completely different language (Steve Jobs)
[00:26:59] Alberto Huerta: That is so true, isn't it? The picture that comes to mind is the front of the TV and the back of the TV for anybody to or, in a more modern way, would be our beloved iPhone, right? It's one thing to experience the iPhone. It is simple. You pinch your fingers, you drag your fingers, you click that's what the person cares about.
[00:27:21] Alberto Huerta: What we care about is both sides, right? The back of the iPhone and the insides of the iPhone and we fall in love with it. We love to delve into the complexities of it, but if we're not able to present it in a way that is relevant to who the user is be it in communication, be it in, from a UI perspective then we will fail.
[00:27:43] Alberto Huerta: And it's certainly something that Steve jobs modeled for all of us with his products.
[00:27:49] Tommy Thomas: His second quote.
It's a complicated and noisy world, and we're not going to get a chance to get people to remember much about us. No company is. So, we have to be really clear about what we want them to know about us. (Steve Jobs)
[00:28:09] Alberto Huerta: It's a powerful one, isn't it? And he went on to talk about values and that led to communication from Apple, such as the very famous think different campaign with Gandhi and Einstein and Charles Chaplin and all these geniuses who are crazy enough to think they could change the world.
[00:28:27] Alberto Huerta: And so, they were the ones who did. And so, I think he walked that really well. I think it is so important for organizations to know who they are and also to know who they're becoming for whom, right? Who they are becoming, how, what value they bring and how that really is in some ways the way to materialize their values, right?
[00:28:51] Alberto Huerta: It's the way to materialize their values. And I think organizations like Compassion and World Vision are ones that understand their essence very well, and they're able to bring it across in ways that truly connect. We see Jesus, for example.About a dozen times in the New Testament being moved with compassion, right?
[00:29:11] Alberto Huerta: He saw something and he was moved with compassion in such a way that he was going to bring such strength and love and really throw themselves at whatever that need was because their heart had been moved with compassion and I think that's such a beautiful essence of Compassion and why it's so easy for people to feel such a connection to it similar with World Vision.
[00:29:35] Alberto Huerta: We think about seeing the world differently and seeing our ability to reach beyond our own walls and see the world differently. The need around the world and being able to work as a whole for those that are in most need for those that are hardest to reach. So, I think being able to be clear on one's essence is really critical to be able to be successful in an environment that is so noisy, as you said.
[00:30:02] Tommy Thomas: Let's try to bring this thing to a close. I have two questions that I often ask at the end. And the first one would be, if you could get a do over in life, what would it be?
[00:30:15] Alberto Huerta: Oh boy, that's a big one.
If I were to get a do over in life, I would have more consistently put family above my professional life.
[00:30:17] Alberto Huerta: If I were to get a do over in life, I would have more consistently put family above my professional life. And the way that it would have played out, there's deeper, more day-to-day ways, but one very simple one is following the very best job to whatever country or city it happened to be placed in.
[00:30:39] Alberto Huerta: So that's one way that I would say a disproportionate commitment to my professional growth ended up not being the best choice when it came to prioritizing family. I think on a day-to-day basis, we can also suffer from long days or lots of travel and my do over would really center around being able to still strive for excellence, strive for impact, but to more consistently be able to do that both in my marriage and with my kids and in my community, as well as professionally.
[00:31:14] Alberto Huerta: God has been graceful. And 27 years later I'm so glad to have such a wonderful wife and family that I can enjoy every day and be able to take action on that learning as I look to the future.
[00:31:29] Tommy Thomas: If you could give a younger version of yourself a piece of advice, what would it be?
[00:31:39] Alberto Huerta: It's not about you. God says that we are to die to ourselves and be able to live for him. And I think that is really at the core of a lot of our issues, whether it's looking disproportionately for ourselves, whether it's making happiness and comfort the overarching search for our lives. And we all know, especially those that are past their twenties, Tommy, like you and I, that there are tough circumstances in life. And one can't control or make life the walk in the park that we would want it to be, or the peak after peak adventure that we want it to be.
[00:32:24] Alberto Huerta: And so being able to make it about God, about Him and about His glory and about how our lives can be a reflection of the love that He's shown us and the grace that He's shown us. That'll be my biggest piece of advice.
[00:32:40] Tommy Thomas: Thank you for joining us today. If you are a first-time listener, I hope you will subscribe and become a regular. You can find links to all the episodes at our website: www.jobfitmatters.com/podcast.
[00:33:05] Tommy Thomas: If there are topics you’d like for me to explore, my email address is tthomas@jobfitmatters.com. Word of mouth has been identified as the most valuable form of marketing. Surveys tell us that consumers believe recommendations from friends and family over all other forms of advertising.
[00:33:28] Tommy Thomas: If you've heard something today that's worth passing on, please share it with others. You're already helping me make something special for the next generation of nonprofit leaders. I'll be back next week with a new episode. Until then, stay the course on our journey to help make the nonprofit sector more effective and sustainable.
Links & Resources
Next Gen Nonprofit Leadership with Tommy Thomas
The Perfect Search – What every board needs to know about hiring their next CEO
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