At Altria, ID&E Is Core to Transformation
A Conversation Between Christopher Skroupa, Skytop Editor-in-Chief and Jennifer Hunter, Senior Vice President, Corporate Citizenship, Altria, Client Services / October 6th, 2021
Jennifer leads the company’s corporate responsibility efforts, including ESG, and its operating company’s efforts to help prevent underage tobacco use and help adult tobacco users who decide to quit be more successful. She has held this position since 2011. She now also leads the inclusion, diversity and equity work that is central to how Altria will achieve its 10-year Vision of responsibly leading the transition of adult smokers to a non-combustible future.
Jennifer has held a variety of roles in Philip Morris (PM USA) Sales, PM USA Youth Smoking Prevention & Corporate Responsibility, ALCS Corporate Responsibility & Stakeholder Relations and ALCS Corporate Communications. She joined PM USA in 1994 as a Territory Sales Manager in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Jennifer holds a B.A. in journalism from the University of Wisconsin and is a member of the Executive Leadership Council. Jennifer also serves on the Boards of the Curry School of Education Foundation for the UVA School of Education and Human Development; as Chair of the ChamberWomen’s Committee for the ChamberRVA Board; as the Board Vice-Chair for The Community FoundationServing Richmond and Central Virginia; NextUp RVA; the Virginia Business Higher Education Council and on the Virginia Growth and Opportunity Fund Region 4 Council. Jennifer just completed her second term serving on the Virginia State University Board of Visitors.
Christopher Skroupa: How does ID&E serve as a part of Altria’s transformation and why is it important?
Jennifer Hunter: Diverse teams are more successful, that is simply a fact. Here at Altria, we have seen the power of diverse teams – unique individuals who don’t think or look alike but come together as a team and transform our business for the better every day.
Our 2030 Vision is to responsibly lead the transition of adult smokers to a smoke-free future. Creating an inclusive and diverse culture is critical to achieving our Vision.
Christopher: How do you define your ID&E goals?
Jennifer: In early 2020, we established aspirational Inclusion and Diversity Aiming Points for our organization. These aiming points include achieving 50-50 gender parity within our senior leader ranks (director and above) as well as a level of ethnic and racial diversity where at least 30% of those leaders are a person of color. The aiming points also include achieving levels of representation of senior leaders who are LGBTQ+, a Veteran or a Person with Disability; high levels of inclusiveness (with no material differences across groups); and having leadership teams that reflect the organizations they lead. We established these aspirations using the composition of the U.S. college educated workforce and projections of population demographic changes.
We developed these goals by listening to our employees, benchmarking ourselves against other companies and doing a candid assessment of where we are performing well and where we need to do better.
We know that transparency is critical. We provide biannual updates on our progress against our Aiming Points, sharing where we are on target and where we are falling short. We also provide our 2020 consolidated EE01 report on our website because we know many stakeholders expect that level of detail.
Christopher: How do you believe it will reflect on brand and company success?
Jennifer: Our future success will be defined by how well we embed inclusion and diversity throughout our organization. Just as we are committed to addressing systemic racism and advancing social and economic equity in the communities we call home, we know we have to address equity within the company. Our insides must match our outsides. If you can’t show progress within your own four walls, it’s harder for those outside your organization to take you seriously.
Christopher: To date, what have been your primary challenges in shaping your ID&E strategy?
Jennifer: Getting clear on the key drivers of ID&E progress is a challenge. For years, companies have had strategies on paper that didn’t deliver results. It’s a challenge to unpack and inspect the various aspects of the work – some of which you need to double down on and some of which you need to stop. You’re doing that at the same time you’re doing new things the organization has never done before. The breadth and complexity of the work is significant.
That’s why we focus on progress, and continually engaging with our employees to listen and learn about whether we’re on track.
