Unilever’s Lysanne Gray is one of those rare people who has gone from financial reporting to sustainability reporting. She started her career at PwC working in audit, corporate finance, and risk management. She moved to Unilever where she moved up the ranks through CFO of their global food business to Chief Auditor to Financial Controller. In 2021 Ms. Gray was appointed Executive Vice President Sustainable Business Performance and Reporting.

We met in August when I was visiting Unilever’s headquarters in London. As you might imagine, we had an in-depth conversation about sustainability reporting. We discussed the challenges facing Unilever. Our conversation continued over the ensuing months. I asked her if she’d be willing to do an interview with me and she kindly agreed.

Eccles: Well, Lysanne, since we’ve been talking for a while let me just cut to the chase. You’re the first person I met who came into sustainability reporting from financial reporting. Some would say you traded down! How did this role at Unilever come about and why did you take it?

Gray: I certainly don’t think it is trading down! Being involved with one of the most fundamental shifts in how businesses operate and are assessed in our history is hugely exciting. It’s also a tremendous responsibility—to make sure we get it right.

Sustainability matters are becoming increasingly important for all businesses and critical to their success. At Unilever we recognized this some time ago. As the Controller I was involved with all our external reporting which included all of our voluntary reporting on our sustainability commitments and KPIs. Initially this took very little of my time, but as we became more ambitious, and the world became more interested in sustainability issues, this part of my role demanded more time. I could see on the horizon the growing volume of requests from NGOs to address different issues and the increasing level interest from investors and the financial community. I saw the need to put more resources behind our work on this agenda, and so volunteered to leave finance and lead the charge on sustainability reporting.

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