In this conversation with McKinsey’s Kate Smaje and Wesley Walden, Brambles CEO Graham Chipchase reflects on leading a transformation from a position of strength. To meet the company’s growth ambitions, he launched a two-track agenda: strengthening the core pallet logistics business while building new digital and data-driven capabilities. Along the way, Chipchase shares lessons on overcoming skepticism within the organization, maintaining transparency with investors, and embedding continuous transformation into the company’s culture. The following transcript has been edited for clarity and length.
Wesley Walden: Thinking back to 2018, what was the impetus for making such a big change?
Graham Chipchase: When I joined in 2017, it was very clear we had some financial challenges, driven by two factors. The first was a series of acquisitions that hadn’t paid their way. The second centered on asset losses and low asset productivity. These issues were front of mind for investors, affecting our share price performance.
A critical part of the problem was that about 20 percent of our business portfolio was pretty different from the remaining 80 percent. That set a real limit on enterprise-wide thinking.
Our decision in 2018 to divest our last major nonpallet business became a catalyst for reconsidering how we operate. By that point, our share price and stock market perception had improved sufficiently that I could feel confident announcing that we would disrupt ourselves from a position of strength—not from a burning platform with the company’s survival at stake.
Kate Smaje: What had the company tried in the past?
Graham Chipchase: I spent some time reviewing previous transformations at Brambles. The results had been disappointing. We found that the efforts were mainly top down, driven mostly by central HR and finance teams. That meant there wasn’t much buy-in from the rest of the organization.
Moreover, external consultants played a key role in the day-to-day work, while internal people running the transformation were balancing it with their day jobs. Their experience left the concept of “transformation” somewhat tarnished within the organization.
Wesley Walden: How did this effort overcome that kind of negativity?
Graham Chipchase: It was very important as a leadership team to understand each of the missteps from the past so that we wouldn’t repeat them. By framing this work as disrupting ourselves voluntarily, from a position of strength, we helped underscore the contrast with previous experiences.
We were transparent about what we didn’t know. For example, we said that we knew digital would be important for the company’s future, but we weren’t 100 percent certain how. We sensed we could do more to standardize our processes across the enterprise and make better use of financial levers, but, again, the details were uncertain. This sort of openness helped build buy-in from the bottom up.
Kate Smaje: How did external stakeholders, such as investors, respond to this approach?
Graham Chipchase: Some thought we should be more aggressive: “It’s all about cost savings, and you’ve got to go faster.” I pushed back pretty hard, especially on moving faster, because we had to get buy-in. Instead, we listened to people about what they felt needed to change and how it should be done.
I also was pretty clear that our focus couldn’t just be about cost cutting, because high costs weren’t the company’s main issue—they just weren’t. The business was performing well.
Kate Smaje: That’s very different from having your back against a wall, isn’t it?
Graham Chipchase: It’s not necessarily any easier, though, because when there’s a burning platform, everyone understands that they’ve got to do something.
Small gestures matter. For example, the lead program manager for the transformation attended an internal leadership conference for about 100 of our senior executives. That program manager spoke individually with every attendee, asking, “What do you think about the transformation so far? Do you have any concerns?” About 80 percent of the leaders were fully on board. About 10 percent were uncertain, which meant holding follow-up conversations to address their reasons for hesitating.
The final 10 percent didn’t seem to want to change. It was up to me to announce, “This is now happening. The bus is moving.” I had to be clear that this wasn’t just a fad that would fizzle out.
We had real reasons to change, emerging signs that required action sooner rather than later. Some of our customers, for example, suggested in feedback that we could be difficult to work with. That had to change. We were also starting to experiment with digital and had to find out how to use it well.
Wesley Walden: Those two issues point in two very different directions.
Graham Chipchase: Yes, and that led us to think of this as a two-track transformation. Track one is delivering a better vision for the existing business. Track two is evolving toward a new digitally driven business that is better for customers, better for us, better for the environment, and better for our shareholders.
As we developed our ideas, we recognized that we needed support (see sidebar, “Collaborating with McKinsey”). We also resolved to communicate our transformation plan publicly and did so on an investor day in 2021.
Wesley Walden: That was a difficult period.
Graham Chipchase: Yes. The share price dropped significantly. Part of the reason we heard was our commitment to invest in digital—our transparency about the costs we would incur. It’s at moments like these that resolve is really important. Our view was that the share price would eventually recover because we were doing the right thing, and it would show up in the business.
Instead of retreating, we communicated even more. We’ve always had balanced scorecards internally, designed to show both our financial performance and our long-term health as an organization. So we created a balanced scorecard to communicate with the outside world and show progress on a quarterly basis. It took time, but the share price did recover as the progress became clear.
Kate Smaje: So the market was watching your progress. During this time, the transformation was at an inflection point, and people internally may have had questions as well. How do you balance all stakeholders while staying centered enough to keep the transformation moving?
Graham Chipchase: First, you have to work with your organization’s culture. I think the Brambles culture is exceptional: collegiate and results focused. I also learned that it’s very, very ready and willing to take on new challenges.
Second, one of your critical responsibilities as a leader is to overcommunicate during these periods. We did a lot, but it’s always possible to do more. For example, if you say, “We’re doing digital,” that may mean 900 different things to 900 different people. I think if you use simple ideas and break them down, it helps.
To me, “digital” has the layers of an onion. The first layer is making our current business run more efficiently: tracking our pallets 100 percent of the time, making sure that we’re charging correctly when pallets are used—all of those simpler things. The second layer is using the data we generate to give our customers better insight into what’s going on in their supply chain. The third layer is really interesting: It’s exploring entirely new businesses we could develop based on our data.
Wesley Walden: Was there a moment on the journey where you could really start to see the shift coming through?
Graham Chipchase: As an ex-CFO, I’m tempted to say, “Show me the money,” and indeed, a couple of years of growing both our revenues and our profitability led me to think that the changes are starting to work. But it’s the less visible changes that I think are more interesting and important.
We’ve made the company more resilient, not only through the transformation but also through changes we’ve made to contracts that reduce our exposure to inflation spikes. We’ve changed how we buy critical materials. These are structural changes that make the company very different to what it was even ten years ago.
And we are using technology in so many new ways. Once I could see that our business units accepted the digital team as people who can help them get to better performance, I thought, “Now we’re okay.”
I believe in this. If it doesn’t work and I get fired, so be it. I don’t want to get fired for doing something I don’t believe in, because that’s a waste of time.
In the past, I think people would see transformation as a time-bound exercise: two years and we’re done. We’ve now created an environment where people understand that the focus may change over time, but it’s all part of continually trying to transform from a position of strength.
Wesley Walden: What have you learned through the journey, and how has your leadership style evolved?
Graham Chipchase: I think a lot of people are very afraid to be aspirational. They worry about how it will impact their performance targets. My answer is: Let’s be aspirational and not worry about what the budget targets are until we do the budget.
One of the benefits of being a longer-term CEO is that you have a sense of what’s going to work and what’s not. At some point, you say, “I believe in this. If it doesn’t work and I get fired, so be it. I don’t want to get fired for doing something I don’t believe in, because that’s a waste of time.”
Kate Smaje: If you had a time machine, is there something that, with the benefit of hindsight, you would have done differently?
Graham Chipchase: Although I’m not sure how I would have done it, I would try to move even faster on digital and get it into the business quicker. I was impressed when I saw it day one, and it’s only been getting better.
Kate Smaje: What are you most proud of from the past five years?
Graham Chipchase: I can start with our evolution in digital, from 20 people in one office to thousands being trained on data and digital topics. Over roughly nine years, our market capitalization has more than doubled.
Yet we aren’t losing sight of our culture, centered on performance, sustainability, and collegiality. One example is that big transformation programs can consume so much attention that performance can deteriorate in less visible areas such as safety. But our safety performance is improving as well, even as our business grows. Sustainability remains a core commitment: For 2025, Time magazine rated us the third most sustainable company in the world, and our transformation has helped us use resources even more efficiently. And the Top Employers Institute has named our primary operating unit, CHEP, a Top Employer in 26 countries, four regions, and globally.
Third, communicate like hell.
But what I’m always most happy about is when I see people we’ve taken a chance on succeed; the transformation has been an opportunity for some people to really step up.
Wesley Walden: What would your advice be for other CEOs who are about to embark on a similar journey?
Graham Chipchase: First, identify whether your transformation is of the “burning platform” type or the “disrupting yourself from a position of strength” type. How you then proceed is very different, I think. Second, make sure you understand the culture of your company and how it will best be able to execute on what you want to do with the transformation. Third, communicate like hell.
