Impact Hired Spotlight #2: Roma McCaig Formerly of Clif Bar
Roma McCaig, Former SVP Impact & Communications, Clif Bar
The Impact Hired Spotlight series highlights the stories of impact professionals across industries to demonstrate how people got to where they are. Few folks in sustainability and ESG have linear paths, and through these stories we hope to inform and inspire impact job seekers as they navigate their own career journeys. In this edition, we hear from Roma McCaig, Former SVP Impact & Communications at Clif Bar.
Why did you pursue a career in impact?
My impact career journey is a little different. For over 20 years, I worked in communications at various consumer packaged goods (CPG), health care and tech companies. I pivoted into strategy and operations, earned an MBA and started helping organizations spend more efficiently. When Campbell Soup Co. asked me to lead strategy and operations for Global Procurement, it proved a clarifying moment — Campbell’s is a large buyer of commodity ingredients and had a number of animal welfare, human rights, sustainability and transparency commitments. They asked me to take over leadership of responsible sourcing, which included integrating all of those commitments into the business. Careerwise, that move started my journey into sustainability where I realized I could live what I believe at work and do what I do really well to help an organization.
Can you talk about some of the challenges you have faced throughout your impact career getting to where you are now?
It has a lot to do with the intentions behind why an organization leans into impact. In some cases, it's merely for compliance reasons. For me, it’s important to me that impact and sustainability are recognized as business strategies as well as important senior leadership capabilities and that the CEO and Board of an organization believe in delivering stakeholder value through ESG.
Can you tell us a bit about the skills you use in your current impact job? Where did you learn them?
It all started in my days in advertising and working at an agency. Listening and negotiation skills are critical when it comes to driving change and transformation. Spending time in operations is also equally important. Knowing how the business is run through the eyes of various functions will give you visibility to the processes and systems that need to change but also to the factors that are important to the leaders whose buy-in you are trying to get.
What do you love most about working in an impact career? What do you like least?
Knowing that the work I lead is about delivering more than just a financial bottom line. That I can create a positive impact in society through business because I have resources to do that. Being part of a movement where there is sincere belief that business can be a force for good. Getting behind issues that can be transformative and create a better place for all and seek to eliminate inequities in our society. But, this is not easy work. It takes time, and you won't see the results in a quarterly earnings release. So keeping people focused on the "why" can be a bit like Sisyphus pushing a rock up a hill.
What advice would you give folks currently struggling to find their way in an impact career?
Inventory your skills and experience. Align them with your passion and values. See how the two can come together in an organization that excites you about what they are doing to drive impact or want to do to drive impact. This doesn't always mean you are working on the impact team. Impact can be supported and created from most parts of an organization. Ensuring it's part of your "why" in that role and organization will be key.
Anything else you'd like to add?
Do not underestimate the power of your network or the power of mentorship, and showcase who you really are and believe in every day in what you do.
