Liz Cuneo: Thank you, Laura, can you tell us a little bit about your career path and how you got here, and what was your journey here?
Laura Shimmin: Yeah, definitely. I was reflecting on when I started my career, you know, in college, I really wanted to work on sustainability, but I wasn't sure what that meant. It wasn't a major. It wasn't as much of a focus and well-defined field as it is today. So, I ended up choosing chemical engineering because it's a versatile major. It seemed broadly applicable and it touched on topics that I really enjoyed. so, I started my career working in, consumer packaged goods, CPG, right?
And, it was a great training ground for me. I started at a large company where I learned a lot of the nuts and bolts about how to do R&D work. And I also learned a lot about having a consumer-centric mindset and how to think about people I was developing products for. I also worked at some small companies and startups where I learned a lot about business, how to build a compelling consumer proposition, and how to sell in your ideas. That was also where I got the opportunity to work and learn more about packaging. And I started to realize how much technical development work there was in the sustainability space. So, coming full circle to my role at Mars now, I get to work on sustainable packaging. We're focused on how we might replace traditional plastic materials with paper, and that's in support of reducing packaging waste, increasing recyclability, and supporting the local recycling infrastructure.
So, in a roundabout way, I have found that opportunity to go deep into sustainability that I was looking for at the beginning of my career, through the lens of packaging. And I think I achieved that by staying really curious and saying yes to opportunities where I felt I could learn new things.
Cuneo: Yeah, perfect. That's wonderful. Thank you.
