Aline Santos

EVP Global EVO Marketing & Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer
Unilever
UK

@alinecsantos

 

Aline Santos joined Unilever in 1989 as a marketing trainee and has become a high-profile presence at the FMCG giant. Since 2015 she has been responsible for all marketing capabilities, digital upskilling, brand communications and innovation around the world, as well as leading Unilever’s drive towards gender balance in the workplace.

Santos has been the architect of many product launches and brand building campaigns with purpose at the heart, including the global Dirt is Good global campaign for Persil, OMO and Surf Excel and the iconic global Dove Real Beauty campaign, both of which she says “shaped her career.”

As the head of Unilever’s global diversity and inclusion programmes, Santos has worked with the board to increase female representation in management and is passionate about empowering women to achieve their full potential. She is also responsible for the Unilever Foundry, which connects Unilever brands with start-ups.

She also helped to launch the industry-wide Unstereotype Alliance with UN Women, which aim to break male and female stereotypes in advertising to liberate everyone from restricting social norms. Speaking about the business impact of truly representative creative work in Cannes this year, she said: “When we started this journey, and started learning from the Unstereotype Alliance about how to make better advertising that really represented people as they are or in a progressive way, as a result we saw ads with 37% more impact, that led to 28% more purchase intention and 38% more enjoyment. It’s not just a social issue, it’s a business issue.”