At the end of the day, people will follow you or people will be energised by you if they buy into your vision or purpose. So the most important thing is to be true to yourself. That's why I would say to be a great leader - you, first and foremost, have to be a great human being. And sharing that purpose and sharing the values.

I don't have a problem crying when I need to cry.

As CEO of Unilever, my personal mission is to galvanize our company to be an effective force for good.

I say to a lot of people you have to measure success in terms of progress, not in terms of end state.

My career has been a level of serendipity all along. I've never planned anything out more than a few years. All the places we lived - the 12, 13 countries - and the companies I worked for were a combination of circumstances.

Too many companies are running their business into the ground, I would argue, by being myopically short-term focused on the shareholder.

We all have responsibility to stop violence and discrimination against women, whether it's in our businesses, in our homes, or on our streets.

It cannot be right in a world of increasing human progress - whether in medicine, space exploration or renewable energy - that so many people are denied the most basic human rights.

Practically, systemic thinking can be used to identify problems, analyze their boundaries, design strategies and policy interventions, forecast and measure their expected impacts, implement them, and monitor and evaluate their successes and failures.

The young give us hope because young people are certain their best days still lie ahead - which explains why they're absolutely convinced they can change the world for the better.

The moral case for gender equality is obvious. It should not need any explanation.

I think the most important thing is to achieve what you set out to achieve. Just being a CEO in itself is not success. I would not relate success to a title or a position.

I see business as an ecosystem.

We cannot eliminate poverty without enabling developing countries to engage more people in economic activity that use natural resources, and we cannot resolve runaway climate change without creating wealth in a more equitable and less carbon intensive way.

Safe working conditions, fair wages, protection from forced labor, and freedom from harassment and discrimination - these must become standard global operating conditions.

Runaway climate change would condemn millions to a life of poverty and cause us to fail to meet the Sustainable Development Goal of eradicating extreme poverty by 2030. This is not an acceptable outcome.

We can no longer pretend that business is immune from the rising tide of environmental or social challenges or that companies can create value in isolation from the communities of which they are a part.

When we empower women, society benefits, grows, and thrives.

System-wide changes rely on a critical mass of interested parties, all willing to enter into deep partnerships and collaborations, founded on new levels of trust and a commitment to action, not debate.

When women are provided with training and entrepreneurial opportunities in distribution networks, they become role models in their communities, showing it is possible to challenge limiting norms and stereotypes, and to succeed.

More and more businesses are seeing the potential of a more sustainable business model, driven both by the firm belief that business can be a force for good and by the realization that the cost of inaction often exceeds the cost of action - notably when it comes to the growing threat of climate change and water scarcity.

I do not work for the shareholder, to be honest. I work for the customer.

At Unilever, we are committed to building an inclusive organisation where all individuals feel safe, valued, and supported - irrespective of gender, background, or any other difference.

It's easy to be a short-term hero. It is very easy for me to get tremendous results very short term, get that translated into compensation, and be off sailing in the Bahamas. But the goal for this company - and it's very difficult to do - the goal is to follow a four- or five-year process.