Yumi Clevenger-Lee

“Yumi is the most extraordinary CMO who is both a visionary marketer that inspires breakthrough thinking and a fearless leader who elevates everyone around her to achieve incredible things while deeply caring for her team. Ever since she joined Nestle Waters she led an amazing transformation turning the company to become a marketing force. She is an exceptional brand builder with amazing sensitivity to creative, she brought new capabilities, models and tools, and a culture that cherishes the deepest understanding of consumers. In addition to being an incredible marketer, Yumi is an exceptional leader and collaborator. She cares deeply about people development and building her team, is empathetic and kind and is passionate about purpose. She knows how to truly create a high-performance organization, inspiring and motivating everyone and is a wonderful partner and team player to anyone around her, internally and externally, and will always find the time to support the team. To sum up, Yumi is AMAZING, and I would be thrilled to work with her again one day. If you are fortunate enough to have an opportunity to work with Yumi, absolutely do it!”

“After working closely with Yumi for the last several years, I can easily say that she is both an amazing marketer and an inspiring leader. As a marketer, she has a really strong gut instinct on how to reach consumers. Whenever I approached her with an idea, she would always really listen and then help me take the concept a step beyond to ensure it was successful. She would constructively challenge me, but always with a “yes, and” to build upon a thread of a concept that I had passion around. And as a leader, she is the best supporter for her team throughout the organization, constantly pushing for what is right regardless of roadblocks. She leads with courage, passion and a desire for change, which is so motivating. And she taught me how to really grow as a leader—how to navigate tricky situations, how to create a transparent team environment, and how to constantly anticipate the path forward. But most of all, she is such a great partner when it comes to trying new things. One of my most favorite moments in working with Yumi was when we restructured the Marketing Department for 7 weeks to build a transformative innovation pipeline. We called it “organized chaos” and I think it might possibly be one of my most favorite moments in my career. In order to land what seemed like the impossible, we completed changed how everyone was working. Our 7 week sprint was what marketing should be all about—it was inspiring, challenging, and most of all really fun. Working with Yumi has been incredibly motivating, and I truly hope our careers will cross again somewhere down the road. ”