How Did I Get Here?

Chip Bergh

President and chief executive officer, Levi Strauss
from
  • Education
  • John Jay High School, Cross River, N.Y., class of 1975
  • Lafayette College, Easton, Pa., class of 1979
  • Work Experience
  • 1979–83
    Second lieutenant, first lieutenant, captain, U.S. Army
  • 1983–92
    Brand assistant, brand manager, associate advertising manager, Procter & Gamble
  • 1992–95
    Marketing director for Folgers and Jif, Procter & Gamble
  • 1995–97
    General manager for hard-surface cleaners, Procter & Gamble
  • 1997–99
    Vice president for beverages, Procter & Gamble
  • 1999–2005
    President for Southeast Asia, Australasia, and India, Procter & Gamble
  • 2005–11
    Group president for global grooming, Procter & Gamble
  • 2011–Present
    President and CEO, Levi Strauss
  • Life Lessons
  • “Food and beverage is a great place to build a career, because the only real differentiator is the brands themselves, the ads, the marketing.”
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  • “Get the offer. Even if you decide you don’t want it, it will help you get other offers.”
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  • “Always do the harder right, not the easier wrong.”
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  • With brothers Eric (middle) and Peter (right), mid-’60s
  • “I started in lodging products and food service, affectionately known internally as ‘flop and slop.’ ”
  • A 1998 write-up naming Bergh a top marketer
  • “Swiffer was developed under my watch. I remember saying, ‘We’ll know we’ve made it when somebody names a dog after this brand.’ And four months after the launch, somebody sent me a picture of their dog named Swiffer.”
  • “I was the first P&G executive at Gillette headquarters the week the $57 billion acquisition closed. I led the integration. That’s when I decided I did want to be a CEO. When it looked like it wasn’t going to happen at P&G, I decided to choose another path.”
  • “I loved ROTC. I got deeply involved: I was the commander of my unit and went to jump school, where I was trained as a paratrooper. I jumped out of airplanes—only five times—to get my jump wings.”
  • Competing in a triathlon (left) in Phuket, Thailand, 2004, and in the Boston Marathon, 2009
  • “In 2010 we did the famous ‘Hello Ladies’ campaign for Old Spice, with the guy on the horse. If you ever wanted to believe in advertising: Business nearly doubled in a year.”
  • Speaking at an event in San Francisco, 2013
  • “Recently we had an incident in one of our stores where a gun inadvertently went off, injuring the customer carrying it. So we’re asking people not to bring firearms into our stores, even in states where it’s permitted by law.”