In conversation with… Walgreen Boots Alliance’s Anna Teal

In a grey business park in west London, you might not expect the waft of essential oils that greets you on entering the offices of Aromatherapy Associates, the fast-growing beauty brand ran by Anna Teal.

A small company of around 50 people, the business has started to make a name for itself on the health and wellness scene. It is now stocked across a network of spas in the UK and US and with retailers such as John Lewis & Partners. Its headquarters also serves as a training centre for spa technicians and a laboratory, as well as an office and warehouse.

All the essential oils are made on-site, with new products concocted in the “mad scientist’s lab” – a room bearing a resemblance to a high-school science room filled to the brim with little bottles.

Teal, company chief executive since December 2018, is spinning many plates when Retail Week meets her. Alongside Aromatherapy Associates, she’s vice president and business development director of global brands at Walgreen Boots Alliance, an advisory board member and founding patron of the British Beauty Council, and she has recently joined Retail Week’s Be Inspired programme as an ambassador – that’s before adding two children into the mix.

Each month, Retail Week introduces ones of our Be Inspired ambassadors, to find out more about their career journeys and their visions for the future of retail. This month, Anna Teal delves into her varied experience at Walgreen Boots Alliance and summarises her idea of what makes a great modern leader.

Building a career in retail

“From the age of around 16, I decided I wanted a job in something business-oriented – I found my curiosity for numbers whilst studying economics but decided I didn’t want to go to university full-time.

“I narrowed it down to a sector – retail was a natural choice because I just felt like I got it, from a consumer perspective. I applied for a number of different retail schemes and in the end, just chose my favourite shop,” she says.

Teal started her career in Boots in a post-A-Level training scheme that funded her university and offered her work experience in multiple retail departments where she found herself “absorbing all the different facets of a retail business”. This resulted in a role as a buyer in the cosmetics department.

“Try not to structure your career too much. If you limit yourself by role or by tiering, you might miss some of the best life experiences”

She continues: “I then spent the next five or six years being quite considered about where I wanted to go next in the Boots head office – I knew my discipline, I knew I loved buying and category management but there was also product development involved in that.

“I was conscious of trying to rotate myself around the business in order to learn the various dynamics within each category – for example, the differences between fast-moving consumer goods, which were fashion- and trend-oriented like cosmetics, and those that were steady-estate, which needed activation and innovation like skincare.”

“I became obsessed with going into stores to see how products were doing and whether I got it right. I even had a director who made us do our performance reviews within a store environment, which forced us to constantly see how we were doing, but through the eyes of the customer.”

Don’t stay in your lane

With a better understanding of customer’s desires, Teal moved into product development, working with external partners to create brands that consumers wouldn’t find elsewhere – for example, beauty ranges for brands such as Ted Baker and Champneys.

From there, Teal’s role evolved into buying brands rather than building them – a process she dubs a “marriage”, due to the longevity and complexity of mergers and acquisitions.

When the opportunity came to become chief executive of Aromatherapy Associates, Teal says it felt like “the complete epitome of my career, where I would be able to draw on everything I’d learned throughout.”

While Teal’s career journey remained product-driven throughout, she prides herself on refusing to “stay in her lane”.

“Try not to structure your career too much,” she says. “If you limit yourself by role or by tiering, you might miss some of the best life experiences that will become your point of difference in the future.”

On finding balance as a leader

With her two children based in her midlands home of Nottingham, Teal splits her time between there and London, along with travel overseas to the US and Asia to meet with partner brands.

Managing key roles at Walgreen Boots Alliance and Aromatherapy Associates means Teal has to ensure the smooth running of both remits even in her absence but she credits her teams for creating the right environment for success.

“We’ve been working together for a while now, so we’ve definitely found our rhythm. It’s all about clarity and structure – my teams know which days I will be at Walgreen Boots, and which I will be at Aromatherapy Associates.

“They also know that it’s important for me to do three school drop-offs a week, and to spend my weekends at home, watching my kids do their various activities and spending time outdoors.”

“There’s a tipping point as a leader where you realised that your thoughts have to go from I to we. A leader sets the strategy and direction, but is ultimately driving the collective, rather than acting as an individual.”

As such, Teal ensures that she is a visible leader, without making it “all about me”. She describes one of the things she does best at the Aromatherapy Associates’ offices as “hovering” – going around the various desks to ensure everyone is okay and on track.

Teal believes that a modern leader needs four key attributes: adaptability, an appreciation of teamwork, the power to express and drive a clear vision, and the ability to set a welcoming and accepting culture.

On the role of diversity in retail

“I genuinely believe people get better outcomes from having a diverse mix of people around the table,” says Teal.

“In an increasingly diverse world, having a homogenous board table making all the decisions doesn’t make sense – they won’t understand the consumer and what they want because they haven’t walked in their shoes. It’s right for both the consumer and the business.”

In October, Teal came on board as a Be Inspired ambassador – Retail Week’s initiative to promote women in retail and diversity and inclusion.

Speaking on what diversity and inclusion mean to her, Teal states: “I am a strong advocate for equality.

“People should be evaluated on their quality of spirit and their passion to succeed, rather than their background and schooling”

“It goes beyond the number of diverse people at certain levels of a business and is actually about creating the right conditions early on – probably before someone’s working life starts – for people to be comfortable with their own life choices.

“I have both a son and a daughter, and I want them both to be equally comfortable being a stay-at-home parent or a full-time worker.”

When asked about the role of the retail sector in promoting social mobility, Teal says “retail has a big part to play”.

“The business benefit from raising workers from the shop floor to the boardroom is increasingly important as they have learnt from experiences throughout the process that can’t be taught to leaders who join at the top level”, she explains.

“People should be evaluated on their quality of spirit and their passion to succeed, rather than their background and schooling.”

On the future of retail

As a leader with a background in buying and product development, Teal is well placed to give her predictions for how she sees the retail landscape changing.

In health and beauty, Teal says she’d love to see more wellness brands with holistic solutions join the fold at Walgreen Boots Alliance.

She namedrops brands such as Beauty Chef, which offers probiotic ingestible beauty products to stimulate healthier skin, and Nourished, a vitamin brand that creates tailored bottles to an individual’s needs.

This personalisation aspect is something that’s not new in the retail scene but has yet to truly take hold in the health sector.

Teal also expects expansion of the retail theatre concept – giving shoppers a reason to come to store to discover something new.

“Stores hold tangible items, which is something they need to leverage over online. If Tesco or Sainsbury’s held cooking demonstrations on, for example, planning for a family’s weekly food shop, people might be more inclined to venture in-store and learn something,” she says.

Teal’s final prediction on the next big trend for retail? Sustainability in delivery services. Teal believes to keep pace retailers are going to have to overhaul their delivery options to reduce their environmental impact.