By Brooke W. Effron, Skytop Contributing Author / October 26, 2026
Brooke W. Effron is a Board Director and CEO Advisor with 30+ years of experience driving P&L performance, innovation, commercialization, transformation, and long-term enterprise growth across CPG, consumer, wellness, healthcare, media, retail, and technology sectors.
She partners with Fortune 500 executives, founders, and privately held companies on growth strategy, innovation, organizational effectiveness, operational scaling, and enterprise risk, translating market and consumer dynamics into value creation.
CPG & CONSUMER STRATEGY: Brooke has advised leading consumer brands and global CPG organizations on portfolio strategy, consumer insights, and market expansion. Her work includes launching a ~$500MM Lipton portfolio initiative, identifying over $100MM in production savings for Diageo, and increasing category share for Danone by +2% through consumer insights and segmentation-driven strategy. She has helped leadership teams translate consumer understanding into commercial growth, brand expansion, and market penetration.
INNOVATION, COMMERCIALIZATION & EMERGING TECHNOLOGY: Brooke has helped accelerate innovation and growth across early-stage and founder-led consumer businesses through product development, customer segmentation, go-to-market strategy, and organizational scaling efforts. She brings a strategic perspective on AI and emerging technologies and their implications for consumer understanding, product development, consumer engagement, operations, and competitive strategy.
TRANSFORMATION, VALUE CREATION & M&A: Brooke partners with executive teams on transformation, organizational design, and business modernization. Her work includes guiding a $125MM acquisition integration through change management and communications strategy for Teladoc, contributing to a $700MM municipal revitalization initiative in Tulsa, OK, and advising a global security organization with 5,000+ employees on organizational structure and communications. She has also supported PE-backed and founder-led companies through restructuring, repositioning, and strategic realignment.
BOARD & GOVERNANCE: Brooke serves as a board member of several small food & beverage brands and The Well Network, a CPG and wellness industry organization. She is also a longtime board member of the Mount Sinai Health System Auxiliary Board, serving on its Executive Committee and having held officer roles including Secretary and Assistant Treasurer. Her governance experience includes strategic oversight, financial stewardship, organizational effectiveness, and risk management.
BACKGROUND & EDUCATION: Prior to founding BWE Consultancy, Brooke held senior marketing roles at Unilever across global food and beverage categories. She earned an AB (cum laude) from Princeton University and an MBA from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Today, every other article, webinar, and conference seems to be about how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is going to take over the world in ten years if we do not immediately put worldwide guardrails and governance in place. From warnings about existential risk to predictions of superintelligence, much of this rhetoric can amplify fear. While these concerns deserve attention, they can overshadow the immediate business implications of AI, both its potential benefits and its risks, and what companies and boards need to consider beyond cybersecurity and workforce replacement.
Recently, I participated in a Private Directors Association (PDA) panel entitled, The AI-Human Nexus: Governing the New Consumer Products Group Blueprint, alongside Catherine Nelson (Founder & CEO, Windmill Lane Advisors), Andrea Henderson (Partner, DHR Global), Valerie Robert (former Global Head of HR, Nespresso), and George Corbin (Board Director, Edgewell Personal Care). We discussed how organizations can apply technology to drive business performance while preparing for potential pitfalls, including understanding how competitors are using AI. Our conversation raised several important considerations for business leaders and boards, which I have expanded upon here.
1. AI Is an Enterprise Responsibility, Not Just an IT Initiative
AI should not be confined to the technology department or treated as a standalone item on a board meeting agenda. Its implications must be considered across the organization, from strategy and operations to customer engagement and workforce planning. While IT experts are essential to selecting, implementing, and managing AI tools, business leaders must bring critical thinking, commercial acumen, and curiosity to understanding their broader implications.
This means assessing risks and potential benefits as part of strategic decisions, using tools such as SWOT analysis where appropriate, and determining how AI supports the company's priorities. In consumer packaged goods (CPG), for example, AI may help teams identify consumer insights, shape marketing campaigns, or refine product claims, but these applications must be evaluated in the context of brand reputation, consumer trust, and commercial objectives. The board does not need to become the technology expert; it needs to ensure that management understands the consequences, establishes appropriate safeguards, and evaluates AI investments against clear business objectives.
2. AI Can Transform How Businesses Compete
As McKinsey noted in its 2023 report, The Economic Potential of Generative AI: The Next Productivity Frontier, generative AI has the potential to unlock an additional $400 to $660 billion in annual economic value across the CPG and retail sectors. Yet the business case extends beyond cost reduction and efficiency to fundamentally changing how companies innovate, commercialize products, and engage consumers.
AI can accelerate the journey from consumer insight to commercial action. By synthesizing consumer research, purchase behavior, social listening, and customer feedback, AI can help teams identify unmet needs, evaluate product concepts, and spot emerging preferences before committing significant resources to development and launch. It can also support commercial decision-making by helping brand teams assess promotional effectiveness, tailor marketing campaigns, and determine where to allocate investment across brands and channels. For CPG companies managing complex portfolios and competing for both consumer attention and retailer support, these capabilities can directly impact innovation, market share, and profitable growth.
AI is also changing how companies engage consumers and work with retail partners. More personalized product recommendations and marketing can help consumers discover relevant products, while better analysis of retailer and channel performance can inform assortment decisions, demand forecasting, and commercial planning. The strategic question is how to translate these competencies into a genuine competitive advantage rather than simply faster processes or more sophisticated algorithms. Companies must also ensure that personalization respects consumer preferences and maintains trust.
3. AI Can Inform Decisions, but Human Judgment Remains Essential
AI can help leaders test hypotheses, identify patterns, challenge conventional thinking, and strengthen forecasting and scenario planning. Yet more powerful analysis does not guarantee sound conclusions. AI can generate inaccurate outputs, reflect biases in its underlying data, or reinforce flawed assumptions. For example, a demand forecast or promotional recommendation may appear compelling while reflecting incomplete sales data, temporary pricing effects, or assumptions that no longer hold in the market. Leaders must understand the context behind the numbers before acting on the results. AI’s effectiveness depends on the quality of the inputs, the questions being asked, appropriate safeguards, and people’s willingness to scrutinize its conclusions.
Ultimately, foresight is not certainty. Technology can help leaders evaluate potential outcomes, but it cannot eliminate ambiguity or guarantee sound decisions. AI-generated insights should inform deliberation, not determine the course of action.
4. We Must Not Sacrifice the Next Generation of Leaders for Short-Term Efficiency
As large language models (LLMs) become increasingly adept at performing tasks once handled by humans, there is growing concern that entry-level positions will become obsolete because machines can do similar work at a lower cost. But focusing solely on immediate savings overlooks a fundamental question of how companies will develop tomorrow's critical thinkers and leaders if they eliminate the roles through which people traditionally gain experience.
In CPG, early-career professionals learn more than basic analysis. They develop commercial instincts by examining sales and market-share data, evaluating marketing performance, supporting product launches, and working across brand, sales, and supply-chain teams. These experiences help them understand how individual decisions affect brand performance and the broader business. Entry-level roles also provide opportunities to learn to collaborate, build professional skills, and develop the potential needed to lead.
If organizations stop hiring junior talent without creating alternative pathways for development, they risk undermining their future talent pipeline. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of regular interaction with senior colleagues and hands-on training, as remote work often limited access to mentorship and day-to-day guidance. Entry-level roles are therefore more than a labor expense; they are an investment in an organization's future stewardship and operational strength.
The challenge now is not to determine which jobs AI can replace, but to rethink how people and technology can work together. Companies must redesign workflows so professionals can build the experience needed to advance. This is far more than an HR issue; it has direct implications for succession planning, organizational resilience, and long-term competitiveness.
The Future: Rethinking How Business Creates Value
While many companies may continue to prioritize AI-driven efficiency, cost reduction, data security, and workforce redeployment in the near term, the strategic imperative will be to reinvent how corporations operate, compete, and create value.
This will require more than adopting new tools. It will demand thoughtful choices about how work is designed, how people are developed, and how technology is integrated into the business. Ultimately, the companies that benefit most from AI will be those that balance technological advancement with sound governance and investment in human capital, using AI not just to do things faster, but to do them differently and better.