TEAM
Time
My role
KEY SKILLS
Business Need
A new regulatory standard for submission to the FDA
In 2019, Juul was a $38bn company. Youth Prevention was top priority, both as a company mission and regulatory purposes for the FDA.
A process in restricting underage use was needed, in order for Juul to gain the permission from the public, to exist.
Background
A deadline was enforced
During this time, Juul’s CEO announced to the press - a $100mn investment in a new compliance standard, offering free Point-of-Sale systems to 800+ independent retailers in San Francisco.
The CEO mandated that we present 50 compliant retailers before the Nov. 3rd vote for Proposition C.
Retailer requirements needed to sell Juul products: properly age-gate & set purchase limitations.
Challenges
Retailers were unwilling to adopt this program
We had worked with two POS vendors to include age-gating and bulk purchase limitations on their checkout flow. That was easy and took a couple of days. The real challenge was getting retailers to adopt it.
I reached out to the 100 top retailers, no one said "yes."
These were the main pain points —
Solution
Steps in getting to compliant
The process would follow in 3 main steps: Qualify + Recruit, Onbard + Install, and lastly, certification. During this time I was the single person talk to retailers and getting feedback, testing the process in the field and providing it back to the team. It was a group effort but there were a few key contributions that I made.
Retailers were resistant, so I had to be strategic— this is how I secured the first conversion, then refined the process to speed up adoption -
As I refined the process, I identified and removed major bottlenecks, resulting in significant cost savings -
Managing stakeholders
A select group of experts were chosen
The CEO pulled in 30 experts from every department for quick execution. There were some loose levels, personnel were used interchangeably between workstreams. Everyone had decision making power.
The PMO (Strategy Execution Office)
Leading cross-functionally was critical for success
I led cross-functionally across Government Affiars, Operations, Product, Sales, Public Relations, Corporate Strategy, Management Consultants, Political Consultants, and Media at any given time to achieve matters large and small.
TESTING
Refining the process through iterating
Due to the time constraint and impactful nature of this feat, we had to be strategic.
IMPACT
Seeing the results
The pilot study of the compliance program showed dramatic improvement in retailer compliance. It laid the ground work for Juul's compliance-driven mission, and was part of Juul's PMTA submission to the FDA.
For age-verification compliance, the overall failure rate fell from 36.8% to 0.2% after implementation.
-36.6%
For bulk-purchase compliance, the overall failure rate fell from 29.3% to 1.0% after implementation.
-28.3%
Lessons
What I learned?
Putting people first in compliance design makes all the difference—and stakeholder alignment is critical for success. I also saw how an iterative approach allowed for real time adjustments that was not just effective but scalable. All in all, it was incredible to see that we made something seemingly impossible, possible.
