Reckitt chief executive Laxman Narasimhan has told of his deeply personal connection to the Dettol brand as he looks ahead to giving the Humber economy a clean start.
The consumer healthcare boss emerged from the Levelling Up White Paper launch as a private sector lead on Opportunity Humber - a business board to help steer the Energy Estuary’s fortunes alongside public partners as government strives to keep the entity together.
And an ultimately tragic childhood affinity to the Hull innovation that is closing in on 90 years of disinfecting drew him to a role that is now strongly reconnected to the roots on Dansom Lane.
Read more: Hull and Humber's new Net Zero launch takes plaudits of COP president Alok Sharma
Within months of him joining the huge research and development addition completed, before Dettol’s role in the Covid battle was celebrated. More recently, the business made a welcome return to the original family name from the merger legacy that saw RB emerge from Reckitt Benckiser.
Mr Narasimhan spoke as Oh Yes Net Zero launched at the £105 million Science and Innovation Centre in the city, a base where global talent works on future discoveries like that of Dettol in the early 1930s.
Before a first interview with Business Live, he had welcomed around 100 delegates to the impressive venue, and told how Hull and Reckitt “share a proud history of innovation that stretches back over 180 years to 1840”.
As the story goes, the son of a Lincolnshire farmer moved to Hull to take on a starch mill, adding laundry powder and metal polish before the first laboratory emerged in 1880.
But it was Dettol’s arrival in 1931 that was the most poignant for the CEO.
“I remember as a four-year-old in India, when Dettol showed up. It had made its way to the port side, made its way to India,” he said.
Explaining why, he said: “My brother was ill as a child, he actually passed away when he was six and I was eight, and I remember whenever he fell ill, because he had a kidney infection, my mother would immediately lean on Dettol to disinfect the house, disinfect his clothes and all of it. For us it is a brand that we relied on for years, and that is why it is so central to our lives.”
And it proved a big draw for the then PepsiCo global chief commercial officer when the role emerged in 2019.
“My mother had never really heard of the company name, it was all about the brands, but she recognised that right away, so it was part of the attraction,” he said.
Winding forward and it is now ensuring the family within the company that he heads is the best it possibly can be.
“We are in Hull and have been for 200 years,” he said. “We know Hull has to embrace becoming Net Zero because if Hull and the Humber does not, and I say Humber importantly, the UK will not get to Net Zero.
“We believe as we have been part of the history, we also need to be part of the future.”
He told how a century ago a “fundamental truth” had been recognised by those before him, pointing to the city's Garden Village emergence and other philanthropy.
“We believe as a company, you can only succeed if the community you rely on succeeds as well," Mr Narasimhan said.
“The lab in this city is our belief in Hull. Opened three years ago, it was the single largest ever UK capital investment, staffed by a large number of nationalities who made Hull home.
“We want Hull to be somewhere people, and their families, want to put down roots.”
The movement aims to mobilise the city in creating a new economic model where Net Zero is front and centre of all decisions made, creating an exemplar for others.
“This is about the team and what they have done, and the community and what they have been able to come together on,” he said of the role in the launch. “What we have done is we have space here, we have made a big investment, it is very important for us that we get this right because the largest investment we have made in R&D, we want this to be an amazing place for people to live, we want to attract the best of the globe over here, and for that to happen this needs to be a very progressve city that actually embraces the future, and that’s what we see happening.”
Telling how he has been impressed by the “passion of people to move forward and build a greener and more prosperous future," he said: "It is not just about us, it is really about other companies and organisations across the Humber, governments and local councils across the Humber, the ports, coming together in a way to embrace this mission, and that’s what has been truly heartening, because in a lot of ways, what I see everybody do is recognise the importance of making this happen, they hear the voice of the children who all want us to get there, and they are making choices in order to get there, so I find that very heartening.”
Of his emerging Opportunity Humber role, Mr Narasimhan added: “Everything I have heard from all the people around the Humber is the willingness to really lean in. I recognise, of course, we have had history, but I also know we can create a future with all the different elements of Humberside coming together. It is very important that this be a Humberside effort. At the end of the day we all need to make it happen.”
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