How Reynolds American Builds a Better Tomorrow

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Reynolds American traces its roots back to the post-Civil War era in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. It started out as America’s first tobacco company specializing in snuff and became an industry-leading powerhouse in the many years that ensued through its iconic brands like Newport, Natural American Spirit, Pall Mall, and Camel.

Today, the company is focused on paving the way to becoming a predominantly smokeless business. To address the evolving preferences and needs of adult tobacco and nicotine consumers, Reynolds expanded its portfolio to deliver adult nicotine consumers choice through different products. By 2035, the company wants 50 percent of its revenue to come from noncombustible products.

Four accomplished Hispanic leaders—Luis Pinto, Patricia Mendoza Rodriguez, Valerie Mras, and Ricardo Guardo—have stepped up to help Reynolds reach its ambitious goals. While their respective roles, journeys, and leadership styles differ, each share a commitment to the transformation of Reynolds and believe diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is an important part of the equation.

Telling the Story

As vice president of corporate communications and media relations, Luis Pinto leads corporate communications strategy, media relations efforts, and external ESG (environmental, social, and governance) amplification at the company. He believes he has the best job at Reynolds: he gets to not only meet interesting people but also tell their stories.

“When I came to the company a year and a half ago, that was the pitch that drew me in. I came to help build a team that communicates about what Reynolds is doing with the transformation and to take these great stories and put them into a coherent strategy,” says Pinto, who has more than twenty years of experience in development and execution of public policy and communication initiatives for global multinational corporations. “My team and I are the tip of the spear. We’re the ones talking to the media and prepping senior executives to engage with reporters, regulators, and other stakeholders.”

Educating consumers about nicotine alternatives has also been an important part of that, Pinto says. While there are no safe tobacco products, available research shows that tobacco products exist on a risk continuum, according to Reynolds Harm Reduction. Pinto and his colleagues are urging cigarette smokers to consider replacing cigarettes with lower-risk alternatives, like e-cigarettes, nicotine pouches, and tobacco heating products.  

“Our ambition is to help transition our adult smokers away from cigarettes and toward reduced-risk products,” Pinto says.

Pinto also aims to support the company’s transformation journey with his leadership style. He focused on “furiously promoting and protecting the right people.”

“The right people are those who get things done,” he says. “If you’re a doer, a grinder, a hard worker, I will work to promote you and your work. Then, once you’re on your way, I get out of the way. But it’s important that I put you in the right place to shine because when you shine, we all shine.”

Defining the Future

Patricia Mendoza Rodriguez started her career with British American Tobacco (BAT) twenty years ago in Mexico, where she gained expertise in operations, supply chain, and procurement. She leverages those experiences as vice president of procurement at Reynolds, where she and her team have a “unique opportunity to define the future.”

“Procurement plays a critical role in this transformation,” she says. “We are a window to the external world and translate the company’s function needs into finding the best options on the market. It’s been important to find the right partners, set up the right supply chains, and tap into industries we haven’t worked with before. The old days where procurement focused on buying the cheapest are gone. Now, we need to be focused on what’s best for the business.”

As a leader, Rodriguez sets the tone for those considerations by helping her team understand the company’s vision and how they fit into it.

“We have to make sure we have open dialogue and build the right environment for people to raise concerns, ask questions, and fail,” she says. “When we transform, we make mistakes along the way. We just need to acknowledge our failures, learn from them, communicate, and try again.”

Rodriguez has seen throughout her tenure how the company has leveraged diverse voices to help bring it toward its lofty goals. As a working mom, she’s a living example.

“The company has always supported me in having a balance in career with my responsibilities as a mom,” she says. “We place a heavy emphasis on recruiting and promoting diverse candidates and making sure we have a good presentation of minorities and women among our suppliers.”

A Unique Opportunity

Valerie Mras joined Reynolds in 2008 and since then, has worked across several brand marketing roles, including Camel, VUSE, Newport, and Pall Mall. Currently, she serves as senior vice president of marketing for vapor brands, a function that’s critical to achieving the “smokeless world” vision.

Vapor not only is the most developed new category in the company’s portfolio but also has the most consumers and the greatest opportunity to migrate cigarette users. Leading the charge in such a transformative area is an opportunity Mras and her team don’t take for granted, she says.

“Vapor really underpins new categories,” she says. “We were the first new category launch for Reynolds in 2013, and I was proud to be a part of that. So, it’s a full-circle moment to be part of the team that now takes this into the future. My team is pumped, wants to be at the forefront, and everyone feels an immense privilege and pressure to deliver.”

As a leader at the helm of such an important driver of change, Mras values authenticity, empowerment, and accountability.

“When you give people space to fly, they’ll either go higher or won’t get off the ground,” she says. “Either way, as a leader you have to be there to pick up the pieces.”

Mras, who grew up in a multicultural household and spent her career working with individuals from various backgrounds, also emphasizes the importance of diversity. She’s not alone. Reynolds has committed itself to increasing minority representation in management roles and to reach gender parity in management roles by 2025. In 2023, 35.5 percent of women and 23 percent of minorities were in management, according to the company. Those are strides that resonate deeply with Mras.

“I came up when there weren’t a lot of leaders who looked like me and then over time, it ebbed and flowed,” she says. “Now, the organization is much more inclusive and multicultural. Not only because we pull from a greater pool of candidates but because we’re valuing diverse voices more. I’m glad to be a pillar of hope for others and to help make significant progress in the representation we have among women and Latinos in this organizations.”

Becoming a Change Agent

Before serving as senior vice president of finance, strategy, and planning, Ricardo Guardo spent seventeen years at BAT in a number of global finance and leadership roles. Throughout that time, he developed an approach to leadership that guides his work on Reynolds’ transformation.

“People make mistakes when they come into a team with an uninformed opinion,” he says. “You need to start by listening, understanding the goals and objectives of others in order to get a clear analysis of where a team stands and how to move forward.”

That’s what he has done since coming to the company in 2017. It’s made for a more responsive and collaborative culture among his team and has inspired them to drive toward the company’s vision. Guardo views this as an opportunity for him and his team to be “a change agent.”

“Because the consumer is transforming and the business is transforming, your financials, revenue pools, and investment decisions have to transform as well,” he says. “We have the opportunity to be a change agent by seeing a lot of things that a lot of people can’t. Our role helps us understand the economy, where consumers are going, regulations, pricing and where our projections are going. So how you bring people along and explain the why behind change is very important and fulfilling to me.”