My biggest fear is that I become useless or less useful by not being up to date - be it with technology, changing consumers, changing global situations. You continuously have to have a little level of paranoia that forces you to set the bar higher every day.

If you work at an insurance company that sells premiums you wouldn't even sell to your mother, how happy would you feel to work there? It's going to eat you up. It might last a few years, but it doesn't attract the best people, and it certainly doesn't create the energy and engagement you need to be a long-term performing company.

I don't have any frustrations. It sounds a little silly, but life is too short for me. I don't worry about all the things that happen, I just think about what to do with them. I work a lot with blind people in my spare time and I count my blessings every day.

It is unacceptable that more than 1 billion people are hungry every day while another billion are obese.

What is success? I think the most important thing is to achieve what you set out to achieve. Just being a CEO in itself is not success. I would not relate success to a title or a position. My career has had a level of serendipity all along. I've never planned anything out more than a few years.

People at my level [Unilever CEO] shouldn't be motivated by salary. If you paid me double, I'm not going to work twice as much, because I'm already probably maximizing my time available. And would it change the way I do things? Not really. So, yes, I am fortunate, and I am ashamed about the amount of money I earn.

If we achieve our sustainability targets and no one else follows, we will have failed.