CEO on the spot: 11 questions with Little Moons’ Joanna Allen

Founded in 2010, Little Moons is in its adolescence. And, like any teenager, the firm is navigating big transitions.

Joanna Allen, the chief executive, is leading the ice cream retailer beyond its breakout moment with a leadership style rooted in curiosity. Before joining Little Moons, Allen held senior leadership roles at Unilever and Graze, where she gained experience of leading a global business with high growth potential.

Here, she reflects on the art and science of leadership and the diversity of perspective that gives rise to the best business strategies.

Table of Contents

Did you always want to be a CEO?

No. In fact, when I was growing up, I wanted to be a journalist. The reason why – and I think it’s a thread that runs through my leadership style – is that I’m a storyteller; I’m interested in the human side of the world.

Being a CEO, I can take the curiosity that drew me to journalism and use it to figure out what drives people to act in certain ways. I’m a very human-centred leader.

What makes you a good leader?

Most of the great leaders I’ve known are curious people, and curiosity is a trait that I try to carry forward in my leadership. It’s one of the most important characteristics of effective leaders. You are a stronger leader if you are curious enough to surround yourself and your team with diverse perspectives. Doing so not only helps you to avoid ‘blind spots’, but also genuinely improves your thinking.

Ambition is also really important. You have to be so ambitious that you sometimes set that ambition beyond what your team feels they are capable of achieving. But you have to be able to coach your team and help them realise what’s possible. It’s about striking the right balance between vision and support.

How would your co-workers describe you?

I’ve been described as someone who is interested equally in the art and the science of business. As the CEO of a branded business, you have to take all of the good stuff – the science, the analytics, the objective view of the world – and then consider the value in the art. How do you tell stories about that business? How do you get people who work in your business to be emotionally engaged?

At the end of the day, we’re here to solve human problems. It’s about putting yourself in the shoes of the your customers. If you haven’t thought about how you’re solving a problem for the consumer, then you’re never going to succeed in reaching potential customers.

What are the traits you look for when hiring for leadership positions?

My leadership team today includes people with diverse experiences and perspectives. By default, you hire for functional expertise, but what sets my team apart is their diversity. I’ve got people with classic blue-chip backgrounds, people who’ve worked in retail, people from completely different industries and people who’ve run their own businesses. That diversity of thought makes our business stronger.

Trust is also really important to me. I spend quite a lot of my time with the team talking about how to develop trust, because it’s such a fundamental value that enables a team to go from good to great.

What’s the best piece of business advice you’ve ever been given?

It might be a bit of a funny one. I think of myself as a strategist – a problem-solver. That’s one of the key skills I bring to any business I’ve been in. Someone very influential in my career once said to me: “You assume everyone’s really good at strategy because you are. Don’t assume everybody else is, too.”

It helped me realise that sometimes the skills we have may not feel unique to us – but they are. That means sometimes you have to take people on a journey to reach a point that you may have reached very quickly. Everyone has different skills and potential. No matter what your skill is, you have to be able to bring others along with you. For me, when it comes to business strategy, that means helping people understand the journey, not just the destination.

What’s the biggest business challenge you’re facing right now?

Little Moons is going through many of the classic growing pains of a teenage, slightly gangly business. A lot of the drivers of our past growth won’t be what drives future growth. Building a growth strategy requires understanding how we got here and what that means going forward.

Sometimes the biggest challenge is unravelling some of the ‘urban truths’ that come to be in a business. There comes a time to poke at them and ask: “Are you sure? Why is that?” We’ve had some fantastic experiences over the past year by asking those questions. It has opened up opportunities because people tend to buy into this notion that what got us here must be what takes us forward. But that’s not always the case. This next chapter will probably read quite differently from the previous one.

What’s the biggest driver of change in your business right now?

There’s a lot going on. It’s a crazy world. One of the most important things as a CEO is to lift your head above the parapet. It’s easy to get stuck in the weeds, the day-to-day, but it’s important to keep looking ahead.

One of the biggest contributions I can make is to ensure that our perspective remains broad. We have ambitious goals and, to keep the momentum going, we have to keep lifting our heads up.

What’s your proudest achievement in your current role?

We’ve talked about growing pains, but one thing I’m really proud of is the transparency of our operations. We talk to the team about the good things and the challenges – we don’t shy away from any of it.

It’s not one big achievement, but after what I’m sure felt like a lot of change, we’ve managed to develop trust across the team. We’ve done that by being open about what’s going well and also about what hasn’t gone to plan. That’s all part of human leadership.

What book should every business leader read at least once?

I read a lot! So picking just one book is hard. But the one I recommend – and it’s not a business book – is Stolen Focus by Johann Hari. It’s a phenomenal read. He talks about the attention crisis we’re in and how our ability to focus is being eroded.

The connection I draw to business is that it’s challenged me to think very intentionally about how I use my time, which is my most precious resource. Being thoughtful about how you curate your day is critical. When do I need to be focused and quiet? When do I need to be collaborative and creative? Stolen Focus helped me to see attention as something precious – and to be more intentional with how I use it.

What advice would you give to your successor?

I feel really privileged to be in a business where the founders are very accessible. I catch up with Vivien and Howard (Wong) at least weekly – we’re on WhatsApp all the time. They’re also on our board. That’s given me a fast track to understanding how the business has grown over the past 15 years.

They’re still emotionally invested in the brand’s success, so they’ve become an amazing sounding board. I’ll go to them and say, “Tell me what you think of this. Challenge it. Help me make it better.” Whoever steps into the CEO role in the future should take full advantage of that.

Final, very serious, question: what’s your favourite Little Moons product or flavour?

I love them all – it’s like picking a favourite child! But the go-to in our household right now is the strawberry and mascarpone flavour from our new cheesecake range. We launched it at the end of last year and it’s now rolling out globally. It’s delicious.

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