In 1932, Mexican artist Diego Rivera created a mural depicting operations at Ford Motor Company’s River Rouge plant. Housed inside a large hall at Detroit’s Institute of Arts, the work captures something timeless: humanity and technology operating in perfect synchronization, transforming raw materials into something greater than their individual parts.
Recently, we brought together over two hundred P&G leaders from across the globe for Signal 2025 to explore what it takes to integrate and execute to win in today’s business environment. While our world looks vastly different from Rivera’s industrial landscape, successful businesses still require the same careful orchestration of technology and human potential. Here are three lessons we took away from various speakers:
Put consumers at the center of everything. Natalie Gordon, founder and CEO of Babylist, built a $1 billion company in fourteen years by creating a platform where communities of friends and family help new parents succeed. Her principle is simple: build relationships first, and transactions follow naturally. The explosive growth of the WNBA, North America’s premier women’s professional basketball league, follows the same playbook. As Bethany Donaphin, head of WNBA League Operations, explained in her Signal interview, their success stems from an unwavering focus on fans—understanding what they want and delivering authentic experiences that deepen connection.
Create a culture where everyone owns the outcome. Whether transforming a Siemens plant on the verge of closing into a digital operations lighthouse, as Del Costy, President, Siemens Digital Industries, USA shared with the audience at Signal ’25, or executing FedEx’s massive overhaul to better serve its customers, as Raj Subramanian, the company’s President and CEO explained, transformation requires every participant to contribute meaningfully. This only happens when leaders communicate with clarity, transparency, and genuine inclusion. When people understand not just their role but how it connects to the larger mission, integration becomes natural rather than forced.
Use technology for intelligent integration. Artificial Intelligence emerged as a key theme throughout Signal 2025, but not as a replacement for human judgment. Instead, speakers highlighted AI’s power as an integration catalyst — creating intelligent bridges between people, processes, and workflows. The rise of agentic AI offers new opportunities to enhance human decision-making for better integration and execution.
These principles extend far beyond executive leadership. At Signal 2025, we celebrated three P&G Signal Innovators who embody integration and execution in their daily work — driving media transformation, accelerating digital commerce growth, and launching products that expand entire categories.
This month’s Signal Archives features an encore presentation of Athletic Brewing, one of our most impactful stories. CEO and co-founder Bill Shufelt demonstrates how a thoughtful focus on consumers, culture, and technology can revolutionize and grow even one of the most established product categories. His presentation was so compelling that many attendees became Athletic customers on the spot.
This is the 60th issue of Signal 360, marking the end of our journey together. Over six years, we’ve explored many topics — technology, culture, strategy, and human insight — that inspire innovators to achieve breakthrough results. From startup founders to Fortune 500 leaders, the most successful have mastered Rivera’s lesson: true power comes not from individual components, but from their thoughtful orchestration.
We’ve created a farewell video highlighting some of our most inspiring stories from these six years. Thank you for being part of the Signal community of innovators. Signal360 may be ending, but the principles of integration and execution we’ve explored together will continue driving breakthrough results wherever you apply them.
Until we meet again.
Stan Joosten & John Battelle,
Editors-In-Chief, Signal360 / Co-founders, Signal P&G
