What the Campbell’s Lawsuit Reveals About Internal Systems

There’s a story unfolding right now about Campbell’s Soup that every leader, every HR team, and every communications department should be paying attention to—because it’s a map of what happens when internal systems fail and the public record steps in to finish the job.

A Campbell’s vice president was fired this week after a secret recording surfaced in a lawsuit. On that recording, he mocked Campbell’s customers, made racist remarks about Indian employees, speculated about “bioengineered meat,” and mentioned taking marijuana edibles at work. The employee who reported him says he was terminated shortly after raising concerns. Only when the lawsuit landed—and the recording became public—did the organization act.

It’s a corporate crisis, yes. But more than that, it’s a case study in what happens when organizations rely on informal processes, fragile departmental design, and optimistic assumptions rather than structure.

The reality we see time and time again is that if you don’t build the system, the system will be built for you—by lawyers, by reporters, and by anyone who kept receipts. And once it enters the public record, changing the narrative could take years.

Internal Communication Is Internal Reputation

Inside any organization—corporate, municipal, nonprofit—the internal record is the real brand.

Not the logo, or the messaging, and definitely not the external story you hope people believe.

The real brand lives in the day-to-day experience of employees. And employees notice everything:

* Does information move?

* Do leaders escalate issues or quietly bury them?

* Does HR protect people or only leadership?

* Do departments communicate?

* Does anyone document decisions, or is everything oral tradition and guesswork?

In Retention Is a Communication Strategy, my recent piece co-written with my sister, People & Culture Generalist Ana Emilia Collazo, we made this point directly: retention isn’t shaped by perks or morale initiatives—it’s shaped by how information moves inside an organization. People stay when communication is clear, consistent, and grounded in a structure they can trust.

Campbell’s didn’t become a headline because one leader behaved terribly. They became a headline because the system around him didn’t work.

The complaint died in a supervisory loop. HR only appeared once reporters started asking questions. There was no clear escalation, no cross-department handoff, and no documented sense of control. In the end, the lawsuit—not the organization’s own process—set the timeline.

When a company relies on luck or personality instead of structure, the first real stress test reveals exactly what was (and wasn’t) built.

Credibility Comes from Structure, Not Titles

This is where organizations get it wrong.

People don’t trust HR because the employee handbook tells them to.

They trust HR when:

• complaints follow a documented path

• supervisors know exactly what their responsibilities are

• escalations are traceable

• serious allegations trigger the same process every time

• communication is timely and transparent

• investigations are real—not symbolic exercises

People trust Comms when the organization sets expectations early and communicates with context, not spin. They trust Legal when decisions reflect values instead of fear. They trust leadership when powerful people aren’t shielded—or abandoned—by silence.

Campbell’s is now showing what happens when those conditions don’t exist. If the internal process had been visible and repeatable, this story would look very different. Instead, the lawsuit became the structure. The public record became the communication plan.

Where Frances Eugenia Design Fits In

This is the gap my studio is built to address.

Frances Eugenia Design isn’t a traditional “creative shop.” It’s an infrastructure practice that helps organizations design the operational bones that keep everything else from collapsing: communication systems, reporting pathways, investigation frameworks, decision logs, and the cadence and workflows that make all of that usable.

I’ve seen what happens when those pieces are missing—inside City Hall, corporate teams, and long-term client relationships that meant well but ran on improvisation. Stability doesn’t come from avoiding conflict; it comes from having a system that can survive it.

My work focuses on helping organizations:

* align HR + Comms as a joint stability function

* define clear escalation paths

* document who knew what, and when

* replace crisis improvisation with templates and protocols

Systems aren’t red tape. They’re continuity.

They keep rumors from outrunning facts, give leadership something solid to stand on, and—crucially—reduce the chances that the first reliable record of what happened is a lawsuit.

The Part Few Leaders Want to Confront

Every organization has a moment where something goes wrong behind closed doors. What defines the future is the infrastructure around any incident.

Campbell’s is learning this publicly.

Most organizations learn it privately and too late.

My work exists to help build the structure before something forces the issue—before gaps become headlines, before silence becomes the story, and before the public record becomes the only record.

If you want to strengthen the systems that protect your people, your culture, and your organization’s credibility, I can help you build them.