Michael Polk’s Guide to Driving Disruptive Value Creation

Michael Polk’s Journey in Business Transformation

Michael Polk’s career has been marked by his ability to drive change and create value in various consumer goods companies. His experience spans exceptional consumer goods companies such as Procter & Gamble (P&G), Kraft Foods, Unilever, and Newell Brands. Polk’s innovative approach has consistently resulted in significant business growth and transformation, making him a respected figure in the industry.

From Kraft Foods to Unilever: A Leader’s Evolution

After spending 16 years at Kraft Foods, where he developed a strong foundation in the consumer goods sector, Polk joined Unilever. There, he took on the role of head of the food business in the USA and was later appointed President of all Unilever’s businesses in the Americas, a 20 billion euro enterprise with over 20,000 employees. Under his leadership, Unilever saw a remarkable transformation. Polk managed to accelerate compound annual growth rates from minimal levels to 6% during his four-year tenure. This growth was evident across prominent brands like Dove, Lipton, OMO, Axe, Ben & Jerry’s, Knorr, and Q-tips.

Strategic Restructuring and Innovation

Michael Polk’s success at Unilever was not merely due to marketing prowess but also his ability to reinvent the business model and streamline operations. He emphasized that successful innovation starts at the top and permeates all aspects of the business. By flattening the organization and reducing unnecessary layers, Polk ensured that good ideas could flow freely and reach the market quickly. His approach involved reducing overheads to free up resources for marketing and growth initiatives.

During his tenure with Unilever, Polk’s team streamlined product categories from 17 to 11 and reduced the total number of brands. This restructuring turned loosely connected businesses into a cohesive operating company in each country, enhancing their strategic partnerships with retailers. The result was a more efficient, unified organization that could leverage its portfolio’s power more effectively.

Michael Polk’s Approach to Disruptive Leadership

Polk believes in what he calls “dislocating ideas”—concepts that disrupt the norm within a business system or category. For him, innovation is about challenging existing norms and thinking differently. When joining a new enterprise, he looks for opportunities to challenge organizational design, work processes, and portfolio quality.

Polk asserts that leadership must have direct access to the people doing the work to ensure idea flow and rapid market introduction. By reducing layers within the organization, he widened the idea pipeline, enabling quicker market delivery of exceptional thinking. He stressed the importance of not tying up marketing resources in unnecessary overhead, thereby unlocking trapped capacity for growth.

Building Trilingual Organizations

Beyond structural changes, Polk focused on breaking down functional silos and increasing team connectedness. He emphasized the need for employees to be fluent in the languages of consumers, customers, and the company itself. This approach ensured that Unilever’s initiatives were aligned with the needs of all three key stakeholders, facilitating better execution of the company’s agenda.

Polk’s efforts to enhance team collaboration and external perspectives led to more innovative and effective business strategies. He worked closely with marketing, sales, and leadership teams to simplify complex business agendas into clear messages that resonated with each stakeholder group.

The Role of Analytics in Transformative Decision-Making

Polk values the importance of data and analytics in decision-making. While judgment and gut feelings have their place, he believes that strong analytics are crucial for making informed choices. Quality data can increase confidence in decision-making and mitigate risks. By pressure-testing insights and performance through numbers, Polk ensured that Unilever’s strategies were resilient to market changes and consumer behavior shifts.

Michael Polk’s Lasting Impact on Business Transformation

Polk’s career is a testament to his ability to drive transformative change. His leadership at Kraft Foods, Unilever, Newell Brands, and now Implus LLC showcases his commitment to challenging norms and driving growth. Polk’s innovative strategies and focus on creating value have left a lasting impact on the companies he has led, demonstrating the power of disruptive leadership in the business world.

Conclusion

Michael Polk’s success over a 40+ year career is a testament to his approach to  driving change and transformative value creation. Polk’s model for growth and transformation has been built over years of experience.  The proof in the pudding is the track record of change he has driven through leadership roles reshaping Kraft Foods and leading the integration of Nabisco into Kraft, driving Unilever’s One Unilever strategy into action, driving the re-invention of Newell Rubbermaid into Newell Brands, and now leading and driving the transformation of Implus LLC.   Polk’s legacy is a reminder that those who dare to think differently lead the charge in the rapidly evolving business world.

Lessons in Leadership: How Michael Polk Transformed Newell Rubbermaid into Newell Brands

Few brands enjoy disruption, but for former Newell Rubbermaid and Newell Brands president and CEO Michael Polk, it’s the only way to achieve positive results. The experienced executive previously led transformations at Kraft Foods and Unilever before joining Newell Rubbermaid’s board in 2009 and taking the helm as president and CEO in 2011.

It wasn’t an easy task. When Michael Polk entered the role at Newell Rubbermaid, the global market was characterized by what he called “a chaotic retail landscape and unprecedented macro-economic volatility after the 2008 global financial crisis.” Despite the company’s success at the time, the goal was to accelerate growth while simultaneously improving the margins in the business. The experienced Michael Polk was ready for the challenge. He detailed his vision and strategy in his innovative Growth Game Plan.  Execution of that plan over an 8 year tenure as CEO, contributed to delivering compound annual growth rate of 7.2% for the brand and a near tripling of the enterprise value of the company from 2011 to 2019.

Implementing Michael Polk’s Ambitious Growth Game Plan

When Michael Polk joined Newell Rubbermaid, it had 40 brands under its corporate umbrella, including household names such as Sharpie markers and Calphalon kitchenware. There was market demand for these products, but it was Polk’s job to help Newell Rubbermaid operate more efficiently and competitively. After meeting with the board, he outlined a multipronged approach that, while challenging to implement, helped reestablish Newell Rubbermaid as an industry titan.

Restructuring for Growth, the Harder Right Decision

Polk’s first order of business was to restructure Newell Rubbermaid from a holding company to an operating company. This organization redesign de-layered the company creating focused and accountable operating divisions. As part of this change, Polk and the leadership team made the difficult decision to lay off half of the company’s vice presidents and nearly one-fifth of its staff. “We made this choice deliberately, but we didn’t do it lightly. The people impacted had their lives disrupted and the change we executed fundamentally changed the way the organization worked. We did it because we knew we needed to increase the marketing affordability in our P&L and release the growth potential in the business.  It was the harder but right decision,” he explained. Ultimately, the decision to flatten the company hierarchy paid off in a significant increase in marketing investment and when coupled with bigger and better innovations accelerated the growth of the company.

Investing in New Capabilities and Talent

Next, the Newell Rubbermaid leadership team invested in employees’ skills to improve the business’s overall capabilities. “The progress we made would not have happened without the strengthening of the leadership team and the investment in talent deeper in the organization. As the company moved forward, the commitment to internal development of talent was essential to Newell Brand’s sustained success,” Michael Polk explained. Newell Rubbermaid also complemented their strengthened brand and commercial organization with a talented team of supply chain experts, which helped it improve the efficiency of manufacturing and logistics.

Reshaping the Portfolio

The final step of the Growth Game Plan was to strengthen Newell Rubbermaid’s brand portfolio. First, Michael Polk led a series of changes that resulted in 35 transactions over eight years — half of which were divestitures.  The goal was to create a consumer focused portfolio of businesses from the eclectic collection of diverse businesses that comprised the original Newell Rubbermaid. In the process of all these changes, Polk’s team rebranded Newell Rubbermaid as Newell Brands, a nearly $10 billion consumer goods company with a focus on:

• Writing instruments

• Baby gear

• Food storage

• Camping and recreation

• Fragranced candles

• Smoke and carbon monoxide detectors

• Small kitchen appliances and cookware

The strategic portfolio transformation enabled Newell Brands to embrace new capabilities across the entire enterprise like the progress the company made scaling digital commerce capabilities. Michael Polk took e-commerce sales from 9% of Newell Brands’ business in 2011 to over 20% of all sales at the point of his retirement in 2019.

A Vision Realized: Michael Polk’s Transformative Influence

Michael Polk retired in 2019 after serving eight years as the president and CEO of Newell Brands and 10 years on the Board of Directors. His Growth Game Plan initiative was difficult to pull off, but it generated impressive results for the global consumer packaged goods brand. In the first quarter of his tenure as CEO, in 2011, net sales were $5.4 billion. By his last quarter in 2019, net sales had nearly doubled to $9.4 billion. Polk’s far-reaching vision created long-term benefits. Restructuring, skills development, and portfolio transformation nearly tripled the company’s value and resulted in the scaling of the company. Polk believes transformative leadership across the organization is the key to any successful transformation. Polk said, “The transformation of Newell Rubbermaid into Newell Brands was driven by a determined and highly capable group of leaders that stretched deep into our organization. To achieve what we achieved could only have occurred by playing as a team which we strived to do every single day.”

Crafting a Growth Mindset: Personal Brand Building Strategies from Michael Polk

Michael Polk is a first-generation American whose father’s family came from Austria to the United States during World War II. His very hard-working parents and grandparents taught Polk how to make his own way in the world. “I grew up a pretty independent kid,” he said.

Polk graduated from Cornell University in 1982 and earned his MBA from Harvard Business School in 1987. He acknowledged that these degrees opened doors in his career, but he credits his growth mindset to successful tenures at Procter & Gamble, Kraft Foods, Unilever, Newell Brands, and more recently Implus LLC.

In a March 2016 speech at Cornell, Michael Polk shared tips for aspiring entrepreneurs, detailing how ambitious leaders can take the next step in their careers.

Michael Polk’s Top Tip: Ditch the Plan

Michael Polk said he was ambitious at Cornell but didn’t have a defined postgraduation plan. He landed in consumer goods “quite unintentionally” with an offer from P&G to work in its northeast Pennsylvania paper mill in Mehoopany, PA. “I did not know anything about papermaking,” he recalled.

Eager to live near his then-girlfriend who was in law school at Cornell, Michael Polk took the job. It was a personally motivated choice which inevitably shaped the rest of his 40+ year career.

“The experience in the factory was one of the most formative in my career,” he said. “I learned a ton about myself, what I knew and what I did not know, how dependent I was going to be in my career on others’ support, and how necessary it was to respect all the different roles in a manufacturing/business system given the interdependencies.”

Looking back on his career, Michael Polk believes detailed career plans are overemphasized. “Don’t waste time or energy charting a multi-move career path — put yourself in positions to learn, grow and perform,” he said. “In the beginning of my career, it was all about putting building blocks in place. With the benefit of time, my advice is to think about the toolkit skills and competencies that are going to enable you to be successful and lead an organization in the future.”

Leverage Youth and Today’s Perspective as an Advantage

The business world sometimes undervalues young talent for their lack of experience. While experience typically comes with time on the job, Polk believes one of the great ways young professionals can innovate is to have the courage to introduce new ideas, insights and approaches to established processes and ways of working.

“New ideas and thinking are the pathway to impact and influence,” Polk said.  Some young professionals are afraid to take the risk associated with introducing new ideas and get caught up with taking safer paths, doing what their bosses ask them to do in return for a perceived faster path to promotion. Michael Polk doesn’t believe prestige-chasing is the best approach. In his experience, developing skills, thinking differently, and bringing new ideas, and building a track record of getting things done pay off better in the long run.

Opportunities for personal growth present themselves with a track record of performance and with a diversity of experiences that prepare one for the challenges of leadership.  That’s why he believes young professionals should invest in skills and growth first and foremost. When you take the time to gain knowledge, build relationships and a network that respects your ability to produce results, the impressive titles (and salaries) will materialize.

Attending and doing well at a reputable school will do some of the hard work for you. “There is no doubt my degrees from Cornell University and Harvard Business School opened up new doors and accelerated my career,” Michael Polk said. But a few years in, “no one will remember where you went to school and what you did when there,” said Polk.  Polk thinks one’s leadership skills, track record of delivery, and demonstrated ability to engender followership matters most. “Just get out there and get going,” he added. “Build a track record of performance, make sure you’re learning and building new skills as you go, and things will happen for you.”

Polk’s Perspective on Growth and Success

Michael Polk’s vision for success has produced a highly distinguished career. Polk had numerous achievements at Kraft Foods and Unilever becoming a top executive at both companies. In 2011, Michael Polk became CEO of Newell Brands, and position he held for 8 years. He was a member of the Board of Directors of Newell Brands for 10 years.  He has also served on the Board of Directors of Colgate Palmolive Company and Logitech International where he served as Compensation Committee Chairman of both companies.  Since 2020, Polk has been an Advisory Director of Berkshire Partners, a private equity firm, and CEO of one of Berkshire’s portfolio companies, Implus LLC.  “Each of these chapters of my career helped me grow as a leader, and I am a stronger executive and person for having had the experience,” he said.