Alison Lewis, chief growth officer of Kimberly-Clark, which is celebrating its 150th anniversary, joined Cheddar News to discuss how the company is dealing with economic challenges like inflation as well as its future plans domestically and abroad

Kimberly-Clark Executive Talks Operations, Inflation and Future Plans

Welcome back to closing bell and cheddar news. Everyone. Let's take a look at the stock market ended on this midterm election day games across the board and stocks closing higher. Of course, as voters head to the polls and investors look toward results that might lead to a split. Congress or even republicans taking control of both the House and the Senate under President biden's Democratic White House. Well, divisions in Washington could actually be good news for Wall Street as the division would likely limit government spending and new laws like regulations and even taxes. So a split. Congress has historically led to higher gains on Wall Street. Specifically after midterms, investors do get a clear picture of what future policy might look like due to gridlock in the government. So let's run through the major indexes to see how he fared the dow continuing to lead the way up 1% the S. And P. 500 gaining 6/10 of a percent and the NASDAQ up about half a percent. Well Kimberly clark the company behind brands like Kleenex and Huggies still going strong 150 years after its founding. And today the company ringing the opening bell here at the new york stock exchange to celebrate that 150 year milestone. And earlier I spoke with the Chief growth officer Alison Lewis about how the company is dealing with economic challenges like inflation. It's business here in the U. S. And abroad. Its future plans and much more. Take a listen were purposeful because we started that way, we started back in Wisconsin as a paper company making paper out of recycled cotton rags and linen rags. And we've been able to from their transition to more of a consumer company where the brands that we created in categories we created always had purpose. So we created five of the seven categories we compete in today. Brands like Kotex were born from women on the front lines in World War One stitching together, sell you cotton to make the first menstrual pads so that they could keep working helping the soldiers in need while being on their period. So that's a great example of being purposeful and that remains at the heart of what we do today. And absolutely these basic yet essential household items that every american and every family does need. It is, it's pretty impressive, right? I mean we're three years into the pandemic, nearly three years into the pandemic and I remember how everyone was stocking up on these items in the early days. What is the current state of the economic consumer for your audience? Yes, Well, certainly, yes, toilet paper became the sexiest product around during the heat of the pandemic. But in terms of the consumer today, I think the key is we need to always be following the consumer listening the consumer. So obviously pocketbooks are tightening somewhat and that means that it's important for us to think about pricing and the segmentation of our categories from a good better best perspective, so that we have entry level products and we have premium products, what we see in the market though with the economic downturn is it's sort of a bifurcation. So yes, there are consumers that are wanting less expensive products. There's also consumers that are still trading up and want those premium products and premium Ization has been a trend for quite some time. I think it has a lot to do with. We have Prada and brands and we participate in categories where there's sort of no fail situations. So I need the diaper, the Huggies diaper to work. I'm willing to pay a little bit more so don't don't have leakage from my baby or the same with the period product or the same with an incontinence products. So we find that they're still well willing to pay there at the same time. You know, we do see that we have to have products on both sides of the offer in both premium Ization and entry level pricing is the company planning to raise prices for concern summers on these essential items as we head into the holidays and even next year. Yeah, so we have been taking a number of price increases because it's been very important for us to recover our margins that we can keep investing in the business and ensure that we continue to innovate and make this business a business for the long term, but at the same time we've been very smart about our pricing and we've been very segmented. So if you look at the price where we're bringing value into the brand. So if there's a new innovation, it's a great opportunity to bring pricing into the equation. So something like a summer diaper that's more breathable that we launched in Korea, that is at a more premium price, We get a little bit more price, but at the same time give something that consumers want, which is a more breathable diaper during those hot summer months as the chief growth officer at the company, what sort of innovations can consumers expect here in the months ahead? Ah, well, that's a great question. So I probably can't talk about everything that's coming, but I can certainly talk about some of the exciting things that we're doing. One of the things that I'm really excited about is our investment into things, which is a period panty company, We now have majority ownership of that and we're actually rolling period panties out in over 10 countries around the world in the spirit of not being afraid to disrupt ourselves knowing that the market is moving more and more towards reusable. So that's a terrific example. Another great example is we've done a lot of work in the area of overnight, so whether it's overnight training pants for the baby, whether it's overnight diapers, whether it's overnight Kotex, that is a moment when again you want that no fail situation, you want a product that works, it's a growing area across all of our businesses. And we're continuing to innovate in that overnight space. How as the chief growth officer, have you been able to navigate some of these supply chain challenges that have impacted every company, especially companies, Right? That self physical items. Absolutely. So the good news is we are really good operators and execute ear's that comes from our roots of being a paper manufacturer. So we've been able to really stay close to the supply and demand equation and just do everything in our power to make sure we serve our customers which are the Walmarts of the world. The test goes at the world and ensure that consumers have access. We actually, through the pandemic, continue to gain market share, which is a great example of the fact that we know how to execute and we were delivering the products that people needed to those stores while we're doing this interview as cop 27 is underway in Egypt Global gathering of top leaders thinkers to talk about ways to fight the climate crisis and make a more sustainable future. What are some of the sustainability initiatives as a chief growth officer that you're overseeing to make a more friendly climate? Yeah, so we're very committed to sustainability and that's one of the key areas of innovation focus that we're doing which is sustainability by design. So we launched things like plastic free wipes. Great example of sustainability initiative. We've launched things like toilet paper made from bamboo or up our eucalyptus amount of eucalyptus in our paper, toilet paper products. So using alternative fibers and then also trying to find plastic free alternatives. And that's where we're continuing to invest. We're continuing to focus and given that we are a company that has come from very much a pioneering spirit. I'm pretty excited about what you'll start to see as we go out over the next 150 years. And I think it's worth noting too that your company is an international company. Right? So what works in the US? Is that the same thing that's being pursued in other countries around the globe? Yeah. So yeah, we operated over 100 75 countries. And what we've really tried to do in the last couple of years is scale a lot of those innovations to a far greater degree. So there's something called the thin core diaper Huggies. Diaper in china was the first to launch in china two millimeters thick, so more flexibility and movement for that baby. And we've launched that around the world and everywhere we've launched it, we've seen a couple of share points of gains. So that's an example of innovation that's traveling coming from china at the same time. Things like overnight and the occasion work that we do in the US. So little swimmers is a great example or training pants or overnight diapers. We've had great success in the US and we traveled that to other parts of the world. So one of the reasons we're number one or two in all the countries that we operate is because we take that innovation and we scale it big, thanks there again to Alison Lewis, chief growth officer at Kimberly Clark.