'Leading the Way' Podcast: Tom Falk, CEO, Kimberly-Clark
Ranking 155 on the Fortune 500 list, Kimberly-Clark, the manufacturer of paper-based products has many household brands in its portfolio, including Kleenex, Depends, Scott, Pull-ups and Huggies. In this authentic interview with Tom Falk, CEO, proud Kimberly-Clark employee of 34 years and humble leader of 43,000 employees, you’ll learn firsthand how their high-performance culture has sustained 147 years of success. i4cp CEO Kevin Oakes said it best, “They are a living, breathing, walking example of our research in action. Clear to see why Kimberly-Clark is such a great organization, because of their great leader.”
Key Soundbites
- On leadership - “You have to have the right people on your team that have the knowledge and the skills and you have to get out of your comfort zone”.
- On innovation - “We need to be innovative in our thinking. Showing up every day to make things better. You’ve got to be curious and learn from others who might be doing it better than you are”.
- On defining culture - “When we asked our employees to define the work environment, these are the 4 core values that were decided upon, authentic, accountable, innovative and caring. Our people say we love coming to work to a place where I can be myself every day. I don’t have to pretend to be someone I’m not. We do care for each other. Culture matters.”
- On diversity - ”Diversity is about getting the best talent. If one person is picking an all-star team between just a select group of people and another person has 100’s of people to choose from…The second person will have a better team because they have more to choose from”.
- On using big data to align customer focus - ”We depend greatly on big data to better know our customers. Our Kotex brand, for example, the target age is 18-24, they don’t watch tv, analytics helps us know where to find her”.
About Leading the Way
Leading the Way is a weekly radio and podcast series that highlights influential business leaders and leading people practices from i4cp. Hosted by Emmy-award winning radio host Scott Murray and i4cp's Angel Carlton, the show feature interviews with respected business leaders, from Kansas City Chiefs owner Clark Hunt to "Shark Tank" investor Mark Cuban.
The show airs live each Sunday at 4pm CT on KLIF 570 in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area, and debuts on iTunes and the i4cp website the following week.