Kimberly-Clark Names Procter & Gamble Vet as Chief Supply Chain Officer
Gustavo Ghory has been named senior VP and chief supply chain officer of Kimberly-Clark Corporation.
Ghory, who will become a member of the consumer goods company's executive leadership team and report to chairman and CEO Mike Hsu, will be tasked with procurement, manufacturing, transportation, continuous improvement, sustainability, and quality, safety and regulatory operations on the global level.
He's filling a role at Kimberly-Clark that's been vacant since Sandra MacQuillan departed last year to join Mondelez International
Ghory spent more than 35 years at Procter & Gamble in a range of product supply roles, including VP product supply – global manufacturing and VP product supply – India, Middle East and Africa.
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Prior to joining Kimberly-Clark, he co-founded SmarterChains, a tech platform that partners with manufacturers with vendors to create smarter, more sustainable factories.
The appointment takes effect July 1.
"Gustavo is an outstanding global leader and I am confident that his extensive experience will help us improve the value we deliver from our world class global supply chain operations," said Hsu in a statement.
Kimberly-Clark is No. 32 on the CGT Top 100 Consumer Goods Brands of 2019 list, counting such brands as Kleenex, Scott, Huggies, Cottonelle and Depend in its portfolio. It's headquartered in Dallas, TX, with around 40,000 global employees and operations in 34 countries.
The household goods company, which sells products in more than 175 countries, reported first-quarter net sales of $5 billion in April, up 8% year over year because of consumer stockpiling as a result of COVID-19. Organic sales increased 11% while volume grew 8%.
In its first-quarter earnings call, Hsu said the company’s supply chain had experienced a few sporadic outages during the pandemic but that it was executing very well during a period of record output.
“What we've really done is significantly pared back the number of SKUs we are producing,” Hsu said. “We're just producing the large-volume SKUs and that's given us more theoretical capacity, and we're getting more output out than we ever have in a lot of locations. Right now that is the focus, and I will say it's working and I think you'll see us catch up to demand in the second quarter and make progress during the second quarter.”
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