Michael Polk on Trading Bureaucracy for Direct Leadership

Few executives walk away from a public company boardroom to run a smaller, privately owned business, but Michael Polk did exactly that. After retiring as chief executive of Newell Brands in 2019, he returned to work in 2020 as CEO of Implus LLC, a portfolio company of Berkshire Partners focused on fitness accessories.

The decision reflects a broader shift in how Polk thinks about leadership. At Newell Brands, decisions often moved through several layers of management before reaching the people who would carry them out. At Implus, Michael Polk found himself working shoulder to shoulder with his team on the choices that shape the business day to day.

Getting Closer to the Work

“I spend much more time doing the brand and business development work directly with my team as opposed to focusing on resource allocation and having to work through layers in the organization to influence the demand-creation or cost-reduction choices people are making,” Polk explained. That hands-on approach became especially important once the pandemic forced Implus to rethink its operations almost overnight.

A Portfolio Built for Growth

Implus manages sixteen brands under one roof, giving Michael Polk Newell Brands a broad view of sourcing, manufacturing and retail partnerships that a narrower role might not allow. Michael Polk has said the flat structure at Implus exposes leaders to more of the business than a typical corporate hierarchy would, a tradeoff he has come to value highly since making the switch.

Before joining Implus, Polk spent years at Kraft Foods and Unilever learning how large organizations allocate resources and manage risk across many product lines. That background still informs his thinking, but he has said applying it inside a smaller, private company changes the calculation entirely. Michael Polk now treats every decision as one he can see through from start to finish, rather than one that gets filtered through committees before reaching the people who actually carry it out. Refer to this article for related information.

More about Michael Polk on https://ir.newellbrands.com/news-releases/news-release-details/newell-brands-announces-ceo-transition

Few executives walk away from a public company boardroom to run a smaller, privately owned business, but Michael Polk did exactly that. After retiring as chief executive of Newell Brands in 2019, he returned to work in 2020 as CEO of Implus LLC, a portfolio company of Berkshire Partners focused on fitness accessories. The decision…