After stepping down from Newell Brands in 2019, Michael Polk could have stayed retired. Instead, he returned to the corporate world in 2020 as chief executive of Implus LLC, a privately held fitness accessories company owned by Berkshire Partners. Polk has described the move as a kind of homecoming, one that reconnected him with parts of the job he had drifted away from during his years running a public company.
Before Michael Polk Newell Brands, spent years at Kraft Foods and Unilever working closely on marketing and sales, the kind of hands-on work that gradually gave way to higher-level responsibilities as his career advanced. At Implus, he has said, he gets to combine the broader judgment built over decades with the direct, ground-level work that first drew him into the industry.
Bringing Two Careers Together
Implus operates a sixteen-brand portfolio with a global footprint, but its size still allows Polk to work alongside his team on decisions that would have moved through several layers of management at Newell Brands. He has framed this as the appeal of leading a private company: fewer resources, but far less distance between leadership and execution.
Polk took the Implus job just as the pandemic began disrupting the fitness and active lifestyle sector, giving him little time to settle in before reworking the company’s operating model and shoring up its financial performance. He has since described that period as one of the more demanding stretches of his career, though not one he regrets taking on.
Having grown Newell Brands’ enterprise value from around five billion dollars to more than fifteen billion during his tenure there, Polk brings a track record built at scale to a company built for closeness. He has said building Implus into a bigger, better and more competitive business now makes for some of the most enjoyable work of his professional life. See related link for more information.
Learn more about Michael Polk Newell Brands on https://www.businessload.com/run-grow-business/michael-polk-newell-brands-former-ceo-shares-his-unique-approach-to-leading-through-transformation/