Before Michael Polk Newell Brands became known as a transformative chief executive, he was an engineering student at Cornell University with a curiosity for numbers and systems. Accepted early decision, he chose to study Operations Research and Industrial Engineering, following in his father’s footsteps into the engineering field.
Polk has described his major as one focused on mathematical modeling of manufacturing systems, a discipline that classmates in more traditional engineering fields sometimes teased as impractical. He recalled that students in his program relied on early computer programming languages to solve real world problems, from optimizing material handling in factories to improving service flows through queuing theory.
A Foundation Built On Problem Solving
That training shaped how Michael Polk approached his first job after graduating in 1982. Procter & Gamble hired him to supervise a papermaking machine at a mill in northeastern Pennsylvania, a hands on assignment far removed from a classroom. He has called the experience one of the most formative of his career, noting how much it taught him about his own strengths and limitations, and about how dependent success in business is on the people around him.
The analytical mindset developed at Cornell resurfaced throughout his career, from his work in Kraft Foods’ brand and sales organizations to his eventual role restructuring Newell Rubbermaid into a leaner, more focused global company. As chief executive of Newell, he oversaw 35 transactions and helped grow the company’s net sales from $5.4 billion to $9.4 billion over eight years, a scale of change that demanded the same systems thinking he first practiced as a student.
Today, Michael Polk applies that same background to his work as chief executive of Implus and as an advisory director for Berkshire Partners. His engineering education at Cornell may have once seemed narrow to his peers, but it gave him a disciplined way of thinking that carried him from a factory floor to the top of some of the largest consumer goods companies in the world. Read this article for additional information.
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