Before Implus LLC, before the fitness accessories industry, Michael Polk Newell Brands spent nearly a decade running one of the largest consumer goods companies in the country. As CEO of Newell Brands from 2011 to 2019, he oversaw an organization of more than fifty thousand people and led its transformation from a loose holding company into a single, streamlined operating business. That experience still informs how he leads today, even though the company he now runs looks nothing like Newell.
A Brief Retirement, Then a New Challenge
Polk stepped away from corporate life after leaving Newell Brands in 2019, but retirement did not hold his attention for long. Berkshire Partners reached out in 2020 with an opportunity to lead Implus, a privately owned portfolio company, and Polk agreed to take on the challenge of guiding its transformation. He has spent the years since strengthening the company’s operational model and helping it work through disruptions tied to the pandemic, applying lessons from his Newell years to a much smaller organization.
Lessons That Carried Over
Michael Polk has drawn a clear line between the accountability he faced at Newell Brands and the accountability he faces now. “I had a Board of Directors and shareholders I was accountable to at Newell Brands, and I have a Board of Directors and owners I am accountable to at Implus LLC,” he says, adding that the responsibility for driving value creation followed him from one setting to the other. What changed is the distance between him and the actual work. At Newell, decisions often passed through several layers of management before reaching the people carrying them out. At Implus, Polk works far more directly with his team on brand and business development, a shift he credits with making this stage of his career especially rewarding after decades spent at the top of much larger organizations. Read this article for additional information.
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