Kimberly-Clark

Andy has been Chief Customer Officer for Kimberly-Clark Professional since April 2019 where he leads the North America Sales Organization and has responsibility for global accounts.  Prior to this role Andy was Vice President of Sales for North America. 

Prior to his sales leadership roles, Andy was General Manager for the North America towel and tissue business. Andy has also been a Corporate Strategy Director, a Manufacturing Director, Marketing Director, and an R&E Director in Kimberly-Clark.

Andy joined Kimberly-Clark in 1991 in sales and has had 18 different jobs in 32 years including roles in sales, marketing, strategy, innovation, manufacturing, and general management.  He has a BS degree from Wake Forest University and an MBA from Vanderbilt University. 

Andy joined the ISSA Board of Directors in October 2018 and the City of Hope Executive Board in 2019. 

Andy has a son (Jackson) who works in sales for C-Vent, a daughter (Gracie) who is a junior at Kennesaw State University and his wife Diana who is an artist.  He enjoys golf, boating, and spending time with his family.  He also is heavily involved with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) and is a small group leader at North Point Community Church.

Q: As the Chief Customer Officer, could you provide an overview of your role and responsibilities within the company?

I’m Andy Clement, Chief Customer Officer, Kimberly-Clark Professional North America. I lead the sales organization for our business-to-business unit of Kimberly-Clark. We sell through channel partners to end users in professional segments with brands such as Kleenex®, Scott®, Cottonelle®, WypAll®, Kimtech™ and KleenGuard®.

Q: What are some of the challenges that CCOs need to address in the domain of digital marketing and technology, ranging from recovery to resilience and reinvention?

Our sales force serves customers' needs, including distributor partners, choosers and end users. We keep the customer experience front and center, especially in an increasingly digital world. As buyers evolve toward more digital interchanges, they still want knowledgeable customer support to create the most value at each stage of the buyers’ journey.

“We keep the customer experience front and center, especially in an increasingly digital world. As buyers evolve toward more digital interchanges, they still want knowledgeable customer support to create the most value at each stage of the buyers’ journey."

This evolution has worked best for us where we are able to rely on data confidently, which prompted us to invest in technology to help our customers grow. We’ve invested in areas including our Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform, data management tools and making the e-commerce experience best-in-class.

Many end users get information on our brands through our channel partners. Because of this, a big focus for us has been to make sure our distributors have optimal digital content and information.

Q: In the last 10 years, the rapid growth of marketing technology suppliers has brought exciting new ways to connect with customers and grow brands. While some businesses thrive in this new context, others struggle to see the value in technology. Your views on this?

When Kimberly-Clark Professional makes investment decisions, we’re focused primarily on desired outcomes because customers have different needs, depending on their business model and business segment. For example, we’re building e-commerce tools for pure players to position our products as the most relevant on their platforms and at the same time partnering with distributors who use an omnichannel marketing approach that needs less friction to work with our system.

We learn an immense amount by listening to our customers and seeing where the industry is trending. We’ve had success at collecting customer data points frequently and then testing, learning and adapting our approach consistently. So, our customer focus is always on. Because we use both leading and lagging indicators, we have more confidence that our technology investments and process improvements will help us move faster to support our customers’ needs and help us both grow.

Q: Would you like to give a piece of advice for the community as to how should they approach this industry?

Kimberly-Clark has a 150-year heritage of doing the right thing to show care, and we have always tried to listen to our customers and quickly adapt to their needs. That philosophy has served us well.