Cor Bosselaar

September 2017

Director Global Innovation Capabilities & Processes, Kimberly-Clark 

Featuring LEAD speaker Cor Bosselaar, Director Global Innovation Capabilities & Processes, Kimberly-Clark who hosted an interactive session on the topic of “Be a Change Agent to Transform Yourself and your Company”. In our fast changing world, we cannot solve today’s problems with our current knowledge. As Einstein famously said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

Can you tell us about your background and your current role?

My background is as a product developer and later project leader in CPG companies, from toothpaste to detergents to incontinence products. This evolved into driving business processes to make innovation work better. Today I am Director of Innovation Capabilities for Kimberly-Clark, based in Neenah, Wisconsin, and responsible for improving the Innovation Capabilities across the different functions within the business.

What would you say is one of the most adventurous or riskiest moves you’ve made professionally?

I moved from being a research manager to driving business capabilities and building a diverse team at the same time while starting to report out to the senior leaders in the company.

What do you see as being the biggest challenges facing CPG and Retail companies with regards to innovation over the next five years?

I anticipate two major and somewhat conflicting drivers, continued consolidation in the industry, between CPG companies and between retail companies and maybe even between manufacturers and retailers (e.g. Apple stores) that is focused on driving cost down. The second one is the need for increased innovation that includes IoT and better results while spending less.

At the LEAD Network Event in November you will be speaking on: “Be a Change Agent to Transform Yourself and your Company”. Can you give us an insight into what delegates attending your session can expect?

I will share some learnings how to drive change and do some round table discussions/breakouts, depending on the size of the group, for the participants how they can apply them and what their next steps would be. Do a little sharing at the end.