Navigating the Shifting Consumer Landscape, With Kimberly-Clark’s Tamera Fenske

In this episode of the Supply Chain Podcast, host Thomas O’Connor discusses with Tamera Fenske, Kimberly-Clark’s chief supply chain officer, how the leading consumer goods manufacturer traverses the peaks and valleys of the ever-evolving consumer landscape. Fenske details how Kimberly-Clark adjusts to these challenges with agility and makes changes within the organization to adapt to shifting consumer expectations.

This episode explores:

• How consumers balance price-sensitivity with the desire for quality. (1:24)
• How Kimberly-Clark’s supply chain works with the R&D and commercial divisions on product construction, product design and various cost elements. (2:57)
• Responding to the global market with agility and speed. (6:51)
• Building strong relationships with C-suite stakeholders. (10:21)
• Factoring strategy with talent in meeting organizational goals. (15:03)

Tamera Fenske is a CPG supply chain leader who has worked in a variety of manufacturing and supply chain leadership roles and is known for unlocking best-in-class capabilities across a range of technologies, innovations and go-to-market models. As chief supply chain officer for Kimberly-Clark, Tamera has global responsibility for the enterprise supply chain’s end-to-end manufacturing and distribution footprint, as well as the functional support areas, including procurement, quality, sustainability, occupational health and safety, strategy and capital engineering. 

Prior to joining Kimberly-Clark in 2022, Tamera served as senior vice president of manufacturing and supply chain for 3M Company, where she led end-to-end supply chain in the U.S. and Canada across all of its business groups and markets. During her 22-year tenure with 3M, she held various senior roles leading manufacturing, supply chain and operations for many of the company’s global businesses, as well as plant management. She brings additional prior experience from Marathon Ashland Petroleum and Dow Chemical Company. 

She holds a bachelor’s degree in environmental engineering from Michigan Technological University and has been a frequent presenter at supply chain leadership and manufacturing conferences, sharing her perspective on factory-of-the-future strategies and their impact on the bottom line, advanced process control applications that reduce variability and adopting scalable automation solutions to drive an end-to-end supply chain.
 

Outside of work, Tamera enjoys spending time with her family and friends, hiking with her two dogs, traveling, scuba diving and enjoying the great outdoors.