Henkel’s Carsten Knobel: A CEO who sticks to his strategy

Before accepting the job, Knobel reflected on things that had gone well during his time as CFO but also on the mistakes, to help him craft a vision to steer Henkel into the future. He also asked himself what kind of leader he’d like to be. “I strongly believe in empowerment, enablement, and fostering an open feedback culture. I encourage everyone to be brave and venture new ideas and concepts,” he explained. “In the end, you’re not winning this game alone. You can have many individual players, but if you’re not working as a team, it’s not possible to win.”

Surprisingly, for a CFO, whose mandate is to focus on efficiency, Knobel quickly switched his focus to growth. “Efficiency comes to an end at a certain point. You can’t continue doing this indefinitely. And if you want to develop, aspire and survive in the long term, I believe you need to incorporate a growth component as that’s the only way to attract and convince customers and consumers.”

Growing with purpose

Henkel’s purposeful growth program is focused on a winning portfolio, a clear competitive edge in the areas of innovation, sustainability and digitalization, as well as a future-ready operating model based on a strong company culture. Knobel’s ambition was, however, soon complicated by the COVID pandemic, which plummeted the company, like the entire world economy, into crisis-fighting mode.

He remains proud that Henkel did not lay off any of its 50,000 employees around the world due to the pandemic and that it continued to pay a stable dividend to shareholders. Having the support of a long-term family owner certainly helped create breathing room to execute the company’s strategy. Henkel’s chairwoman, Simone Bagel-Trah, is the great-great-granddaughter of Fritz Henkel and was in daily contact with Knobel throughout the pandemic.

Lacking data and facts, the former financial director and his Management Board colleagues found themselves having to rely on intuition and instinct. An asset, Knobel says, was Henkel’s strong company culture and values, which served as a North Star for decision-making during the crisis.

“At Henkel, we stand for our shared values, and a strong corporate culture; which is what has made Henkel special over the last 147 years,” said Knobel, who joined the company as a graduate in 1995 before ascending through the ranks.

Stronger together

A further headwind was the surging price of raw materials, which slashed 1 billion euros off Henkel’s bottom line in 2021 and a further 2 billion euros in 2022. Despite pressure from financial markets, the company has consistently pursued its growth strategy rather than pivoting to reduce costs.

In 2023, the company underwent a far-reaching transformation by consolidating its laundry and home care and beauty care businesses into a unified consumer brands unit, positioned alongside its adhesive technologies unit. The internal merger is geared towards achieving approximately 500 million euros in savings in the mid-term, which will enable Henkel to channel more resources into innovation and marketing for its consumer brands with the highest-growth and margin potential. Additionally, it will facilitate more strategic and focused acquisitions, said Knobel.