The Implus Turnaround Under Michael Polk

When Berkshire Partners needed a chief executive for Implus LLC in 2020, the fitness accessories company found one in a leader with an unusually large résumé for a private business its size. Michael Polk Newell Brands had spent his career at Kraft Foods, Unilever and Newell Brands before retiring from the latter in 2019, and his arrival at Implus brought public-company discipline to a sixteen-brand portfolio built for a different kind of pace.

The timing was difficult from the start. Michael Polk took over Implus just as the pandemic disrupted supply chains and consumer spending across the fitness and active lifestyle sector. Rather than delay changes until conditions settled, he pushed ahead with reshaping how the company operated, working to strengthen its financial footing while the broader market remained unsettled.

Closer to the Business

What set the Implus job apart from Polk’s prior roles, by his own account, was proximity. At Newell Brands, decisions on demand creation or cost reduction moved through layers of management before taking effect. At Implus, Polk works alongside his team on those same choices directly, spending far more time on brand and business development than on the administrative work that consumed much of his time at a larger company.

He has described the arrangement as a return to the parts of the job he enjoyed earliest in his career, when marketing and sales work sat closer to the center of his day than boardroom strategy sessions did. Running a company with fewer resources than Newell Brands has meant fewer layers between leadership and execution, something Polk credits with keeping Implus adaptable during an unsettled stretch for the industry.

Polk’s history includes growing Newell Brands’ enterprise value from roughly five billion dollars to more than fifteen billion. He now applies a similar appetite for growth to Implus, describing the current chapter of his career as among the most enjoyable he has had, built around a company he hopes to turn into a bigger, more competitive name in fitness and active lifestyle goods. Refer to this article for related information.

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