Born in Los Angeles, California, Mr. Madrid received his bachelor's degree in Finance from Florida State University. He joined Kimberly-Clark in Miami, Florida, in 1992 as a sales representative. Mr. Madrid held various sales positions in the field until he was promoted to Business Manager in 1997. He became Manager of Global Business Development in 1999 and Director of Sales for the Western U. S. later that year. Mr. Madrid was appointed Director of Paper Distribution in 2001, General Manager North America KCP Sales in 2003,Vice President – KCP North American Sales in 2005 and Vice President – KCP EMEA Workplace business in 2008. Mr. Madrid assumed his current role in July 2010. He currently works at Kimberly-Clark in Roswell, Georgia. He and his wife, Laura, have two children.
Sanjiv Bhaskar: How do you define leadership from your perspective?
Gil Madrid: One is being accountable, which is fundamental from my perspective. You must take accountability for your results and be accountable for the actions that you expect from yourself, your colleagues and your team. The second important tenet is transparency. We try to create an environment of transparency so that everybody is engaged, not afraid to speak up, and willing to challenge the direction that we are taking the business - challenge us to perhaps think more aggressively about what we could be doing in the business. The third basic tenet would be the notion of setting and accepting stretch objectives - don't become comfortable with achieving the objective and think about what stretch your team can achieve! So it is a combination of being accountable; being transparent with your colleagues, peers, and team; and thinking stretch objective as opposed accepting mediocrity.
