Overview: Mark Penrose
International, trilingual, business professional. Strong leader. Strategic new product, brand and business developer. Start-up driver, top-level negotiator, marketer and business unit director.
IMD EMBA (2009)
Background:
The name of the consultancy is inspired by the reference given to me by Frederic Verwaerde, then Main Board Senior Executive Vice President Sales and Marketing at Groupe SEB. Fred and I first worked together in Black & Decker's European product development and marketing hub. He took me to Black & Decker France to help him rebuild the Accessories Division, recommended my promotion to Marketing Manager of the Power Tools Division and in 2002, invited me to join his cookware business unit at Groupe SEB. I did some of my best innovating with Fred. He is a secure-base-leader, always crystal clear about the objectives to achieve and a man whose yes is yes and whose no is no. It made him a joy to work for.
Background
It was August 2008 when Simon recruited me into Kärcher UK. The Home & Garden consumer division's turnover was 95% driven by Pressure Washers and had seen two product launch failures in the previous two years. Suddenly, the financial crisis happened and parity in the sterling - euro exchange rate plunged us into loss. Simon empowered me to turn the consumer division around and backed its first Pressure Washer TV campaign with the best shoestring budget we could muster. Together we fought our way out of a corner and launched product group after product group. He had me promoted to HQ and I am grateful to him for that and for the fun had in difficult times.
Background
Alfred Kärcher GmbH (the Kärcher HQ), is a family owned Mittelstand company and houshold name in cleaning equipment, based near Stuttgart in Germany. Jörg had recently joined, from Braun, as VP of Product Development and together we made up the sharp-end of Dieter Grajer's divisional, Home & Garden, executive board. We were always very much of like-mind. Jörg is always full of strategic good-sense and our relationship was go-get, daring and full of trust Home & Garden's 33% growth was the fruit of our partnership and we worked side by side on some interesting turnarounds and accelerator projects, notably in Brazil and Japan.