New Saint-Gobain CEO Sees Growth Coming From R&D

With a background in research and development, Tom Kinisky plans to put Saint-Gobain in a growth pattern.

Kinisky, who on May 1 took over as president and CEO of the company that recently opened its North American headquarters in an award-winning building near Malvern, is certain the French company can capture more business on this continent.

He takes over for mentor and friend John Crowe, who retired.

“We’ve known each other for 30 years,” Kinisky said last week during an interview at the company’s Moores Road offices that feature 50 of the building products the company sells and which has attracted 18,000 visitors since it opened in October 2015.

Kinisky said his overriding marching orders from the parent company is to grow the North American market.

“North America is underweight in relation to its size,” said Kinisky, noting it makes up only 14 percent of the company’s sales. “The real message from Paris is to grow North America.”

To do that, the company plans to “reignite growth in innovation,” said Kinisky, who recently relocated from Cleveland to Newtown Square for the new job he unofficially started in January.

Kinisky said the growth will come from the full range of Saint-Gobain companies operating in North America, including CertainTeed Corp. (which is also headquartered at the Moores Road property), Saint-Gobain Abrasives, Saint-Gobain ADFORS, Vetrotech Saint-Gobain, Saint-Gobain Glass, SageGlass, Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics, and Saint-Gobain Ceramics. The company’s products include glass, roofing, siding, insulation and gypsum wallboard.

The growth strategy combines increased investments in research and development, employee training and development, talent acquisition, and strategic external acquisitions.

“We put $3 billion in the last five years in research and development and in plant infrastructure,” said Kinisky, 61. “Even during the downturn we were investing. Now, can we use that to accelerate growth is the question. My career started in R&D. In a 40-year career I’ve been in technology, engineering and innovation. I have that reputation inside the group.”

According to a company biography, Kinisky in 1989 joined Norton Co. (which was acquired by Saint-Gobain in 1990). He spent over a decade working in research and development in various roles, including vice president of technology and new business development for the company’s abrasives division, before assuming the role as president for two Saint-Gobain businesses: Saint-Gobain Crystals in 2002 and Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics in 2008.

Kinisky’s most recent position as president of Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics gave him responsibility for over 6,000 employees across 57 manufacturing facilities in 22 countries. Over the course of nearly 10 years, he expanded that business’s offering of innovative materials in markets such as aerospace, transportation, and health care. Today, within the Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics business, one of every two products sold were developed within the last five years.

Kinisky holds a bachelor of science in chemistry from Pace University and a master of science in materials science from New York University (Polytechnic University). He has authored many technical publications and holds five U.S. patents. Throughout his career, Kinisky has been active in technology education as an industrial adviser to the engineering programs at several universities.

As president and CEO of Saint-Gobain Corp., Kinisky is in charge approximately 150 locations with more than 14,000 employees in the U.S. and Canada, where the company had sales of approximately $5.8 billion in 2016. (Worldwide, Saint-Gobain reported $43.3 billion in sales in 2016).

Many of the company’s operations are manufacturing plants, which puts Kinisky in the middle of a much discussed problem in business circles: finding enough employees to do today’s – and tomorrow’s – manufacturing work.

“Finding the talent to do that is my biggest challenge,” he said. “Manufacturing in North America is getting a lot of attention right now – that concern that we might not have enough talent.”

Some 80 percent of manufacturers report a moderate or serious shortage of qualified applicants for skilled and highly-skilled production positions, the National Association of Manufacturers reported.

“We have 132 manufacturing locations in 36 states (and in Canada), so we see a good cross section,” Kinisky said, “and we’re struggling to get enough people to come to work. So It’s our mission to make manufacturing cool again. If we don’t get kids by middle school it’s too late.”

In addition to simply finding enough workers, Kinisky said he needs a diversified workforce.

“That is the only way to get true innovation – to have a diversified group that looks at things differently,” he said. “Tech today is 30 percent women, we want that to be 50 percent. We want different cultures, different races.”

It is hard to work at or visit a Saint-Gobain facility and not be impressed with its history. Founded in 1665 to manufacture glass for the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles in Paris, Saint-Gobain employs more than 170,000 people in 68 countries.

Its products can be found in the Louvre, in the Statue of Liberty and the World Trade Center in New York, and even components in the Mars Rover. In the region, it has products in the Kimmel Center and the Comcast towers in Philadelphia and in most of the suburban office building in the area, Kinisky said.

“For sure, you’ve touched one of our products today,” he told a visitor.