Ladies have their very own distinctive set of challenges within the workforce; the “motherhood penalty” can set them again $500,000, their C-suite illustration is waning, and the gender pay hole has widened once more. One senior govt from $20 billion manufacturing big Kimberly-Clark is aware of the tribulations all too effectively—in spite of everything, she’s one in all few girls within the Fortune 500 who holds the coveted function.
Tamera Fenske is the chief provide chain officer (CSCO) for Kimberly-Clark, who oversees a large world workforce of twenty-two,665 workers—round 58% of the worldwide CPG producer’s workforce. She’s answerable for optimizing the corporate’s complete provide chain, from sourcing uncooked supplies for Kimberly-Clark merchandise together with Kleenex and Huggies, to delivering the ultimate product into prospects’ procuring carts.
It’s a job that’s important to most prime companies working at such a large scale; round 422 of the Fortune 500 have chief provide chain officers, based on a 2025 Spencer Stuart evaluation. Nevertheless, most of those slots are awarded to white males; solely about 18% of executives on this place are girls, and 12% come from underrepresented racial and ethnic backgrounds. It’s one of many C-suite roles with the least feminine illustration, proper subsequent to chief monetary officers, chief working officers, and CEOs.
The truth is, Fenske is one in all round 76 Fortune 500 feminine executives who’ve “chief supply chain officer” on their resumes. Nevertheless, the chief tells Fortune it’s an unlucky truth she “doesn’t think about” too usually—if something, it motivates her additional.
“Anytime someone tells me I can’t do something, it makes me want to work that much harder to prove them wrong,” Fenske says.
The primary time Fenske observed she was one in all few girls within the room
Fenske has spent her complete life navigating topics dominated by males—one thing she didn’t even take into account till faculty.
Her grandpa, aunt, uncles, and brother all labored for Dow Chemical, so she grew up in a STEM-heavy family. Naturally, she leaned into math and science as effectively, ultimately pursuing a bachelor’s in environmental chemical engineering at Michigan Technological College. It was there that her eyes first opened to the fact that she was one in all few girls within the room.
“It definitely was going to Michigan Tech, where I first realized the disparity,” Fenske stated, including that there was round an eight-to-one male-to-female ratio. “As you continue through the higher levels and the grades, it becomes even tighter, especially as you get into your specialized engineering.”
As soon as becoming a member of the world of labor, it wasn’t solely Fenske who observed the shortage of ladies in senior roles—some bosses would even level it out.
The Fortune 500 boss is paying it ahead—for each women and men
After Fenske graduated from Michigan Tech, she obtained her begin at $91 billion producer 3M: a multinational conglomerate producing all the pieces from pads of Publish-It notes to rolls of Scotch tape. Fenske was first employed as an environmental engineer in 2000. Promotion after promotion got here, however some folks appeared to deal with her gender.
“It would come to light when I moved relatively quickly through the ranks. Some of my bosses would say, ‘You’re the age of my daughter,’ and different things like that. ‘You’re the first woman that’s had this role at this plant or in this division,’” Fenske recollects. Over the course of twenty years, she rose by way of the corporate’s ranks to the SVP of 3M’s U.S. and Canada manufacturing and provide chain.
And anytime she was requested about her gender? She’d flip the questions again at them whereas standing her floor. “I would always try to spin it a little bit and ask them questions like, ‘Okay, so what is your daughter doing?’…I always try to seek to understand where they are coming from, but then also reinforce what brought me to where I am.”
Now, three years into her present stint as Kimberly-Clark’s CSCO, the 47-year-old is paying it again—however not simply to the ladies following in her footsteps.
“I never saw myself as necessarily a big, ground-breaker pioneer, even though the statistics would tell you I was,” Fenske says. “I tried to give back to women and men, to be honest. Because I think men [are] one of the strongest advocates for women as well. So I think we have to teach both how to have that equal lens and diverse perspective.”
