Mike McCranie

Mike  McCranie is a well-respected transformational leader who develops a vision for the future, establishes a strategic framework for significant success, and unites teams to a common purpose. With more than 20 years of business performance and technical leadership experience, Mike has consistently delivered significant and measurable bottom-line results and has been continuously rewarded with new challenges and opportunities. An expert in aligning IT strategy with organizational vision and objectives, Mike drives change and achieves goals by interpreting the voice of the customer, hiring and developing top-performing teams, focusing on continuous improvement, and creating strategic channels, partnerships, programs, and processes.

Early in his career, Mike worked as a Programmer Analyst for Thomaston Mills, Inc. (an industrial textile manufacturer).

Recognized as a high-potential employee, Mike was invited to join Kimberly-Clark Corporation, a leading health and hygiene company with more than 60,000 employees in 37 countries and sales totaling $21.2B in 2012. Starting as a Consultant in 1999, Mike demonstrated exceptional IT leadership capabilities while driving many major initiatives around the globe.

In 2008, Mike assumed the role of Divisional CIO, and was accountable for all aspects of IT for the $1.6B Kimberly-Clark Health Care business and was responsible for aligning business strategy with the Corporate IT function. Leveraging his broad-based technical expertise, astute business acumen, and excellent communication skills, Mike served as a valuable resource to senior-level executives, assisting in shaping, growing, and strengthening the business by providing strategic guidance toward implementing best-in-breed systems solutions.

Additionally, Mike was tapped to lead a multi-year, $20M+ implementation of critical components in relation to the $100M+ North American SAP ERP implementation. The scope of his accountabilities included managing internal and outsourced resources (onshore and offshore), organizational change management, and strategy for key user training. Under his direction, the organization avoided $95M in costs (all businesses) over the first three years by reducing customer attrition, improving customer penetration, and improving product mix.

Over the next period, from 2011 to 2013, Mike’s career took another leap forward, as he advanced to Divisional CIO for Kimberly-Clark Professional, again being accountable for all aspects of IT for this $3.2B business.  Among his numerous accomplishments, the most notable was leading a global implementation of Salesforce.com, exceeding expectations by achieving full implementation within 1.5 years covering all of Asia, Europe, South America, and North America. Mike demonstrated a keen understanding of the relationship between technology and supply chain processes by identifying cost savings opportunities of $43M, reducing costs and streamlining processes while improving bottom-line profitability.

Prior to leaving Kimberly-Clark, Mike served as the Global Leader of Information Technology Transformation. Under new CIO leadership, he accepted the challenge to transform the landscape, flexibility, and strategic strength of the Kimberly-Clark Information Technology organization. Leading a cross-functional team, Mike achieved significant progress in meeting the objectives of freeing up $30M out of a $340M IT budget, redesigning the organizational structure, simplifying key processes, and building an ecosystem to facilitate technology innovation.

In 2014, Mike assumed the role of Vice President and Chief Information Officer of Thomas & Betts, a $2B global industrial manufacturer of electrical, mechanical and utility products. During his tenure at Thomas & Betts, Mike launched and executed a change agenda focused on delivering with excellence, cost control, and designing and implementing an overall target operating model inclusive of Thomas & Betts integration of business systems, people and processes into the parent company, the ABB Group. He reduced the IT “run” cost through streamlining operations and infrastructure, implemented proper portfolio and project management practices, introduced an enterprise architecture practice, as well as adjusting the organization to reflect the new focus on the demand, business alignment, and planning side of IT.

In 2016, Mike assumed the role of Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer of Serta Simmons Bedding, a $3.5B bedding manufacturer. In this turnaround scenario, Mike has significantly increased the stability of the IT systems, optimized costs, added process & rigor to a previously chaotic model, all while garnering support from the Board of Directors & Private Equity ownership for an overall IT Transformation plan (multi-million-dollar investments for ERP, eCommerce, CRM, Supply & Demand Planning, and HCM).

Throughout a rapidly changing industry, Mike is recognized as a highly regarded IT thought leader who demonstrates passion, courage, and conviction and takes necessary steps to think ahead of the game. His leadership skills, business acumen, ability to successfully negotiate with vendors and partners, and comfort level in working across global organizations are all strengths that he has consistently demonstrated.

With a continual focus on personal development Mike is actively involved in several CIO networks and is mentored by Carl Wilson (retired CIO of Marriott) as well as Ramon Baez (retired Global CIO of Hewlett Packard).

Deeply committed to family and community, Mike and his wife, Kim, have two children and they reside in the Roswell, Georgia area.