CLEVELAND, Ohio – Heidi Petz, who will take over Jan. 1 as chief executive officer of paint giant Sherwin-Williams, is clear about the company’s direction going forward, but less so when it comes to how employees will adapt to the company’s new downtown Cleveland headquarters still under construction.
“Everything is done very thoughtfully and very deliberately,” Petz said during a joint interview with current Sherwin-Williams CEO John Morikis. “We’ve got a lot of experienced leaders, but I think what’s important is we’re also able to adapt to the market. So the last few years, there was a lot of turbulence in terms of the pandemic and supply chain challenges and whole host of issues that we faced on top of it.
“We certainly don’t have a crystal ball when it comes to talent, the workforce and where all that’s going,” Petz said. “We did a lot of thinking from a capacity standpoint because we’ve been growing so much. But also, we wanted to create a world-class environment because we want them to have the very best place to work, retaining the very best people. So, we’ll always have some level of flexibility.
The pair added that the safety measures have also been possible through collaboration with city officials.