Yahoo Finance Clorox CEO: COVID-19 pandemic has forever changed the world of cleaning
Yahoo Finance’s Brian Sozzi spoke with Clorox CEO Benno Dorer, after he announced yesterday that he is stepping down and will be replaced by Linda Rendle.
Video transcript
ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: I want to go inside the C-suite now and take a deeper look at Clorox. The company was out yesterday with earnings that blew past expectations as it continues to thrive during the coronavirus pandemic as we run out to buy those cleaning supplies, but it also announced that it is changing its CEO and that Dorer-- Benno Dorer is going to be stepping down to be replaced by Clorox's president, Linda Rendle. This now brings the number of S&P 500-- Fortune 500 companies with a woman at the top to 38.
Brian Sozzi had a chance to catch up with Dorer via the phone I believe, right, Brian, yesterday unless it was a video. I don't know.
BRIAN SOZZI: No.
ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: What did he have to tell you?
BRIAN SOZZI: No Zoom call, Alexis. Yeah, it was just a late-night call. You know, Benno is someone I've gotten to know ever since he took over almost six years ago. Really gotten to understand how he thinks about leadership and growing the company.
No red flags there with this leadership. He tells me he has carefully groomed Rendle over the past few years to ultimately take over this position. And if you look at some of the notes that have come out on Wall Street this morning, most if not all think this will be a very seamless transition, which is reflective of how seriously Clorox takes CEO succession.
Dorer told me when he started as CEO in November 2014, that first board meeting in November, they actually started talking about his successor, which is always weird to hear that. You just took over as CEO. Now you're talking about a successor. But nonetheless, no big red flags there with leadership.
We did talk about the pandemic, and the stock did get hit, Alexis, yesterday on what some saw as a conservative outlook. This is what Benno and his team have historically done though, put out conservative outlooks, ultimately beating that.
And I think the main takeaways here is that there is going to be a lot of cleaning-product demand for the foreseeable future, and it's hard to think that that type of outlook won't prove conservative. We continue to stockpile our cupboards with cleaning products, and rightfully so.
