Kimberly Clark
Chief Procurement Officer
Sylvia Wilks joined Kimberly-Clark in 2016 as Vice President, Global Procurement, and Chief Procurement Officer. In this role, she is responsible for purchasing all indirect and direct materials worldwide, managing supplier relationships to deliver growth and innovation, and implementing key sourcing strategies and initiatives that drive value creation across the company’s supply chain.
Sylvia joined Kimberly-Clark after 15 years with Starbucks. She most recently served as Vice President, Global Procurement, and was responsible for the strategic sourcing and supplier relationships for all direct materials in the food and beverage, packaging, tea and contract manufacturing categories. Prior to this role, Sylvia held various leadership positions in Starbucks around Europe and North America in manufacturing, continuous improvement, international supply chain operations, and contract manufacturing. She also built and operated the only Starbucks manufacturing facility in Europe, and started up the first green-field instant coffee plant to be built in North America in half a century. Additionally, Sylvia has a passion for mentoring and building talent, and served as the executive lead to foster formal supply chain education for Starbucks employees through Arizona State University.
Sylvia has experience in reducing operating costs, improving productivity and manufacturing capacity, and implementing cross-functional change management initiatives. She began her career managing food processing plant operations in the U.K., before spending the next 13 years leading end to end supply chain operations in public and private food manufacturing companies servicing the major U.K. grocery multiples.
Sylvia graduated with a Bachelors in Engineering from The University of Hull in England. She also serves as Executive Sponsor of Kimberly-Clark’s Employee Resource Group, PRIDE. She resides in Atlanta, Georgia, with her partner.