Kontoor Brands CEO Scott Baxter joined High Point University President Nido Qubein in the Power List interview,a partnership for discussions with influential leaders. The interview was edited for clarity.
Scott Baxter grew up in Sylvania, Ohio, where his father worked at a distribution center and his mother was a waitress. As a sophomore at the University of Toledo, Baxter realized the great opportunities available for a business career. After earning his MBA at Northwestern University, he spent 10 years in sales and marketing jobs at Nestle, then worked for PepsiCo and Home Depot before joining Greensboro-based VF in 2007. He was leading the company’s North Face and Timberland brands when the company split in 2019, taking those two highly touted brands to a new headquarters in Denver. Baxter stayed put, taking charge of a spinoff company based in Greensboro that is a dominant jeans maker. Surprising investors, Kontoor’s shares have doubled over the past five years, while VF’s declined 70%.
Everybody knows the names of the Wrangler and Lee jeans brands. Now you are the president, CEO and chair of the board of Kontoor Brands. Where did that name come from?
It came about six years ago when we spun off from the parent company that we were part of. We needed to have our own identity. We previously had a corporate owner, VF Corp. in Greensboro. We were staying in North Carolina, and we needed our own name, so we hired an outside firm to help us do that. After about six months of searching, painful searching, because every name in this universe is taken, we finally found a name.
It’s a funny play on the word contour with the K, because I’m telling you, everywhere you go, every name is taken. We are in about 70 countries, and we found that so many of the names were taken. We had to come up with something, and so Kontoor is the mother company for Wrangler and Lee.
What is the difference between the brands?
There’s not much of a difference. They’re both men’s and women’s and children’s denim brands. They do shirts, jackets and the full ensemble of apparel. They are both big global brands. Wrangler does have an affinity and affiliation with cowboy culture because it was created in 1947 in Greensboro as a cowboy brand.
It was part of Hudson Overall Co., which has been in Greensboro since 1904. They made the first Wrangler product right in Greensboro.
Do you mean that Konroor sells in 70 countries?
Yes, and we manufacture in a couple of countries, and then we source in about 20 others. We own part of our manufacturing, specifically in Mexico. We have about 15,000 employees globally, with about 1,200 in Greensboro, and then about 450 in Mocksville, our closest distribution center.
When I think about clothing, I think about fashion that changes with the times and gets trendy. But what about jeans?
It’s really interesting. We have jeans that cost $19.99 for some of our customers, and we have jeans that cost $300 for some of our customers. There’s a lot of difference. There’s embellishment, there’s style, there’s fabric. All of those things come into play. The design of the product, and the fabric that we source to make it all come into play with the cost of the product.
Is it more expensive because it carries the name of some famous person?
It’s always Wrangler or Lee, but it’s more expensive because we might use a really tough fabric to get, and we put a lot of embellishment into it, the pocket decoration, the snaps, buttons, all those things you see.
Who’s your competition?
Levi’s is our main competitor in some of the verticals. American Eagle would be a competitor, along with Gap and Old Navy. They source their jeans and just put their name on it. We’re really the only denim company left in the world that makes our own product anymore. We make about 40% of our product in Mexico, but we’re about the only one left. Everybody else sources.
Sometimes I see those jeans that have lots of holes in them, and they cost more money?
They most certainly do, because it’s the trend and it’s the style that created this concept. Yes, we have designed more holes. This is like bathing suits, less fabric, more expensive. We have a whole design team that travels the world, they’ll go to Rome, they’ll go to New York City, they’ll go to Paris and see what people want, what people are wearing. They’ll do focus groups, they’ll do studies, they’ll catch on to things. Sometimes people do things on their own, and those things catch on throughout the globe.
How many different styles of jeans can one have?
We have thousands, based on size, weight, and different fabrics. Some of them we don’t make anymore, but they’re in our archives, through history and years. And we’ll bring those back occasionally as retro pieces.
How did you get your start in business?
I had several offers while I was at [Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management] from companies that came in and interviewed. I took an offer from Nestle, the Switzerland-based food company. They had a global management program in which they brought in about 24 every year from around the world. I was fortunate to be one of them, and that’s where I worked for the first 10 years. I was in sales and marketing.
How long have you been with Kontoor and its former owner?
I started with VF in 2007 and my last position (before the spinoff) was group president. I had brands like The North Face and Vans and Timberland all reporting to me.
Did the recession of 2008-09 have a major impact on your business?
It most certainly did. Those years and the pandemic were the two toughest times in my career. You know, things shrunk dramatically. You have to take action when they do. The consumer was nervous and afraid. That’s a big disruption.
Financial markets were tight. Lending was tight. So it was really difficult all the way around.
When I look back before that, things operated fairly smoothly. You’d have a little recession. We’d pop out of it, we’d move along. Things didn’t move as they do today. The world we live in today, the last five years, if you think about the disruption in supply chain, the pandemic, work from home, bringing people back, which has been a significant challenge for a lot of CEOs.
Those things didn’t happen in the past. It’s something new all the time now.
What challenges Scott Baxter? You must be under a lot of pressure all the time to perform at a certain level of excellence and results.
It’s every day. It’s every weekend. It’s every holiday. There is no time off. People say, how was your weekend? Well, you know, most weekends involve a lot of work. Or what did you do last night? Well, I got three phone calls because there were three issues, you know, so it’s constant. If you’re running a global business, it becomes even more difficult relative to the timelines and times and time zones.
If you’re the CEO of a big company and a public company, you worry about your people. The best that you can do is have really good people that can help mitigate those issues. The one thing I’ve learned in this job is everyone is looking for you to make that final decision, to assimilate all the data that comes in, and then make a decision to give everybody the relief that a decision is made.
And I’ve learned through time that experience really matters. I’ve been in this job now for almost six years, and I’ve gotten better at it every year for the very simple reason that I’ve been through those examples. And every time you go through, you learn a little bit more. Some of the challenges don’t change that much.
I never see you stressed or out of control. What do you do? Is it a certain vitamin you take or do you drink fine wine? Give us your secret.
I think my employees look for me to be under control, and I always try to take it a little level up from an upbeat standpoint. If I come into the office and I’m in a bad mood, it sets a tone that’s terrible. But if I come in, even or up every day and everybody knows it’s going to be all right, we’re going to figure this out together. I think that’s the tone that we need to set as leaders.
How does your experience as a Lowe’s Cos. board member and formerly a director at Topgolf Callaway Brands, help make you a better leader?
It’s very healthy to be exposed to other leaders who have similar issues, and then to be exposed to all the ongoings in that world. The governance piece is also really foundational to see how another company handles all of their issues with their board and their outside consultants. It’s really, really interesting and very helpful for us.
Are there habits or characteristics or traits that have worked really well for you, and are there prerequisites for excellence in leadership in this ever-changing global marketplace?
It’s the attitude you come in with every day. Everyone around you is going to figure out how quickly you have the right attitude. You don’t have to be Pollyanna at all. But you have to attack every issue and every opportunity with a good attitude. You see that there are a lot of people that don’t attack the day like that, and it really becomes problematic over a career.
And you have to put the work in. Don’t do the self-promotion piece. We know who the good workers are. We know who the smart people are. We’re experienced. We can see it.
I also tell my son this too. Half of life is showing up. Show up on time. That’s a big stickler of mine. Good things are going to happen. Give a little bit more and people will notice.
What disappoints you about associates who may work with you or have worked with you?
It’s the blame. We’ve all had trials and the people who can’t rise above that. They always blame the company. They blame other people in the department. They blame this, that and the other thing rather than owning it, get through it, measure up and fix it yourself.
I also think of civil discourse. I’m a little worried about how we’re behaving as a society at large. There was a time if you and I had a difference on something, it was fine. We’d have a great discussion. I respect your opinions. You’d respect mine, and we’d leave and shake hands with each other. Social media hasn’t helped. I don’t think people know how to talk because they can hide behind a cellphone.
Looking toward the future, what turns you on about life, about work, about further accomplishment.
I leave the office every day to go home to have dinner with my family. I prioritize that. Those are the kind of things that are really important to me. But I’m the first guy at the office in the morning, and then I work every night. If you’re going to take this job, you have to do that.
But I prioritize. Those are the things that get me excited. There’s very, very little time. So I’m a little protective of the free time that I do have. ■