Dive Brief:
- Clorox CISO Amy Bogac left the company this week after two years in the role, Bloomberg was the first to report.
- Chau Banks, the company’s SVP and chief information and data officer, is set to step in on an interim basis, according to the report. Clorox did not respond to a request for comment prior to publication.
- The C-suite shuffle comes months after a cyberattack damaged Clorox’s IT infrastructure and led to widespread disruption of operations. Bogac previously led several companies’ IT security teams in her career, serving as director of global IT security operations at Kellogg and director of security operations at Walgreens, according to her LinkedIn profile.
Dive Insight:
After the company identified unauthorized activity in August, it took certain systems offline and implemented manual ordering and processing procedures at a reduced rate of operations, according to its Q1 2024 filing in November. The incident and subsequent actions delayed order processing and led to significant product outages, resulting in a negative impact on net sales and earnings.
“While we’re not yet back to normal, we are now on a solid path to operational recovery, but this will take some time,” CEO Linda Rendle said during the company’s Q1 FY24 call at the beginning of the month, according to a MarketBeat transcript.
As the company navigates the near-term aftermath of the attack, it is focusing on several strategies to rebuild margins, including through its above-historical levels of IT spending in digital transformation, according to Rendle.
The company first unveiled a five-year, $500 million plan to accelerate digital transformation across the company in 2021 and began executing in 2022. More than two-thirds of the investment supports the multiyear, phased roll-out of a new ERP system, and the rest is going to the implementation of complementary technologies, a streamlined operating model and supply chain optimization.
“What we are doing now is going through … and ensuring any learnings we had over the last couple of months, we’re integrating into it,” Rendle said in the November call.
Rendle said the company is thinking through the “broad set” of tools and capabilities the company needs to put in place to be effective and efficient, which includes beefing up cybersecurity measures.
