More than ever before, supply chains are becoming a critical point of differentiation for organisations as they compete to navigate an increasingly complex and challenging landscape. Nowhere is this more true than in the consumer health sector, where businesses are working constantly to navigate external volatility. Previously reliable methods for predicting demand and disruption don’t work like they used to; everything moves faster now, and often in unexpected directions.
For an organisation like Kenvue — the world’s largest pure-play consumer health company by revenue, and maker of iconic brands like Neutrogena®, Listerine®, Aveeno® and Tylenol® — orchestrating one of the world’s largest consumer health supply chains in 2025 means being “more nimble than ever before, and ready to act quickly when an inflection point occurs,” according to Michael Altman, Kenvue’s Head of Global Strategic Initiatives.
Formerly a division of Johnson & Johnson, Kenvue became an independent company in May 2023, effecting a sweeping operational transformation to capitalise on its singular consumer health-focused scope, as well as meet new and ongoing challenges in the marketplace.
Alongside the increasingly widespread external unpredictability that has come to define the consumer health market — the signs of which, Altman notes, were present even before the pandemic — many of the sector’s largest companies have been undergoing their own internal transformation. Kenvue isn’t the only consumer health organisation to strike out on its own in recent years. A series of large-scale carve outs have radically altered the landscape, as the sector’s biggest players have separated from parent organisations, forming dedicated consumer healthcare organisations increasingly differentiated by their emphasis on agility, speed-to-market, and resilience.
Since the separation, Altman’s role has focused on transferring operations from Johnson & Johnson to Kenvue’s internal and external sites and adapting Kenvue’s supply chain network to grow the company’s Self Care segment, which includes widely popular over-the-counter medicines.
We sat down with Altman to learn more about the process of repositioning a multi-billion-dollar supply chain to not only operate independently in a post-pandemic world, but leverage that independence to both navigate the increased uncertainty in the market with increased resilience, and to seize new opportunities for value creation through innovative supply chain management.
Meeting Disruption with Agility
The COVID-19 pandemic was a major disruption for companies in all sectors, including the pharmaceutical and consumer health spaces.
Overnight, businesses were forced to contend with radical shifts in consumer demand while at the same time facing profound disruptions to their supply chains. Kenvue (then Johnson & Johnson’s Consumer Health division), responded by rapidly accelerating manufacturing investments, expanding and automating key processes, and modifying its product offerings.
“We revisited where we were producing products and assessed the resiliency of our upstream raw materials,” says Altman, adding that the company also moved to smaller count sizes to increase product availability and simplify production. In partnership with its suppliers, the company quickly assessed capacities and capabilities, extending its reach to upstream suppliers, and activating alternative qualified sources to spread demand and reduce out-of-stock risk.
Click here to read the full story in the latest issue of CPO Strategy.
