Employee Profile
Karen Whitaker
Vice President, Operations
Karen has spent 18 years at Evermark Brands, building a career that has taken her from planning and scheduling into senior operations leadership. Today, she oversees teams and systems across the business, bringing a practical, people-focused approach to improving how work gets done.
The Organization
Evermark Brands
A global consumer goods company headquartered in Cincinnati, designing, manufacturing, and distributing products for the home, workplace, and outdoors.
The Conversation
Inside the Work
What drew you to operations, and what did you learn about yourself?
I kind of backed into operations. I started closer to planning and scheduling, and I kept finding myself wanting to go out to the floor and see why something was late instead of just looking at the report. I realized pretty quickly that I like being where the decisions actually affect the work.
When did you know you wanted to lead at a higher level?
There was a period when we were having a lot of trouble on one of our lines. I wasn’t the person in charge, but I was pulling people together, working through the issues, talking with maintenance, quality, scheduling, everybody. After that, I thought, I can do this. I actually like being the person who has to bring all the pieces together.
What is one of the biggest lessons you’ve learned as a leader?
Not to walk into a room assuming I already know the problem. I’ve done that before, and I’ve been wrong. Sometimes the person running the equipment has known for three weeks exactly what was going on, and nobody had really stopped to ask them.
What are you most proud of in your career at Evermark?
A few years ago we had a major expansion here in Cincinnati, and there were a lot of moving parts. New equipment, new people, new processes, and plenty of headaches. Getting that operation up and running was probably the hardest thing I’ve done here. When we finally got to the point where it was running the way we knew it could, yeah, I was proud of that.
“When you can actually see the difference, that never gets old.”
What part of the work still excites you?
I still like walking into a plant and seeing something working better than it did six months ago. A line that used to struggle, a team that has found its rhythm, somebody who was new and nervous now training somebody else. I notice those things. When you can actually see the difference, that never gets old.
What do you value most in the people you work with?
People who will tell you the truth. I don’t need everybody agreeing with me. If something isn’t working, tell me. If I’m missing something, tell me. I’d rather have that conversation early than find out later after it’s become a much bigger problem.
What have you learned from the people closest to the day-to-day work?
That the small stuff usually isn’t small. A five-minute delay here, a change in how a machine sounds, a step in the process that everybody has learned to work around. The people doing the job every day see that stuff long before it shows up in a report.
How has your leadership style changed over time?
I was much more hands-on when I was younger. Probably too hands-on. I wanted to fix everything myself. Now I try to ask more questions and give people room to work through it. Sometimes the best thing I can do is not jump in too fast.
What do you hope people feel about the role they play at Evermark?
I hope they can see where their work goes. If you’re standing on a line making one component all day, it can feel pretty far removed from the finished product. But somebody is buying that product, using it in their house, taking it camping, using it at work. I think it matters to connect those dots.
What gives you confidence in Evermark’s future?
We’ve got people who have been here twenty or thirty years, and we’ve got people who have been here six months and are asking why we do things a certain way. I like that mix. The experienced people know what can go wrong, and the newer people aren’t afraid to question things. We need both.
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