Maria Henry
Chief Financial Officer at Kimberly-Clark
Yeah. I think we do expect gross margin progress versus pre-pandemic level to happen faster than on the operating profit line for the investment reasons that we talked about before, but we are expecting to have progress. We're not expecting to be back to pre-pandemic levels. So -- but the actions that we've taken for the environment that we're in and that we think we're going to be in during this year, as those materialize through the P&L during the course of the year, I think we're going to be on a good path if the environment is what we think it is today, which we know that it won't be because it's too difficult to predict, especially with the volatility. But if it were, if I was able to hold that constant, I think we'd be on a good glide path. But I'd say that recognizing with the volatility, I just -- it's too difficult to call what the environment will look like and exactly when those margins will hit the pre-pandemic levels. But, again, we're taking all the right actions in the business to do that. And we talk a lot about margin, which we're very focused on because we're focused on the overall health of the financial structure of the company, so it's appropriate.
I would call out a few things, though, that what -- getting back to Jason's question, what generates the cash, so that we can provide healthy returns with actual dollars. So, when we look at operating profit growth, that's very important. And I think it's worth noting a few things. First, on margin recovery, we'll get there faster on consumer than we will on professional because professional -- today, we had a cost structure that was built for a business that's larger than what it's producing today. And so, there's a misalignment between the revenue of the business and the cost structure of the business. We'll get that corrected, but that will take some time. So, the margin recovery will come faster on consumer. But then going to the profit dollars, I call out in 2021, consumer tissue, for all the reasons that we've talked about, that was 75% of the operating profit decline. So, there were very specific dynamics that caused it. It was the big driver of the profit decline. But if you look at our personal care business, which is half of our company, strong growth, strong market shares. It actually grew operating profit in the fourth quarter. It also grew in the third quarter. So, the second half of the year, the personal care segment, which is very healthy, is actually growing operating profit. And in the near-term, I'll take the dollars, recognizing in the long-term I have to get the margin structure to the right place. So, just thought I'd give a little bit more color by segment there.