The Transformational Women in Family Business 2024 are 16 accomplished women who are propelling their family enterprises into the future.
LAURA KOHLER
Chief Sustainable Living Officer | Kohler Co. | Kohler, Wis.
When Laura Kohler graduated from high school in Kohler, Wis.— the home of her family business, Kohler Co., a manufacturer of kitchen and bath products — she couldn't wait to leave for Duke University.
“I graduated in a class of 32 people. My mother was on the school board, and my father was running the main company in the small town of 1,200 people,” Kohler says. “I thought, ‘I just need to get out of town.'”
She soon realized, though, that “there's no running and hiding” from a family business: “There were Kohler toilets in every dormitory, and I became the ‘toilet girl' of Duke University,” she says.
It wasn't until after college, graduate school and a few years of work experience that, in her late 20s, she decided to return to the family business.
“As a kid, you don't realize how special something is until you go away for a while,” the fourth-generation family member says. “I finally realized that this was actually a cool thing — not every family had this kind of a heritage, and I could actually add value.”
And so, she embarked on a career with the Kohler Co. that has lasted over 30 years. Today, she is chief sustainable living officer. Her brother David is CEO; her sister doesn't work full-time in the business but is involved in governance along with her siblings.
Her first full-time role was as executive director of the Kohler Foundation, a position that was a good fit for her background in arts and education. She moved from there to a variety of corporate roles, including vice president of public affairs, vice president of communications and head of human resources.
“Being the people leader at the company was transformative: transformative to the company, but also to me as a person — learning how to engage and inspire people to do great things and helping the company attract and retain that talent,” Kohler says. “We grew from 16,000 people in my time as the HR leader to 45,000.”
Over the years in that role, she also oversaw, at various times, corporate social responsibility; sustainability; and diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
“Today I'm incorporating sustainability into everything that we do,” Kohler says, “leading this new mission and brand impact and customer impact work.”
Kohler faced challenges in her career, but she focused on turning them into opportunities. For example, her experience working while raising her three daughters informed her efforts to make the workplace more flexible.
“Motherhood might have been an obstacle in the '90s and early 2000s,” Kohler says. “Today we have a very flexible workplace that serves many kinds of caregiving and lifestyle needs. But in those days, we didn't have that. Because I needed some flexibility, I could see that the women on my team needed flexibility to raise families and work at the same time, and I was able to bring a flexible workplace into Kohler before it was a thing to do.”
Today, she, her siblings and their spouses are trying to create pathways for the 10 children in G5 to engage with the company.
“We want to build a healthy knowledge and respect for the company with the G5s,” she says, “and a feeling that they can all come back and work in their area of capability and passion if they'd like to.”
Ultimately, their goal is to continue to grow the company — and to “be known as a brand that made the world a better place.”
“If we can continue to give back and strengthen the communities where we work and live, and continue to be profitable and grow this brand so it is seen as a net positive brand that has made the world a better place, we all will feel tremendously successful,” Kohler says.