Kathy Elkey, chief commercial officer at Illinois-based specialty product contract manufacturer PLZ, didn’t begin her career in the aerosols and chemical business.

Elkey spent much of her career in the food business, or as she puts it, “in all segments of the grocery store,” before eventually joining PLZ in 2019. Still, with experience in several sectors, including chemicals and food manufacturing,  she’s gathered key insights about how to improve operations with technology.

PLZ focuses on specialty contract manufacturing, including branded and private label products. The company produces common household items such as glass cleaners and cooking spray. 

Elkey has experience in sales, regulation and compliance, ESG and research and development, and since joining Conagra back in 2007,  has picked up lessons on how to successfully deploy a wide range of technology in manufacturing and other processes. At the same time, she’s also developed a flexible leadership style.

“You need to figure out who you are as a leader, but you also have to be adaptable in your leadership style,” Elkey said. “You have to be able to make sure that you are thoughtful about what is the common interest [or] common goal that you can bring this team together with — and use that as your base to drive the group where you need them to go.” 

Before joining PLZ, Elkey worked at Conagra, which operates several prominent food brands, including frozen products and condiments like Hunt’s and Healthy Choice. She started as a business development manager in 2007 and eventually rose to vice president of customer strategy. She later worked at TreeHouse Foods as a go-to-market integration lead and then a vice president and general manager. At TreeHouse Foods, Elkey worked on sales training, business development and private label strategy.  

TreeHouse Foods ultimately acquired a large share of Conagra’s private-label operations. That experience, Elkey said, gave her familiarity with the challenges of merging two businesses in the manufacturing space. Two companies might be making the same product, she noted, but with entirely distinct strategies. 

“Where we used to be competitors, we[‘re] now we're bringing it together as one team,” Elkey said. “How did we want to look as one company moving forward?...That was some of the work that I did from a strategy perspective on the integration side, in particular around sales and how we were going to approach our customers.”

At PLZ, which operates 16 manufacturing facilities in states including California, Massachusetts and Missouri, Elkey now focuses on the aerosol and liquids business, where she’s pivoted her focus to the more technical research and development processes involved in the sector, as well as on the company’s contract manufacturing efforts. For instance, focusing on the efficacy of a glass spray product requires understanding the “foaming action” created by that spray. 

Still, a key undercurrent of her and PLZ’s strategy is looking for ways to strategically deploy technology, in big and small ways, into the company’s operations.

“She uses technology to improve us internally but also to help differentiate us with our customers,” said Jessica Nolan, SVP, chief human resources officer and general counsel at PLZ. 

PLZ has invested heavily in automation to drive efficiency and boost capacity. At the company’s plant in St. Clair, Missouri, PLZ has invested in a manufacturing line that requires only a limited amount of human intervention. New orders flow directly into the line, which is designed to handle filling and packaging — and even put together cardboard boxes. 

The system has helped accelerate growth, according to the company, and also helps ensure that products meet customer specifications.  The system, for instance, has automated quality features, and helps improve capacity.  

Elkey has also looked at more modest applications of technology, too, including making improvements to websites and integrating AI where appropriate. Even deploying bots in smaller ways can be helpful, like looking for methods to import data to reduce the chance of human error, she says.

One major example is PLZ’s portal for its customers, which functions similar to an Amazon shop, according to Nolan. This system allows people to access their invoices, access their customer information and track orders from placement to shipment. 

“I would look first at the things that are the most mundane,” Elkey said. “Whether that is back office data entry. . . or those things that your customers are looking to be self-service.”

As she leads PLZ’s team in implementing these new tech innovations, Elkey said she remains focused on how to bring people together. 

“You may think that you know what their common goal is when you may not,” says Elkey. “It's asking those probing questions, digging deeper to understand truly where their head is, so that you can then bring them together as one.”