Former Chairman, President & Chief Executive Officer, Goodyear Tire Rubber
Search every verified Richard Kramer interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. During a February 2020 earnings call, Kramer stated that Goodyear was seeing a positive trend in price versus raw materials, particularly in the United States, and that working capital initiatives drove a more than 40% increase in cash flow from operations during the quarter. He acknowledged that the company's results in 2019 were affected by a challenging industry environment and said he was not happy with how the business performed, but expressed confidence in the company's ability to deliver higher segment operating income margins. Kramer also noted that Goodyear was strengthening its distribution in the region by focusing on select full-service distributors, a strategy he said had worked in the past in the U.S. He highlighted the company's work capitalizing on the shift to electric vehicles, stating that 25% of planned fitments were for electric or hybrid vehicles. In a 2018 presentation at John Carroll University, Kramer discussed his career path, noting that he started in public accounting and became a partner at PwC before being recruited by Goodyear to lead its finance organization. He described taking the risk to join the company, moving through seven positions in ten years to become CFO and then CEO. Kramer emphasized the importance of balancing short-term results with building capabilities for the future, saying, "You can't burn the furniture to deliver results now because if you don't build for the future, you'll have short-term results and you'll be dead down the road."
“Advancements in new mobility present the single most significant opportunity in the last 50 years for Tier one tire companies like Goodyear to create competitive advantage and further distinguish ourselves from low-end opening price point companies.”
“Our lack of progress in distribution has resulted in unstable volume and reduced our value proposition in the marketplace despite a leading product portfolio. This year we're proactively strengthening our distribution in the region, focusing our efforts on developing a select number of full-service distributors that ha...”
“We are forecasting raw material costs to be approximately flat excluding the impact of transactional foreign currency as higher non feedstock costs are expected to offset the benefit of lower commodity costs. We expect the benefit of these increases to be largely offset by lower prices we plan capital expenditures of a...”
“We are expecting our own volume to be down a couple of million units in a relatively flat industry and most of that drop coming in Asia-Pacific. We're expecting our OE volume to be down a couple of million units in a relatively flat industry and most of that drop coming in Asia-Pacific and there's a specific risk of up...”
JCU Men's Soccer Recruit Day Guest Speaker: Richard Kramer, CEO & President, The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company
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