I recently caught up with Jim Continenza, the Executive Chairman and CEO of Kodak. We spoke about his decade with Kodak, his love of cooking, and how his approach to cooking and corporate management intersect. Jim shared that he gets his love of cooking from his Italian mother, “My mom was one of the best cooks in the world. Everything was done from scratch, she made her own noodles, her own sausage, everything.” A great cook not only makes great food, they make it out of what is available and without a lot of waste. That focus on leveraging core capabilities to do new things is fundamental to Kodak under Continenza’s leadership. 

Continenza joined Kodak’s Board of Directors in 2013, nearly 6 months before Chairman and CEO, Antonio Perez, announced the company’s emergence from Chapter 11. It wasn’t until 2019 that he was appointed Executive Chairman, following the departure of Jeff Clarke, and a further year until he became CEO. Jim has been called a “turnaround specialist” but emphasizes, “I don’t take businesses down. It’s not what I do. We find the path to reinvent them.” 

Despite taking the reins during the pandemic, Continenza reported on Kodak’s Q4/full year 2022 Earnings call that the company had achieved year-over-year revenue growth for consecutive years for the first time in decades. By contrast, under previous CEOs, revenue declined every year, falling from $2.1 billion in 2014 (following restructuring) to $1.02 billion in 2020. For the full year 2022, revenue rebounded to $1.2 billion. Jim Continenza is a different sort of CEO from his predecessors and appears to have Kodak on a new path. I’m not sure I would call it reinvention, but it is certainly a new recipe for success.

The New Recipe for Kodak

If Kodak were a restaurant, it would not be the “Yes, Chef! No, Chef!” type you see on popular cooking shows. That would be the complete opposite of Jim Continenza’s management style. He expects his team to push back. Jim works closely with his team to figure out how to focus their resources and create new offers based on the core ingredients they have to work with. He calls this “finding the path forward” and, under his leadership, he and his team are forging it together. “We talk to each other,” he said. “We don't focus on hierarchy—anyone can talk to me. We are functional, accountable, measurable, and trackable. And that's how we run the business.” 

It’s important to note that, as one of the largest individual shareholders, Continenza has millions invested in Kodak, and he has never sold any of his shares or taken a cash bonus. He says “I’ve bought into Kodak. Back in 2019; I invested to show I believe in the company and the direction we are going. I spent a solid year in and out of the company and I knew what I saw.” 

He also spends a lot of time in and out of his office – mostly out. Believing that spending time with customers, and on the factory floor, is the way to understand core competencies and match them to customer needs, he goes where people are doing the development work, or using Kodak’s products in the field. Many CEOs talk the talk, but Continenza also walks the walk.

Deciding What to Invest In

Sticking to core competencies is a major theme for Kodak under Continenza’s leadership, but that shouldn’t be confused with a lack of innovation. A lot of different recipes can be made with a few key ingredients. The resulting products can then be sold directly, through distributors, or even used as ready-made components that go into a larger recipe. Kodak is doing all of those things using the core ingredients of printing technology, advanced materials and chemicals.

According to Jim, those are three key areas of strength for Kodak that come with very high barriers to entry. He says, “I like that because it's very difficult for others to come in and beat us.” Then there is the question of what to do with those ingredients in terms of creating new menu items or sticking with the current offers that have made the Kodak brand famous. “I didn’t come in thinking I knew what to do. I came in to evaluate everything and to find a path that uses what we are truly good at,” he said.

Surprisingly, the iconic film segment had been pretty much neglected despite major Hollywood directors who insist that they won’t shoot on anything but Kodak film. “It was running down to the ground and now it's running 4 shifts 7 by 24. We've grown that business dramatically and it's profitable.” Revamping that core market, and the development environment that enables it, has also opened new business opportunities such as coating substrates for electric vehicle (EV) batteries. Film and battery coatings use very similar methods. Outside of the automotive segment, Kodak is using its coating expertise to launch a new KODALUX light-blocking fabrics (e.g., curtains) business. In this instance Kodak will supply both coating services and materials. 

Kodak has also made a strategic investment in the target market for their coating substrates by joining Koch Strategic Platforms (KSP) and Fifth Wall Climate in providing funding for Wildcat Discovery Technologies. Wildcat is developing transformational EV “super cell” technology intended to deliver energy density improvements of 90 percent or more over current state-of-the-art EV batteries. The new battery recipe does not include either nickel or cobalt, improving the sustainability profile while reducing supply-chain risk. Kodak gains a stake in the company as well as an agreement to develop and scale critical substrate coating technologies. In January, BMW Group joined the consortiumwith a JDA.

Also, in the automotive field, Kodak has invested in production of transparent antennas that will be installed in the windshields of vehicles. The antennas are produced by high resolution printing of a catalytic ink followed by electroless plating of copper metal. This high-resolution printing utilizes a Kodak CTP imager to pattern at 12,800 dpi which enables very small printable features and Kodak has achieved printed line widths of 6 microns in its current production line.

In the pharmaceutical field, Kodak has been manufacturing key starting materials for several years. They are currently facilitating expansion by establishing a reagent facility and clean lab to produce reagents for pharmaceutical testing applications, allowing them to profit further along the value chain and provide broader support to their customers.

What’s in Kodak’s Portfolio Now?

During Continenza’s tenure, Kodak has made a number of major inkjet announcements, including the KODAK PROSPER ULTRA 520 press and proprietary KODACHROME Inks which were showcased at Hunkeler Innovation Days in Lucerne in February. Continenza says, “The PROSPER ULTRA 520 Press offers a groundbreaking combination of offset-like quality at speeds two to three times that of competitive presses. “

Printed output from the  KODAK PROSPER ULTRA 520 press

Kodak also launched the KODAK PROSPER 7000 Turbo which Kodak touts as the world’s fastest inkjet press. Designed for monthly print volumes of over 200 million A4 pages, the press offers unmatched printing speeds of up to 410 mpm (1,345 fpm) and a throughput up to 5,523 A4 pages per minute. They serve very different segments of the market and Continenza insists that both are needed, “You don’t tow your boat with a Ferrari. You have to build machines for the right applications.” Kodak also introduced the KODACOLOR Film-to-Fabric Ink System which is compatible with existing direct-to-garment printers further expanding their reach in printing segments.

“Our KODACHROME Inks are the gold standard for color, providing exceptional vibrancy and color consistency thanks to Kodak’s proprietary micromedia milling process,” said Continenza. “This process delivers higher quality prints with brighter, purer colors, and a larger color gamut with less ink laydown.”

Kodak has also continued to invest in offset plate technology such as the SONORA XTRA process free offset plate to deliver contrast, speed and sustainability improvements and the KODAK Mobile CTP Control App that enables unattended, remote monitoring of KODAK CTP solutions. The plate business has huge momentum right now, but Continenza recognizes that there is a fundamental problem with aluminum-based business. “We sell offset plates. We sell a lot of them. We know the resource is a problem. We know the energy cost is a problem. We know smelters are shutting down.” He also notes that there are other major growth applications for aluminum, like electric cars. He says, “Investing in digital inkjet technologies like the Prosper Ultra 520, which delivers offset quality, helps to mitigate the supply and cost risks for Kodak as well as its customers.” 

Going forward, Kodak will prioritize investments in inkjet presses, plates/CTP, software, and advanced materials and chemicals growth over other products in their portfolio, including electrophotographic print technology. Continenza says, “You have to be willing to eat your young, but I’d rather do it in a controlled way. So I will use my digital to replace my plates. The PROSPER Ultra 520 will eat into my plate business and I'm OK with that. We still plan to be leader in plates as long as customers need them.” 

Stocking Up

Due to global economic and supply chain issues, Kodak has had to “stock up” to ensure that they can meet customer demand. Continenza notes that, “It took a year, but now we have inventory. We have safety stock and profits are improving and revenues are growing. It’s a pretty good story from where we come from.” They have also invested in further accelerating growth by establishing distribution partnerships with Graphco and Production Print Solutions for their printing segment.

The Kodak facilities where new products are developed and existing products are manufactured and serviced have also seen major investment. “We are investing heavily in ourselves. We had to reinvent ourselves and it took cash.” He emphasized that three years ago many of the items in their current portfolio didn’t exist or weren’t poised for growth and it will take some time for their investments to demonstrate their full value. He appears very confident that leveraging their core strengths and applying them to new growth markets is the way to go. This strategy has enabled Kodak to swiftly diversify into the growing automotive and energy industries, and expand their pharmaceutical reach, with a combination of raw materials, finished products and services. They are also profiting using their pilot coating facility by teaching other companies how to do large scale manufacturing.  

Kodak finished 2022 with year-over-year increase in gross profit in Q4 and expects to see its investments and diversification start to impact the bottom line in 2023. Jim says, “I want to see our revenue continue to increase, but I want it to be smart revenue. We’re at a point where we need to start generating cash.” He has a lot of reasons to think that they have made good decisions with their investments, but says, “I reserve the right to get smarter. If I get smarter, if we get smarter, we change it.”