Tennant Company Announces Senior Leadership Updates

Tennant Company announced it has made changes to its senior leadership team to support its enterprise growth strategy. Barb Balinski will provide dedicated executive oversight to the company’s business process transformation initiative as the company’s Senior Vice President, Chief Transformation Officer; while Pat Schottler will move into a new role focused on product innovation and disruptive technologies as the company’s Senior Vice President, Chief Marketing and Technology Officer.

Balinski has served as Tennant’s Chief Innovation and Technology Officer (CI&TO) since 2021, leading the company’s R&D, Marketing, and IT functions. In 2023, the company kicked off a significant initiative to consolidate and modernize its business processes through an organization-wide SAP conversion.

“Focused executive oversight of this transformative work is critical to its success, so earlier this year Tennant made the decision to split the CI&TO role to allow her to focus her time,” according to a press release. “With the newly created role of Chief Marketing and Technology Officer now filled, Balinski will complete her transition to the role of SVP, Chief Transformation Officer, where she will be tasked with working cross-functionally to guide execution, drive alignment, and maintain momentum throughout this crucial initiative.

“Balinski joined Tennant Company in 2018. She initially led the R&D function, overseeing the successful development of the company’s autonomous robot program and developing a pipeline of new innovations. In 2021, she joined the senior leadership team, and has maintained responsibility for R&D, Marketing and IT functions as the company has undertaken work to focus and leverage its product portfolio, expand offerings in key markets and segments, and expand robotics offerings.”

Prior to working at Tennant, Balinski led the engineering team at Whirlpool Corporation’s Integrated Business Units and spent 11 years with Saturn Corporation, a subsidiary of General Motors.

The newly created role of Chief Marketing and Technology Officer will be tasked with delivering growth through disciplined management of the company’s growing portfolio of brands, its innovation pipeline, holistic product lifecycle management, and focused oversight of Tennant’s disruptive technologies. The company has chosen Pat Schottler, currently Tennant’s Vice President, Marketing, to fill this new role.

Schottler joined Tennant Company in 2011 after 11 years at Honeywell. Before joining Tennant’s Asia-Pacific business as Director of Business Development and Strategy, he held leadership roles in new product development and program management. In 2017, he assumed leadership of the APAC business, a role he held for five years before assuming responsibility for the company’s global marketing and product development functions in late 2022.

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