YKK Corp. of America, based in Marietta, has seen its territory expand this week to include a new continent.
The subsidiary of the Japanese zipper and architectural products company has always run the company’s 11 Western Hemisphere operating companies from Canada to Colombia, but the group’s area expanded this week to Brazil, Argentina and Chile as part of a broader corporate restructuring.
The new YKK Americas Group will add five operating companies in the three countries, with a combined 2,400 additional employees. Jim Reed, president of YKK Corp. of America, will run the new group, reporting to the global president in Tokyo. John Smith, president of YKK (U.S.A.) Inc., was promoted to leader of the YKK Americas Fastening Business.
“The YKK Americas Group is committed to solving the most complex fastening and attaching challenges for our customers,” Mr. Reed said in a news release. “This reorganization will help us leverage our regional engineering expertise, integrated production capabilities and regulatory compliance to solve our customers’ problems quickly in a sustainable way.”
YKK is undergoing a company-wide reorganization aimed at improving the customer experience and enhancing sustainability across the 72 countries where it operates.
It’s investing 2.5 billion yen ($23 million) in digitization, including by launching a digital planning department, a digital showroom and a Technology Innovation Center devoted to new product development. Another $23 million will be spent to double down on a long-term sustainability plan, emphasizing energy-saving technologies including solar-power generation and eco-friendly products like the Natulon zipper made from post-consumer recycled plastic.
The 87-year-old company will also focus on human rights and diversity, the final of five pillars of its Sustainability Vision 2050, which aims to address 10 of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Read a commentary from Mr. Reed about the company’s long-term vision for sustainability, its Georgia experience and how the goal fits in with founder Tadao Yoshida’s Cycle of Goodness: Corporate Sustainability: Fad or Fundamental? YKK’s Georgia Experience
Mr. Reed is also a speaker at an upcoming Global Atlanta event: Transforming the Triangle: Georgia’s Role in Central American Migration and Prosperity
