Jim Continenza doesn’t just manage Kodak from the corner office—he’s more likely to be found on the factory floor, sleeves rolled up, asking workers what they need to get the job done. In an era of remote CEOs and corporate detachment, the Eastman Kodak chief executive is betting that a back-to-basics, hands-on approach can rescue one of America’s most iconic—and troubled—manufacturing brands from the brink.
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The Factory Floor CEO
When Continenza leads tours at Kodak’s Rochester facilities, he begins with an unusual request: remove your jackets. It’s not about safety protocols—it’s about breaking down barriers. “You’ve got a lot of companies where most staff have never met the CEOs of these companies—ever—in 30 or 40 years. That is unbelievable to me,” he tells visitors. This philosophy represents a radical departure from Kodak’s storied past, when executives presided from the French-Renaissance-style Kodak Tower that founder George Eastman built in 1914.
The son of a seamstress and a janitor-turned-machinist at 3M, Continenza brings what might be called a “shop floor sensibility” to the C-suite. His career path—stints at AT&T and Lucent, followed by a series of troubled technology company turnarounds—has prepared him for what may be his most challenging assignment yet. At 63, he acknowledges this could be one of his final corporate rescues, telling reporters “when it’s done I’m gone, because then it’s time for that next person to operate it and take it on to the next journey.”
Confronting Kodak’s Bureaucratic Legacy
When Continenza took the helm, he inherited what he describes as “the biggest, smallest complex company” with a “global legacy that will choke you.” The numbers tell a startling story: a post-bankruptcy workforce of 5,000 people managed with 3,800 different job titles. Decision-making was paralyzed by what he calls “Curious Georges”—executives who fought to attend every meeting, “asking questions all the time on something they have nothing to do with.”
Setting up meetings with his 28 direct reports could take days, while divisional heads needed weeks to produce basic customer profitability data. “It was like driving a car blindfold,” Continenza recalls. The contrast with modern tech companies couldn’t be starker—where organizations like Apple and Google pride themselves on lean decision-making structures, Kodak was operating with the bureaucratic bloat of a 20th century industrial behemoth.
His solution has been radical simplification. Continenza has concentrated authority in a small “control group” of seven executives, including veterans from his past turnarounds. “They make the decisions, but we streamline the yeses and nos,” he explains, describing a management philosophy that balances autonomy with accountability.
Navigating Financial Precipices
Kodak’s turnaround is occurring against a backdrop of persistent financial uncertainty. The company’s second quarter accounts contained a statutory warning raising “substantial doubt about Kodak’s ability to continue as a going concern,” triggering a wave of media speculation that exasperated Continenza. He points out that Kodak openly referenced the warning in its earnings press release, and the issue stems from a technical gap between committed financing and obligations rather than immediate insolvency.
The core of Kodak’s financial strategy revolves around a pension reversion—terminating its over-funded defined-benefit pension plan while meeting obligations to members and providing a new plan for current staff. Continenza expects to complete this process by next year, using part of the released surplus to reduce Kodak’s borrowings. It’s a delicate balancing act that requires navigating complex regulatory requirements while maintaining stakeholder confidence.
What makes Kodak’s situation particularly challenging is that the company remains what industry analysts call a “legacy transformation” case—attempting to reinvent itself while carrying the weight of historical obligations that digital-native competitors never faced. As bankruptcy experts note, emerging companies often struggle with exactly this type of “second act” challenge.
Beyond Film: Kodak’s Multi-Legged Strategy
Perhaps the most crucial lesson Continenza has learned from Kodak’s history is the danger of over-dependence on a single product line. The company famously developed a digital camera in the 1970s but failed to capitalize on the technology, instead doubling down on high-margin analog film until it was too late. “That doesn’t make me proud!” Continenza says of touring the George Eastman Museum and seeing innovative products that generated minimal returns. “You spent all this money and monetized very little.”
Today’s Kodak has diversified into three main areas: commercial printing (accounting for $737 million of its $1.04 billion revenues last year), advanced materials and chemicals, and emerging opportunities in pharmaceutical manufacturing. The company is leveraging its expertise in “printing anything on to anything” to develop coatings for batteries, transparent heaters, and antennas for windshields.
Meanwhile, in Rochester’s Eastman Park, a 28,000-square-foot production line registered with the FDA now produces reagents for labs and pharmaceutical manufacturers. The company is even piloting production of one-liter bottles of saline—a surprising diversification that nevertheless builds on Kodak’s chemical expertise. Research revealed that potential buyers already ranked Kodak highly as a trusted supplier, suggesting the iconic red-and-yellow brand still carries weight beyond nostalgic film licensing.
The Cultural Transformation Challenge
Continenza’s leadership style represents what management experts call a “founder’s mentality” in a post-corporate setting. Like many successful turnarounds, the approach combines urgent, hands-on engagement with strategic patience. “I never once worried about the capital funding at AT&T. Boy, I sure in hell do here,” he admits. “We only know distrust. So there’s nothing you can give us that we get upset about. The worse it is, the better I am.”
This resilience may be Kodak’s most valuable asset as it navigates what Continenza estimates will be “two years of execution, strategy and execution around the clock” even after the pension reversion is complete. The company must balance its heritage with innovation, its legacy costs with future investments, and its bureaucratic history with agile decision-making.
What’s particularly notable about Continenza’s approach is how it contrasts with the typical corporate playbook. Rather than importing Silicon Valley management techniques or embracing remote work evangelism, he’s doubling down on physical presence, factory floor visibility, and what might be called “industrial intimacy”—the idea that manufacturing excellence requires leaders who understand production from the ground up.
The Road Ahead
Kodak’s story remains one of the most compelling corporate dramas in American business. The company that once employed blue-collar workers by the tens of thousands now operates with about 4,000 employees worldwide. Yet Continenza’s progress suggests that industrial companies can evolve without completely abandoning their roots.
The ongoing challenges with media perception highlight how difficult it is to change narratives about companies with dramatic downfalls. Every financial disclosure gets scrutinized for signs of imminent collapse, making the steady, unglamorous work of operational improvement harder to communicate.
As one industry observer noted, Kodak’s journey mirrors that of other legacy manufacturers trying to find their footing in a digital economy. The companies that succeed often combine technological innovation with cultural transformation—exactly the dual challenge Continenza has embraced. Whether his “blue-collar CEO” approach can complete one of corporate America’s most dramatic turnarounds remains to be seen, but the early chapters suggest he’s rewriting the playbook for rescuing industrial icons.
