Arsen Kitch once ran the business that Clearwater Paper would sell for $1.06 billion. Before he became chief executive, he was responsible for its consumer products division, the operation making private label tissue for retailers. In November 2024, under his leadership, that business went to Sofidel America. A substantial part of his own route to the corner office left the company with it.
There is a useful wrinkle in that sequence. Executives spend years building expertise, relationships and authority around a particular operation. Eventually, some must decide whether the operation still belongs. Kitch had reached that point. The sale sent Clearwater toward paperboard packaging, and it made his tenure a test of a very specific judgment: where should a paper company put its money?
From Spokane, Washington, Kitch leads a manufacturer whose products tend to disappear into other people’s work. Converters turn paperboard into packaging for consumer goods and food service. Few shoppers need to know who supplied the board. For the person running the mill, however, every difference in cost, quality and delivery matters. The humble carton comes with a surprisingly demanding job description.
An apprenticeship in the numbers
Kitch’s route into that world passed through consumer products and finance. He held positions at Frito-Lay, KKR Capstone and Nestlé USA, where he was a finance director, before joining Clearwater in 2013. His education combined a business administration degree from the University of California, Berkeley, with an MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.
At Clearwater, he arrived as senior director of strategy and planning. He subsequently served as vice president of financial planning and analysis and vice president of finance, then moved into leadership of consumer products in 2018. His progression put him on both sides of a recurring industrial argument: what looks sensible in a financial plan, and what a factory can actually deliver.
The board elected him to succeed Linda Massman effective April 1, 2020. Alexander Toeldte, the board chair, emphasized Kitch’s familiarity with the company and experience across operations, finance and corporate development. This was an internal succession, with an incoming chief who had spent seven years learning the organization.
In his opening message to shareholders, Kitch presented two reasons for optimism. Paperboard could benefit from a shift away from plastics; private label tissue could benefit from consumers moving away from brands. Both businesses had a place in that initial account of the future. The later decision to concentrate on one makes more sense when that starting point is remembered.
Two paper businesses, two sets of rules
By March 2023, Kitch was describing Clearwater at an investor conference as two businesses with roughly $1 billion in annual revenue apiece. Their earnings contributions differed sharply: paperboard had provided about three-quarters of the previous year’s EBITDA, the earnings measure before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. Similar sales totals concealed different economics.
A year later, at a Bank of America conference, he explained the tissue problem in terms of bargaining power. A small number of retailers accounted for much of private label purchasing, while manufacturers were more fragmented. He argued that consolidation was needed to support long-term investment. Clearwater was prepared to participate as either buyer or seller.
The tissue operation was performing well, he said. That distinction matters: selling a business need not mean giving up on a broken one. For Kitch, the question was how ownership and scale fit the next stage. His public explanation treated the portfolio as something management could change, even when the individual pieces were working.
Asked about the relationship he wanted with independent packaging converters, he supplied an unusually compact description: “We will be their mills.” The sentence places Clearwater in a supporting role. Its customers would do the converting; his company would provide the material, service and product development that helped them compete.
“We will be their mills.”
Arsen Kitch · February 2024
The year the portfolio changed shape
The first large move came on May 1, 2024, when Clearwater completed the acquisition of Graphic Packaging’s Augusta, Georgia, paperboard operation. The announced price was $700 million before customary adjustments. Clearwater’s closing disclosure put the initial payment, including inventory and other adjustments, at approximately $710.6 million.
Augusta brought a different scale to the plan. Clearwater later said the acquisition increased paperboard capacity by nearly 75% and improved its North American geographic footprint. A mill is a local physical asset with consequences far beyond its gates: where it sits influences how efficiently a supplier can reach customers. For Kitch, the purchase gave the packaging strategy a much larger manufacturing base.
Then came the exit. The tissue sale closed on November 1, 2024, at $1.06 billion, subject to customary adjustments. Clearwater used approximately $850 million of net proceeds to repay debt. Acquisition and divestment together changed the company’s balance sheet and the work it would spend the following years trying to improve.
The two headline prices are easy to set beside each other and easy to misread. They represent separate transactions, with adjustments, taxes and other consequences. Subtracting one from the other would produce a tidy number and a rather untidy explanation. The meaningful change was in what Clearwater owned and where it intended to invest.
Announced price before adjustments
Value at closing, subject to adjustments
A customer promise acquires more materials
Concentration on packaging still left room to broaden the product range. In July 2026, Clearwater introduced Circa, a coated recycled paperboard line developed with Greenpaper. It added a recycled option alongside Clearwater’s solid bleached sulfate, or SBS, portfolio. The launch included grades for folding cartons and carriers.
Greenpaper, based in Monterrey, Mexico, supplies the manufacturing capabilities for the collaboration. Clearwater contributes its customer reach, support and service. Circa is made from 100% recycled fiber. The arrangement expands the offering through a partner, giving the strategy another route besides purchasing a mill.
For Kitch, the declared purpose was to serve a wider range of customer needs. That is a more practical ambition than simply making more tons of the same material. A converter may need different boards for different applications, and a supplier with a broader offering has more ways to participate in its work. The choice of materials becomes part of the relationship.
His connections extend into the institutions around that supply chain. He serves on the Sustainable Forestry Initiative’s board, representing economic interests within a structure that also gives environmental and social sectors equal voting power. The American Forest & Paper Association named him first vice chair among its 2026 officers. These positions place him in discussions about the industry beyond Clearwater’s own mills.
The awkward arithmetic of a downturn
The results have kept the story from becoming a simple victory lap. In his 2025 shareholder letter, Kitch described a company cutting costs to cope with a difficult market. Clearwater eliminated approximately 250 positions and reported more than $50 million in savings during the year. It reduced operational fixed costs by more than 10%. Behind those percentages were jobs and smaller teams.
The second quarter of 2026 brought another difficult comparison. Paperboard sales volumes rose 8% from a year earlier, yet net sales fell to $375 million from $392 million. Average net selling prices declined 9%. Selling more material could not fully compensate for receiving less per ton. The market had supplied an arithmetic lesson that no efficiency slogan could cancel.
Clearwater reported a $21 million loss from continuing operations for the quarter. A planned major maintenance outage at Lewiston, Idaho, cost $22 million directly. At Cypress Bend, Arkansas, restructuring reduced roughly 20% of roles, with annual savings expected at $8 million to $12 million. Those expected savings remained a forecast, while the restructuring was already part of the operating record.
Kitch pointed to early improvement in industry conditions while keeping attention on costs, execution and announced price increases. His problem was now more exposed: having chosen a focused packaging company, he had to demonstrate its ability to operate through a weak pricing cycle. The acquisition announcement had a date. Proving the economics would take longer.
More board. Less revenue.
The forest belongs in the calculation
Kitch’s packaging argument also depends on how the material is made. Clearwater’s September 2026 sustainability update reported a 6% improvement in water intake intensity during 2025 and a goal of a 10% reduction by 2030. Intensity describes resource use relative to production; it should be read with that qualification attached.
The company also brought Augusta into its greenhouse gas reporting and obtained Biodegradable Products Institute compostable certification at its Lewiston and Cypress Bend mills covering most folding carton and food service grades. Early in 2026, it launched Velora, a lightweight paperboard option. These are specific changes in measurement and products, with boundaries that matter as much as their names.
His colleagues outside the company offer a glimpse of how he works. SFI chief executive Kathy Abusow has credited his respect for different voices and collaborative approach. That is an attributed assessment, and a useful one in an industry where a chief executive’s decisions connect manufacturers, customers, forest interests and the communities around the mills.
A longer runway, with work still to do
In September 2026, Kitch returned to a familiar subject: financing. Clearwater arranged a $275 million term loan and a $200 million revolving credit facility, replacing existing notes and facilities. The new agreement runs to September 18, 2031. About $15 million of the revolver was outstanding at closing.
“This refinancing extends our debt maturities and provides greater certainty as we execute our long-term strategy,” he said. It was a statement about time and funding. Neither makes paperboard prices rise, but both affect how a company can carry out its plans while waiting for better conditions.
By October, Kitch’s record contained a clear sequence: finance executive, division operator, chief executive, buyer of a paperboard mill and seller of the tissue operation he once led. The sequence gives the story its interest. His expertise in a business did not bind the company to owning it forever.
The remaining test is wonderfully unceremonious. Customers need board that performs, mills need investment, and the company needs returns that justify the money already committed. Kitch has chosen the business in which he wants to meet that test. The next verdict will arrive in orders, production and cash, one ordinary package at a time.