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CEO PROFILE / STAN BERGMAN
Henry Schein’s Stan Bergman: Acing Acquisitions Drilling down on a dental supply company’s transformation strategy. By Jennifer Pellet
THE CHALLENGE: You are named CEO of a family-owned dental distribution business after the death of its leader, your mentor. The family has hived off a profitable pharmaceutical division and tasked you and a team of young, untested executives with building up its remaining distribution business and taking it public within five years.
THE BACKSTORY: Founded in the back of a soda shop in 1932, Henry Schein was the brainchild of its namesake, a Columbia 16 / CHIEFEXECUTIVE.NET / JULY/AUGUST 2016
University College of Pharmacy graduate who had the bright idea of selling medical supplies to doctors by mail order. After the company moved into dental supplies in the 1960s, that business took off, accounting for about 12 percent of the U.S. dental-supplies market and $225 million in revenue by the time Stan Bergman was named CEO in 1989. However, fierce competition from thousands of hungry competitors, all offering equivalent products at similar or lower prices, was putting pressure on prices and driving mar-