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C R A I N ’ S D E T R O I T B U S I N E S S // J U N E 2 7 , 2 0 1 6
Gemphire delays IPO PIERCE over uncertainty When I started as a teller, I was in pre-med Wayne State, so, no I didn’t plan on caused by Brexit ata career in banking. I grew up poor, FROM PAGE 3
through Wayne State University?
By Tom Henderson thenderson@crain.com
The initial public offering for Northville-based Gemphire Therapeutics Inc., which had been scheduled for the Nasdaq Stock Exchange last Thursday, is now likely to happen sometime this week, according to the website iposcoop.com. Company officials declined to comment because of a quiet period mandated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, but it is believed the company decided to delay the offering over market uncertainty about Thursday’s vote by British citizens over whether to leave the European Union. Despite late polling that showed the “stay” vote ahead, the “leave” side ended up winning by a 52 percent-48 percent vote, leaving markets in turmoil around the world. A posting on the Nasdaq website last week said Gemphire planned to start trading on the Nasdaq Global Exchange under the symbol GEMP. It was offering 3.75 million shares, which were expected to begin trading in a range of $11-$13 and give the IPO a range of $41.25 million to $48.75 million. Gemphire wants to market a cardiovascular drug called gemcabene to lower levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, the so-called bad cholesterol, and of triglycerides, the main constituent of fat in the body. The drug, which was licensed from Pfizer Inc. in 2011, has been tested alone and in combination with other drugs in 895 subjects in 17 phase one and phase two U.S. Food and Drug Administration trials.
and I knew the only way out of poverty was education. I had no money, I was on grants and scholarships, and when I realized how long it was going to take in pre-med and what it was going to cost, I thought I’d look at what I could graduate from in four years. I started taking business classes my junior year, and I loved them. Q: There weren’t many women in executive positions in banking in those days. When you graduated, were you ambitious enough to be thinking about being in management one day? When I gradu-
ated, I wanted to stay at NBD, and I applied for the management training program. I was denied. The recruiter told me I’d never make it in management because I was too nice. I was devastated. I went home. After a couple of days, my mother told me I needed to pick myself up and get back down there and tell them they needed me. That’s when I was accepted into the marketing division at NBD. I was driven. When I was in marketing, I looked at top management, and it was all white men and all commercial lenders. I couldn’t do anything about my gender, but I could do something about commercial lending, so I went back to Wayne State and got a master’s degree in finance and moved into the commercial lending program.
Q: You were the youngest of 10 kids and the first one to go to college. You’ve told me before about working in your parents’ bar in Detroit even after you got out of college. Let me tell you a story. As I
was moving up the ranks in commercial lending, I never liked telling people about my background, but I
never talked about it either because my peers at the bank all came from more privileged backgrounds. I thought if people knew about my background, I wouldn’t move up as quickly. After I made senior vice president at age 37, I realized that I was able to get to that level because of my background, not despite it. I’m proud of my story. Q: What were your parents’ names, and what was the name of the bar they owned? Nick and Helen, and it was the Chene-Adele bar in Detroit, near
I-94. When the city used eminent domain to build the Poletown plant, they bought a tavern in a Polish neighborhood in Wyandotte. After I graduated from Wayne State, I’d still work there on weekends and nights if they needed help. And every Sunday, my siblings and my husband and I would clean the bar for them, until they died 22 years ago.
Q: When did you first hear that Huntington was going to buy FirstMerit? It
was in January, just before they announced it publicly. They really played it close to the vest, between the CEOs, the lead directors and the outside board members. I was in Akron when Paul Greig, our CEO, called me and the other vice chairman into his office and informed us. The first thing was shock. We just looked at each other, and I teared up a bit that there was going to be such a change. When he said Huntington, I couldn’t believe it, it couldn't have been better. If I had been part of this process, I would have put Huntington at the top of the list. I knew how strong we were and how strong Huntington was. We both understand the Midwest. We both understand manufacturing. The fit was incredibly aligned. It’s going to be good for Michigan.
Q: When did you first hear from Stephen Steinour, Huntington’s chairman and CEO, that there was a job for you?
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NON-PROFITS Roxanne L. Brinkerhoff
Chief Operating Officer Girl Scouts of Southeastern Michigan
PROFESSIONAL SERVICES Shelby Medina
Vice President of Sales and Business Development
Roxanne Brinkerhoff has joined Girl Scouts of Southeastern Michigan as Chief Operating Officer. Brinkerhoff was Senior Director of The Guidance Center in the downriver area and has more than 15 years administrative and organizational leadership experience.
Steve and I have known each other for years. He was president of RBS Citizens in the U.S., and I began reporting to him in 2005, after Citizens bought Charter One. He called me as soon as the announcement was made. We didn’t talk about me, we talked about how great it was that these two organizations were coming together. When we met in person shortly after, we agreed it wasn’t going to be about me, but about how many FirstMerit executives I knew who would be a good fit for the new organization. Fifteen senior executives at FirstMerit were offered contracts by Huntington, and 15 accepted. We didn’t start talking about Sandy Pierce until two months ago. Q: You’e on so many boards around town — Henry Ford Health System, Business Leaders for Michigan, the Detroit Regional Chamber and the Detroit Economic Club, just to name a few. I read in the Crain’s profile of you in the recent section on the 100 Most Influential Women that you have been riding your son’s hoverboard. Between the demands of work and of all those boards, where do you find time for a work-life balance that includes hoverboards? Balance? I don’t
use that word. There’s no such thing as balancing it. You integrate every part of your life, whether it’s kids, grandkids, spouse, work and church. When my 31-year-old daughter, Megan, and my 29-year-old daughter, Jessica, were young, I used to overpromise them. I’d try to do too much and have meltdowns in my younger career days. Now, I make sure the circle is finite. I make choices, and I never overpromise anymore. I tell Tommy, “I can’t make your basketball game Thursday night, but I’ll take off half a day Friday and we can do something.” Some weeks, it’s heavy, heavy work. Some weeks, it’s heavier family than work. Tom Henderson: (313) 446-0337 Twitter: @TomHenderson2
NON-PROFITS Karen L. Murphy
Chief Development Officer Girl Scouts of Southeastern Michigan Karen Murphy joined Girl Scouts of Southeastern Michigan as Chief Development Officer. She was previously with McLaren Oakland Hospital Foundation. She has 25 years of experience in all areas of fund development including annual giving, planned giving, and capital campaigns.
G-TECH Services, Inc. Medina is currently at the helm of an aggressive diversification strategy for securing new retail clients and direct hire business. She will also manage the growth of the firm’s Illinois and Texas sales teams and will spearhead sales planning and execution strategies to continue G-TECH’s expansion into new markets. Medina formally served as G-TECH’s Director of Business Development and before that, as Sales Manager and Senior Business Development Manager for Volt Workforce Solutions.
PEOPLE ON THE MOVE provides an opportunity
to announce the selection, promotion, appointment, leadership or role responsibility expansion of an employee, colleague or team member across industries and sectors. For more information or questions regarding advertising in this section, please call Lynn Calcaterra at (313) 446-6086 or email: lcalcaterra@crain.com
PEOPLE: SPOTLIGHT
Morris named president of Beaumont Royal Oak Rosanna Morris has been named president of 1,070-bed Beaumont Hospital in
Royal Oak. She replaces Shane Cerone, who
Rosanna Morris
left earlier to become a consultant with Van
Conway and Partners LLC.
Morris, who is expected to start at Beaumont in late summer, was recruited from Nebraska Medicine, a twohospital system in Omaha with a 600-physician faculty practice plan, where she has served in a series of executive positions since 2008, most recently as the system’s interim CEO. Nebraska Medicine is part of University HealthSystem Consortium, of which eight-hospital Beaumont Health is a member.
Dall becomes MotorCity’s permanent president MotorCity Casino Hotel in Detroit has named its interim president, Bruce Dall, to the permanent post. Dall had been named interim president in February. Bruce Dall As CFO of MotorCity, and previously senior vice president of finance and administration, Dall has more than 28 years in the casino industry. He was assistant general manager and CFO of Detroit’s Greektown Casino-Hotel for seven years.
Arborlight names McCorquodale as CEO Ann Arbor-based Arborlight LLC, a University of Michigan
spinoff that produces LED lighting systems for daylight emulation, has named Michael McCorquodale as CEO. McCorquodale returns to Michigan from Silicon Valley. A UM spinoff he founded in 2003, Mobius Microsystems Inc., a maker of tiny clocking devices for the silicon-chip industry, moved from Detroit to Sunnyvale, Calif., in 2007. Mobius was later acquired by Integrated Device Technology. He was then co-founder and COO of e-SENS, which made instruments to test for chemicals in water, and CEO of Cortera Neurotechnologies, a medical-device startup.