Membership: Member Interviews
Roy Gentles
(Interview continued from e-mail newsletter.)
| Q. |
Of what business achievement are you most proud? |
| A. |
I think I'm most proud of how we used other,
global Alcan facilities and made acquisitions to get
off to a flying start and grow the business. When I took
over sales, we were $800MM, and by time we left, sales
were $2.3B. Early on in that growth, we were out of capacity
in a lot of lines. For instance, we ran out of capacity
here in the States for supplying can sheet for soft drinks.
But, there was capacity in other Alcan group companies,
and we were able to use that to keep sales growing. We
also made a big acquisition of Atlantic Richfield and
brought on five plants.
Overall, being CEO down here in Cleveland was the
most fun. It's nice to be able to get some of
your own ideas to work, and this gave me that opportunity.
I had a great team. |
| Q. |
In general, is there a notable difference between CEOs
today versus twenty or thirty years ago? |
| A. |
I think compensation has gotten way out of whack.
Also, we've had some people recently who haven't
had any integrity. But, overall, it seems to me that
CEOs have the same responsibilities as they had back
in my day, which is leadership. And the qualifications
for leadership are the same today as they were back
then, namely: integrity; skill at delegating, and then
providing authority to the people you delegate to;
good vision with plans for achieving goals; good communicator
with effective system for communicating; decisive;
and effective at monitoring the entire system.
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| Q. |
How do you remain involved with the business world? |
| A. |
When I retired in 1985, I started a retirement office
with some other former executives. Between Brad Jones
(former CEO of Republic Steel), Al Whitehouse (former
CEO of Sohio), and Julien McCall (former CEO of National
City Bank), we're a very cohesive group, but we
each do our individual things. I spend most of my time
on my investments. |
| Q. |
Any investments advice for club members? |
| A. |
I don't make recommendations, but the company
I've invested in is Hummer
Whole Health, right
here in town, and I think it's about to break loose.
Jim Hummer (also an HBS alumnus) is a very good friend
of mine. We met when we were on the boards of a couple
not-for-profit organizations: Town Hall Cleveland
and the Golden Age Centers. When he became the chairman
of Golden Age Centers, I told him if he ever needed more
money in his venture to let me know. I didn't hear
anything for a while. And then two or three years later
he said he needed to raise more money for Hummer Whole
Health.
"How much?" I said.
"Seven million dollars," he said.
"You're a little out of my league," I
said.
But I believed in it, and so I invested and helped
put together a group to provide a portion of the funding.
It's a great company.
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