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How three executives mastered their companies' turnaround

By KRIS HUNDLEY
Published March 16, 2006

TAMPA - One executive's company faced near-certain bankruptcy. Another saw his business slip by more than 80 percent in a single year. The third decided inflationary trends were driving his industry toward disaster.

Under pressure, all the executives launched major transformations of their businesses. And at the annual University of Tampa Fellows Forum here, the three - Gevity's Erik Vonk, Christopher Williams of Williams Capital Group, and Humana's Michael B. McCallister - on Tuesday told their tales.

MICHAEL B. MCCALLISTER

The president and chief executive of Humana in Louisville, Ky., said it was evident in 2000 that the health insurance business was in crisis, costs were out of control and there had been a shortage of new ideas since HMOs. So Humana devised a strategy that forces consumers to decide how they are going to spend or save their medical dollars. He put his own company's 19,000 employees on the plan and five years later, Humana's health expenditures are rising less than 4 percent a year. "When we first started talking about these plans, people's eyes would glaze over," said McCallister. "Now the industry is moving toward the idea and we have to stay ahead."

CHRISTOPHER WILLIAMS

He left Lehman Brothers in 1992 to start a financial services firm capitalizing on his expertise in derivatives trading. But when derivatives fell out of favor in 1994, revenues plummeted. Williams responded by adding investment banking, new issue underwriting, trading and a mutual fund. In a crowded market dominated by giants, he has to be big enough to underwrite major deals and nimble enough to snap up opportunities. "Now it is more difficult to distinguish (yourself)," said Williams, who is also on the board of Wal-Mart and Harrah's Entertainment."So the question is, "Are we good enough to compete?' " Since 2000, Williams Capital has been among the top 20 underwriters of U.S. investment grade corporate debt.

ERIK VONK

As chairman and chief executive of Gevity, he pulled off an unlikely turnaround of his nearly bankrupt company when he acquired another struggling business. Now what was once a company that pooled small employers for insurance savings offers a broad range of human resource services to small and midsize businesses. Based in Bradenton, Gevity has 1,000 employees, more than 8,000 client businesses and more than 125,000 client employees across the nation. And since acquiring the HR component in 2002, Gevity's market capitalization has risen to $800-million from $50-million. "We had to make sure our entire organization understood what we were doing and why," Vonk said of Gevity's transformation.

[Last modified March 16, 2006, 02:00:27]