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In a turbulent time when many employees feel more unsupported, undervalued and unsatisfied than ever before, businesses that truly stand out from the rest are those that prioritize their people.
Barry-Wehmiller – a global value-added holding company operating in the industrial and packaging automation, professional services and life science technology sectors – understands this well and has made culture a central part of its operations.
“The world is in a tough place,” says President and CEO Kyle Chapman. “Engagement in business is the lowest it has been in a decade. People don’t feel cared for. Team members would forgo salaries if they could fire their boss. Layoffs are celebrated. Restructurings and realignments are pursued and rewarded.
“I don’t know how many layoffs I’ve read about in the past two weeks in the headlines from all this AI stuff. I mean, it’s 15,000 here, 10,000 there. And so it’s tough.”
Chapman, who joined the company in 2009 and became President in 2020, believes the solution lies in redefining what success in business looks like and in placing people at the heart of it all.
“It’s about human and economic vibrancy existing in harmony,” he enthuses. “We are trying to change the game. How are we proving that? In our four walls, we’re attracting incredible talent. People are leaving other organizations for something bigger than themselves.
“Business owners are interested in us taking care of their team members so that we can help them achieve great success and enhance the legacy of the businesses.”
The business had a humble start in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1885 as a brewing equipment manufacturer. Chapman’s father Bob (now the company’s Chair) stepped into the driver’s seat in 1975 and began reevaluating the company’s objectives.
In 1987, Barry-Wehmiller was reborn after a public offering spun off some international assets and the executive team understood the value of buying distressed businesses and helping them reframe their business models.
“While others were chasing better businesses, my dad was quietly accumulating this platform with his team – turning businesses around, saving communities, saving companies and building a heck of a business,” Chapman explains.
“Before 1987, the company’s history was marked by technological dependency, customer dependency and geographic dependency, and my father said, ‘I want to build a business model that does not have a concentration of customers, markets, products and technologies, and I want to build a diversified business model that can sustain any economic environment.’”
Given acquisitions are the bedrock of the company, and there are continuous opportunities to expand and evolve, Chapman says it’s essential for Barry-Wehmiller to manage processes and integration into the wider organization with sensitivity.
“They are entrusting us,” he explains. “We tend to call acquisitions ‘adoptions’ because we don’t acquire businesses to sell them. Everybody knows we build for the long-term, so we can’t buy something that we think has a five-year runway and then is going to fall off.
“We are building things that must last 20 or 30 years, so that’s a big commitment from our side.”
By being completely transparent with its goals, as well as ensuring a deeply human touch is maintained every step of the way, Barry-Wehmiller has successfully nurtured long-term relationships, resulting in 16 acquisitions in the past 14 months alone.
“We are always asking: Does it contribute to the balance? Is it creating a new product line, a new region, a different price point or a different set of customers so that we continue to build out a diversified but balanced business model that can sustain all economic environments?” Chapman says.
“When you think about the key tenets of our acquisition strategy, we’ve completed over 150. We only invest in what we understand and can add value to. We don’t chase things just because everybody else does.
“That’s fundamental, and we only invest in two business models: highly engineered capital equipment and component manufacturing companies, and complex professional services firms.”
All of these same tenets apply to how Barry-Wehmiller deals with stakeholders and suppliers, too. Through long-standing, transparent relationships with highly trusted partners, such as Lockton insurance brokering company and software specialists Inductive Automation, smooth operations across the entire ecosystem are always guaranteed.
“Over the past five-to-10 years, we’ve really worked on globalizing our supply chain a bit more and being more intentional about it,” Chapman reveals.
“With that said, we still have a relatively local-for-local, region-for-region mindset. And we’ve done that because we have great partners in various areas that we’ve established over many years.
“We are probably in the best shape we’ve ever been in in terms of strengthening our connected collaborative supply chain network, both globally and locally.”
Ensuring balance between the company’s foundational values and the modern demands for innovation, technology like AI, and resilient global supply chains, Barry-Wehmiller has already demonstrated that human and economic vibrancy can coexist in perfect harmony, rather than sacrificing one for the other.
The company’s mission to ‘build a better world through business’ extends far beyond its own operations through an internal university program as well as a leadership consulting arm, the Chapman & Co. Leadership Institute, which counts giants such as American Airlines and Meijer grocery retailer among its clients.
“My father redefined the language of leadership,” Chapman points out. “We use ‘heart count,’ not ‘head count.’ We talk about ‘team members,’ not ‘labor.’ These are terrible words that can define people and dehumanize them so that you can make decisions to restructure or reorganize.
“One of the things that he taught me is, if we can simply find a way to send people home more fulfilled, they’ll be better parents, they’ll be better community members, they’ll be better friends, parents, spouses and kids, and they’ll come back the next day fulfilled, ready to give not only their hands, but also their hearts and their heads, and generate key engagement in our organization.
“We have 12,000 employees. If we can unlock 12,000 engaged team members, there’s no stopping us. The potential is endless.”
Carrying on his father’s pioneering professional legacy, in addition to the company’s 140-year history, is no mean feat, but for Chapman – who has a background in private equity and operating excellence – it is the greatest privilege and joy to lead a business he is so passionate about.
And with the goal of hitting US$6 billion in revenue within seven years as part of his strategic vision for a new era, Chapman is overwhelmingly excited by what this next chapter may hold.
“I wake up every day wanting to prove that we can change the game by redefining what success in business looks like,” he says with a smile.
“People talk about Jack Welch and Larry Bossidy – these leaders who have created unbelievable businesses. My dad’s mindset and what he’s done have every opportunity to be in that same discussion. So what I focus on every day is leading our teams to propel Barry-Wehmiller to its highest levels to create scale and impact that will drive followership and influence.
“I think there’s a real big opportunity for business to play a bigger role in human flourishing. We are truly proving out you can build a better world through business.”
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