NACDS welcomes new board chairman, former Joint Chiefs chairman at Annual Meeting
The second and final Business Program of the NACDS Annual Meeting on Tuesday saw a changing of the guard as Hy-Vee chairman, president and CEO Randy Edeker handed over the chairmanship of NACDS’ board of directors to H-E-B chief merchant and CFO Martin Otto. After Edeker presented Otto the gavel, he was given a plaque by Otto on behalf of the NACDS board.
After thanking NACDS CEO Steve Anderson and his team, the board of directors, and NACDS members, Otto gave background on H-E-B, the Texas-based retailer that began over 100 years ago. He also offered reasoning for why he joined NACDS.
“Health and wellness seem to occupy and increasing amount of my time every single day and every single week —between pharmacy products we sell and activities we're involved in,” Otto said. “For that reason, NACDS is the right organization for us as a company to be very actively involved with. Health care for our nation is such an opportunity and to hopefully be able to be part of the solution to some of the problems that we face is an attractive opportunity.”
Otto then launched into an overview of the challenges facing the healthcare system and the solutions that NACDS seeks to create in the space, focusing on the organization’s creation of a supplier-retailer market place, advocacy for pharmacy and leading when it comes to improving cost of healthcare and access to it. These efforts all combat the rising cost of providing healthcare to a country with a primary care shortage and increasing rates of obesity. Otto noted the importance of understanding this from an industry standpoint.
“My perspective is simply as a business person who needs to manage health care costs, as a retailer who’s seeking to drive the pharmacy business and as a concerned citizen who wants to understand this better,” Otto said. “So in that context I think it’s worth every one of us knowing as much as we can about this picture as possible and starting to understand the details where good points of view can be formed.”
Chairing the Business Program was Johnson and Johnson Consumer VP U.S. customer development David Pothast, who discussed the important role of the brick-and-mortar store, not that even as e-commerce grows, nothing can replace the ability for a customer to try a product in-person and the physical store’s ability to deliver on patients’ healthcare needs in a new and evolving healthcare eco-system.
“[Our business] is really about solutions — making a space to find them, create them and then better serve our shopper and patient,” he said. “It's about being there in those moments that matter most to our patients. At J&J we changed how we think about delivering care. As an industry we must continue to change how we think to better serve our patients.”
Closing out the program was retired U.S. Army General Martin Dempsey, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who discussed some of the largest foreign policy issues facing the United States, including Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, the continued fight against terrorism and global organized crime. He also reflected on his 40-year military career. He shared with the audience how following memorial services for soldiers killed in the line of duty, he came to tell the remaining members of their ranks to “make it matter,” and he emphasized three attributes of leadership: expertise, humility and courage.
“Courage comes in two forms — physical … and moral. I would describe that as leading under intense scrutiny … and the degree to which you remain consistent to your moral compass, whatever that moral compass happens to be. … And if your moral compass is either invisible or is constantly spinning...those who work for you are not going to know what to make of you.”