Worcester Business Journal

16 Worcester Business Journal | May 25, 2020 | wbjournal.com P O W E R 5 0 M A N U F A C T U R I N G Ralph D. Crowley Jr. PRESIDENT & CEO POLAR BEVERAGES, WORCESTER Shantanu Gaur CO-FOUNDER & CEO ALLURION, NATICK Stephen MacMillan CHAIRMAN, CEO & PRESIDENT HOLOGIC, MARLBOROUGH Residence: Worcester Colleges: Bowdoin College & Clark University Crowley didn't need the Pawtucket Red Sox to come to town to become one of the city's and region's highest-pro- file and most influential businesspeople. Crowley's family started Polar in 1882, and a consumer shift away from soda and toward seltzer has put the brand on par with Coke and Pepsi in the market. When Polar bought the naming rights for the Sox' new ballpark – Polar Park – and Crowley soon after became a part owner, it all served to cement the team's future standing in Central Massachu- setts. Locally, that makes Crowley and his family a central piece of the area's soon-to-be big attraction. Nationally, on the other hand, Crowley and Polar are a bigger name than ever while fighting against the industry's big boys. Coke has launched its own seltzer line, called Aha, with a similar array of flavors as Polar. In the meantime, Pepsi's Bubly brand has surpassed Polar for the second-biggest seltzer seller behind LaCroix. Sparking water consumption tripled in the five years ending in 2018, so there's plenty of business to go around. But with hometown loyalty, good luck finding an Aha or Bubly in Worcester. What makes Central Mass. unique? The workforce here is unique; there is no better work ethic than in Worcester. We are proud of their output and engagement designing, manufacturing, bottling, and distributing Polar Beverages. He was taught in a land down under: I went to high school in Sydney, Australia. Residence: Dover Colleges: Harvard College, Harvard Medical School Taking on obesity is nearly as insurmountable a challenge as one can get in health care. Allurion is giving it a shot, and Gaur has been leading the company to an aggressive timetable. Allurion chose World Obesity Day in March to announce its plan to treat 40,000 people by the end of the year with the Elipse Balloon, its weight loss product that's ingested, inflated and passed through the body without any need for surgery. The company has developed an app to help further with weight management. Already, Allurion is on the market in Europe, the Middle East and South America, and it's working hard toward winning U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval. With 42% of Americans considered obese by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Allurion has an opportunity to improve or save a lot of lives. Gaur, Allurion's CEO since 2018, is a co-founder of the company with Samuel Levy, a duo who began experimenting with weight-loss devices in their apartment while students at Harvard Medical School. Investors clearly see the potential. Allurion announced last fall when it moved to a large office space it raised $60 million in funding, and then it raised another $34 million in January. Colleges: Davidson College, Harvard University To gauge MacMillan's value to Hologic, look no further than the Marlborough medical device firm's board of directors. It's the board, after all, which voted in 2017 to grant MacMillan a $30-million special retention bonus as it worried other companies were looking to lure him away. A salary doesn't convey power, but it does demonstrate how MacMillan, a veteran of major healthcare product providers Johnson & Johnson and Stryker Corp., turned the company around since becoming its chief executive in 2013. At the time, the company had $4 billion in debt with declining sales and earnings. By 2019, revenue jumped by more than one-third to nearly $3.4 billion and the company grew to more than 6,000 employees. MacMillan's tenure hasn't been without any missteps. In December, the company sold a medical aesthetics division for $205 million – after acquiring it in 2017 for $1.65 billion. But that hasn't stopped MacMillan from making moves. In the last two years, Hologic has acquired the California breast health firm Focal Therapeutics and nearly half of French ultrasound maker SuperSonic Imagine. Hologic has been a big proponent of stock buybacks – popular with shareholders but otherwise controversial – but has also taken more socially conscious stances, including hiring women into key leadership roles, and in April and May developed multiple coronavirus tests to distribute hospital, public health and reference laboratories. Michael F. Mahoney CHAIRMAN & CEO BOSTON SCIENTIFIC, MARLBOROUGH Paul Sellew PRESIDENT & CEO LITTLE LEAF FARMS, LLC, DEVENS Colleges: University of Iowa & Wake Forest University Mahoney has made Boston Scientific into a behemoth by going on an acquisition spree. The Marlborough medical device company has watched its annual revenue jump 50% since Mahoney became president and CEO in 2012, surpassing $10 billion in 2019. A series of purchases was largely responsible for that: a $4-billion deal for British cancer firm BTG and a $465-million acquisition of a California biotech, Vertiflex, last year. Five other deals totaling more than $1.7 billion took place in 2018: the Bedford prostate health firm Augmenix, the Minnesota firm NxThera, and three California firms: Millipede, VENITI and Claret Medical. Boston Scientific did it in part by bucking the trend of stock buybacks. Under Mahoney, Boston Scientific didn't spend a dollar on buybacks from 2015 on. Mahoney had proven himself before rising to the top spot at Boston Scientific, having chaired the medical devices and diagnostics division at Johnson & Johnson, overseeing 50,000 employees and seven franchises. He spent 12 years at General Electric Medical Systems of Illinois and six at Global Healthcare Exchange of Colorado, where he was president and CEO. He has served on the board of the Boys & Girls Club of Boston, chaired the board of governors of the Boston College CEO Club, and sat on the American Heart Association CEO roundtable. Residence: Carlisle College: Cornell Sellew's not the only hydroponics grower in Massachusetts, and it's not his first time finding such success with a startup. Something with Little Leaf Farms has certainly worked, though. Little Leaf, which opened in 2016, has expanded from a 2.5-acre greenhouse to one today spanning 10 acres. Its ability to efficiently – with no pesticides or other chemicals, while using far less water and far less land – churn out lettuce and arugula for grocery stores across New England requires virtually no human interaction until the produce is washed and packaged. The formula has worked so well Little Leaf is building two more greenhouses, each spanning 20 acres, in North Carolina and Pennsylvania. For Sellew, the company has been a combination of his childhood growing up on a farm in Connecticut and the use of technology to grow healthy food not needing to be shipped across the country. It's not the first winning recipe for Sellew, who founded Backyard Farms, a grower and distributor of tomatoes in Maine, and Harvest Power, an organics recycler. What makes Central Mass. unique? We are near major markets with a large consumer population. You have land available to build your business and have access to great people for your employee base. Baller time: I am 6'8" and a former professional basketball player, playing in South America & Europe. Jon Weaver PRESIDENT & CEO MASSACHUSETTS BIOMEDICAL INITIATIVES, WORCESTER Residence: Sturbridge College: Assumption College Weaver had big shoes to fill taking over for Kevin O'Sullivan as president and CEO of biotech incubator MBI at the end of 2018. Anyone thinking MBI, an incubator and industry collaborator, might skip a beat needn't have worried. Weaver, who first came to Worcester to study at Assumption College, was MBI's COO for about three years. He had development experiences at the Worcester Business Development Corp. and MassDevelopment, and used that and the connections MBI built over the years to launch a badly needed expansion. MBI is building a 20,000-square- foot incubator space on Briden Street, a short walk from its location at Gateway Park, giving 19 more suites for startups, along with the shared equipment and industry connections MBI provides. Weaver also plays key roles with the Worcester Regional Research Bureau, the Venture Forum, and the Worcester Student Government Association. What makes Central Mass. unique? Innovation and collaboration are built into the fabric of this community. From our incredible academic institutions, healthcare organizations, industry, and economic development partners, Worcester has great assets and embraces working together towards a brighter future. Mouse gears: My wife and I are huge fans of Disney World (our three kids like it too!)

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