Mark Goldstein recently became chief executive officer of Actuant Corp., a $1.3 billion global diversified industrial company based in Menomonee Falls. BizTimes associate editor Molly Dill sat down with Goldstein to learn about his leadership style and goals for the company. The following are excerpts from that interview.
BizTimes: You’re now focusing on the industrial, energy and engineered solutions sectors. What is your outlook for each of those segments?
Goldstein: “On the Industrial side, we’re looking at that 3 to 5 percent growth over the course of the year. The Industrial is mainly the Enerpac business. It’s mainly high-force hydraulic. Engineered Solutions is more position motion control and air flow and drive line technology, and that’s really coming up from a low point last year. It’s going to grow about 6 to 8 percent this year. We’re seeing about 1 to 3 percent growth in the Energy business.”
BizTimes: There’s been a lot of talk in the manufacturing industry about re-shoring. Are you seeing that at all among your customers?
Goldstein: “When you’re a global company you have to manufacture wherever your market is, and that’s what we tend to do. I don’t see that as a deliberate strategy that we’re taking or our customers are demanding. They just want quality, service and delivery to meet their expectations.”
BizTimes: What is your overall assessment of American manufacturing right now?
Goldstein: “There’s been a big move over the past several years on productivity improvement. That’s why I think your new normal on unemployment is going to be in that 6.5 percent range because from a productivity standpoint we’ve improved productivity and improved lean manufacturing techniques and there isn’t a need to have as many people on board.
“After going through the recession and having to lay off about 20 to 25 percent of our workforce during that period of time, because of that phenomenon, I think companies are much more deliberate and selective in who they hire and what type of training and experience is provided.
“The PMI index and other industrial indicators are showing favorable growth, but I think many businesses, us included, are not seeing the same kind of growth and orders coming in.”
BizTimes: Former Actuant CEO Bob Arzbaecher was a really competent, bright and capable leader. What kind of leadership style can we expect from you?
Goldstein: “Bob has a financial background. I come at it from more of a sales, marketing and operational background, so we have a little different perspective on things. I’m a little bit more process-oriented, so as our aspirations are to double our business every five years, as you get to that point you’ve got to more effectively leverage your infrastructure in order to scale the business. One of the challenges that we have is to balance the entrepreneurial culture that we have as we get larger, so we’re still nimble, we can still respond quickly to our customers, and people still feel they can make a difference in the organization. I would categorize myself as collaborative in the way I work.”
BizTimes: What are the first priorities for you as you move into the CEO role?
Goldstein: “The first is really to align everybody on our vision and strategic direction. There’s certain areas we’re going to accelerate as we move from more of a holding company with a lot of autonomous units to more of an operating company that leverages scale and infrastructure to help us grow to the next level. That was important to communicate that on a global scale. Second was to make sure you have the right structure and the right team in place, and I’m really pleased with the team that I have.”
BizTimes: Are you going to focus on acquisitions as much as Bob did?
Goldstein: “Yes. Growth is very important to us. Our vision is to double the business every five years. There’s two elements of that: Core growth, which we’re driving through our internal product development and growth and innovation process, and then the M&A growth. We’ve had about 30 acquisitions since the spinoff in 2000 and that will continue to be a very important part of our business strategy. We’ve got a very robust funnel of M&A activity and prospects that we look at.”
BizTimes: Do you have any growth plans in the coming year?
Goldstein: “We have a growth process, and part of that is just more effective new product development, commercialization, go-to-market strategies, customer relationships. We’ve added about $20 million in resources around growth and innovation and support expenses around engineering, sales and marketing resources to help support this growth. We’ve put a new growth process in place and (are) prioritizing growth initiatives by business to hit that 5 to 7 percent core growth.”
BizTimes: You mentioned accelerating certain areas that Bob was previously working on?
Goldstein: “(We are) prioritizing on driving revenue in the high-growth markets that we’ve identified in China, India and Brazil. Continuing to focus on strategic acquisitions and making sure that we’ve got a good funnel of activity going is important to us. Leveraging the infrastructure, so we’re not duplicating the infrastructure wherever we are. And being able to provide multiple solutions to common customers.”
