Bob’s early career started in the United States Navy, after graduating with merit from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1973. He served on active duty as a Naval Officer for over seven years, and earned several leadership and achievement awards before joining Westinghouse as a nuclear logistics engineer in 1980. In this role, Bob leveraged his Naval Academy training, Navy shipboard experience, and Navy Supply Corps training to effectively manage high-value critical inventories of prime components and equipment in support of the new construction and overhaul of the Navy’s nuclear power plants, in both surface ships and submarines.
Bob joined Merck & Co., Inc in 1982 as an Industrial Engineer, and held positions of increasing responsibility within the Operations area until 1988. Bob was then promoted to Manager, Strategic Planning for the company’s U.S. Human Health Division, where he led several Strategic Planning and Long Range Operating Planning cycles in support of the US business. In 1990 he became a Product Manager with responsibility for marketing planning activities for a variety of promoted products, as well as products under development.
Bob joined Astra Merck in January 1992 where, as a founding member of the original planning group and senior leadership team, he helped create the Company’s Vision and design and build the new organization. He served as Executive Director, Strategic Planning and Facilities Management until 1996, when he was appointed Sales Director of the Philadelphia Regional Business Unit in the Company’s sales organization. This move brought Bob’s broad background in marketing, planning and operations into the sales force, while simultaneously expanding his knowledge and experience in sales management. After exceeding all assigned sales goals as a Sales Director, Bob was promoted to Executive Sales Director, and was tasked with setting up a new regional sales office in Atlanta, GA. He subsequently led his southeast region team of over 200 sales people through a major reorganization of the sales force, followed by two back-to-back mergers with other companies.
Along the way, Bob consistently exceeded assigned sales goals for the region, and his region was ranked #2 out of 10 regions in the country. Bob’s leadership style, pragmatic management approach, and creativity and innovation in establishing new business processes won praise and approval by his sales peers and company executives. Many of Bob’s ideas were cited as “best practices” and adopted throughout the sales force company-wide. However, as a result of the second merger with Zeneca, Bob voluntarily left the company in September 1999 to pursue other career opportunities. Bob joined IMS Health Strategic Technologies in March 2000, and led a worldwide transition planning effort that resulted in the spin-off of Strategic Technologies and Clark-O’Neill from IMS Health. The two subsidiaries then joined to form a new publicly traded company called SYNAVANT. Bob was then promoted to Senior Vice President and General Manager for the Americas. He had responsibility for directing total operations and over 550 people who sell and deliver software technology products and services to the pharmaceutical industry. He was accountable for profit and loss associated with operations in the United States, Canada, and Latin America, with budget responsibilities of over $110 million in annual revenue and expenses of over $100 million.
As part of a corporate restructuring plan and buyout by a competitor, Bob took a severance package and left the company in September 2002. Bob engaged in consulting part-time as a Six-Sigma consultant with Uniworld Consulting while conducting a job search. He joined CIBA Vision in May 2003 in a newly created role as Vice President, Business Operations. In this role he was responsible for directing and managing a variety of regional business operations, including: customer service and call center operations, sales planning and analysis, lens care product planning, purchasing and logistics, commercialization program management, sales and operations planning (S&OP), process improvement initiatives (Six Sigma), and logistics/distribution operations.
Bob also managed Corporate Shared Services functions, including security, food service, facilities planning and management, and site operations for the worldwide headquarters campus. Despite the extreme variety of functional and project-related assignments, Bob consistently met or exceeded assigned goals every year, and earned several Quality Achievement and Leadership awards in this role. In 2009 Bob moved into a newly created role in Global Supply Chain where he is responsible for working within and across global supply chain to reduce end-to-end distribution costs for finished goods while delivering superior customer service. He established and led a global cross functional team that identified over 80 logistics projects/opportunities with potential annual savings exceeding $15 million (10%) of an annual spending base of $150 million. He delivered first-year (2009) savings of $9.2 million (+29% over $7.1 million target), and second-year savings of $16.0 million (+33% over $12.0 million target). Bob received the CEO 2010 Outstanding Achievement Award for Productivity in recognition of his successful efforts to reduce cost and improve capabilities, allowing the company to invest resources in growth initiatives and innovation. Bob also developed and implemented Perfect Order Index (POI) regionally and globally, which is now included as a KPI on the CIBA VISION executive team scorecard.
In summary, Bob Holmes has over 38 years of successful management and technical experience, with a broad business background obtained from extensive hands-on leadership in sales, marketing, strategic planning, human resources, administration, production, and logistics operations. His experience spans three industries, with a focus on life sciences/healthcare, and includes working at large multi-national companies as well as with start-up organizations.