Covidien 2.0 – A Conversation With Joe Almeida

Article preview from IN VIVO - April, 2013

Covidien President and CEO Joe Almeida is positioning the company to continue its dynamic growth. Having run up an impressive track record over the past several years, where will – where can-- Covidien go from here?

Covidien 2.0 – A Conversation With Joe Almeida

Article preview from IN VIVO - April, 2013

Having inherited a company that was already performing well, Joe Almeida is positioning Covidien to continue its dynamic growth. Having run up an impressive track record over the past several years, where will – where can – Covidien go from here?

 

Rare is the CEO who steps down at the top of his game. But when former Covidien PLC CEO Rich Meelia retired nearly two years ago, Covidien was at the time enjoying an impressive success in medical devices. Following a string of creative acquisitions, Covidien had transformed itself from a major player in hospital supplies into a leading medical device company – the third largest medical device company and second largest pure-play device company, trailing only long-time rivals Johnson & Johnson and Medtronic Inc.

Seeking Meelia’s replacement, Covidien’s board turned to Jose “Joe” Almeida, an insider who, as head of the company’s medical device business, had no small role in the company’s recent success. Given his long track record at Covidien, one might have assumed that Almeida would simply sit back and stay the course. But that’s clearly not Almeida’s style. With a continued focus on M&A and operational efficiency and a new, more aggressive push into emerging markets, Almeida is already building on Covidien’s recent success, positioning the company for what he’s calling Covidien 2.0.

Joe Almeida started his career in his native Brazil where he worked for the consulting company Arthur Andersen LLC, later Accenture. Transferred to Accenture’s Boston office, Almeida was soon assigned to one of the company’s nearby clients: the Codman & Shurtleff Inc. unit of Johnson & Johnson, at the time a manufacturer of surgical instruments that later became Johnson & Johnson Professional Inc., J&J’s orthopedics business before it acquired DePuy Inc.  At Codman, Almeida, a mechanical engineer by training, started as an engineering manager for one of its factories before moving on to more senior posts. From Codman, he joined another surgical instrument company, Acufex Microsurgical Inc., then a division of American Cyanamid Co., where he served as director of manufacturing. Almeida worked there for a year until American Cyanamid was sold to American Home Products (later Wyeth, now part of Pfizer Inc.), which soon after decided to divest its medical device businesses and Acufex was sold to Smith & Nephew PLC. 

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