How Three Middle-Market CEOs Tripped the Growth Switch

Anisa International (AI) is the largest designer and manufacturer of cosmetic brushes in the world, approaching nearly $30 million in annual revenue and with a payroll of more than 600 employees. Ten years ago, CEO Anisa Telwar went shopping for a Chinese manufacturing plant, and when she couldn’t find one to buy, she built one instead in Tianjin, China.

Among the cosmetic companies outfitting their offerings with AI’s brushes are Laura Mercier, Smashbox, Sonia Kashuk, and Estée Lauder. Meanwhile, beauty retail giant Sephora recently began carrying an AI brush that uses a new fiber that AI made in partnership with its steady ally, DuPont.

With 20 percent of AI’s own income being directed back into the development and testing of its new products annually, the middle-market upstart may be a worthy match for the Delaware colossus.

There’s little question that the addition of a burger chain constitutes a new operating wing for Oberweis Group, Inc., of North Aurora, Illinois, a family-owned company that has for the past 86 years kept its offerings largely confined to the footprint of a dairy enterprise.

However, the launch of That Burger Joint in Skokie, Illinois, last year says far more about Oberweis and a newfound confidence in CEO Joe Oberweis’s decision-making than it does about opportunities in the burger business.

The results speak for themselves, according to Oberweis.

“It’s not by any stretch easy to grow — and we have every possible challenge that any company can have — but after years and years of focus and effort, we’re finally beginning to see growth across the board,” says Oberweis, whose 1,000-employee firm includes a wholesale distribution business, 48 retail shops, and a six-state home delivery network.

When it comes to growing a business, Fred Burke believes in the simple premise that local management teams empowered to make decisions at the local level — particularly those decisions related to customer service — could be far more impactful than a centralized management function.

It is just this premise that Burke has used to grow Guardian Pharmacy, LLC — the third largest long-term-care pharmacy company in the U.S., with revenues of more than $210 million annually.

However, Burke’s model goes a step beyond the dictums of decentralized management. To maximize the benefits of “local autonomy,” Guardian shares ownership in its “business units” with local management teams. According to Burke, numerous business units have become growth strategy success stories, including a Guardian pharmacy located in Maine that has grown from 700 patients at the time it joined Guardian to 3,500 patients today.