- [Host] This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

- Success happens in different ways.

There's entrepreneurial success, turning a great idea into a thriving business, and there's also managerial success, taking an existing business and turning it into a more enduring enterprise.

Former tech data, CEO, Bob Dutkowsky was a talented business leader who sharpened his management skills at some of the nation's premier technology companies.

He took the helm of Clearwater based Tech Data in 2006 and built it into Florida's largest public company.

In May of 2024, Bob passed away.

As a tribute to his memory, the Suncoast Business Forum is proud to present his profile of Bob Dutkowsky we did in 2011.

Here's Bob Dutkowsky in his own words.

- [Host] Suncoast Business Forum, brought to you by the financial services firm of Raymond James, offering personalized wealth management advice and banking and capital markets expertise, all with a commitment to putting clients' financial wellbeing first.

More information is available at raymondjames.com.

(upbeat music) - In the early 1980s, a small distributor of technology products was beginning to build some momentum.

That company is Tech Data.

Over the next 25 years, it grew into a multi-billion dollar global public enterprise.

In 2006, Tech Data CEO, Steve Raymund, decided it was time for a change at the top.

And when looking for a seasoned pro to replace him.

After an extensive search, Tech Data picked Bob Dutkowsky to take the company into the future.

Bob, welcome to the Suncoast Business Forum.

- Thank you, Geoff.

It's great to be here.

- It's great to have you.

You know, Tech Data is the largest public company in Florida, but it's not really a household name.

How would you describe Tech Data's business?

- Well, I like to think of Tech Data as a stealth company.

We do a tremendous amount of work adding value in the whole continuum of IT.

But no one knows where we fit.

So here's where Tech Data fits.

We buy products from companies like Hewlett Packard and IBM and Cisco and Oracle and Microsoft.

And we sell them into small companies that then resell them to small businesses.

They're called value added re-marketers, and they rely on us for technical assistance and guidance, as well as a broad array of products.

One of the Wall Street analysts recently called us the supermarket of technology.

You can walk into one place and get everything from a huge IBM computer down to a mouse pad.

- Over the last three years, Tech Data has had ever increasing record profits.

How have you been able to do that in this environment?

- Well, you know, it's interesting.

Technology gets bought and sold in great economies or poor economies.

Think about it, when things are bad, companies look to technology to make the people they have more productive, or companies like Apple come out with innovative products like an iPad or an iPhone, and you know you just got to have one.

And so the secret that Tech Data's had over the last few years is when those pockets of really interesting products come out, we focus on those really quickly.

We focus away from the places that people or businesses don't wanna buy anymore, and we turn all of our attention to the hotspot.

And that agility, I think, is the reason why we've been able to deliver value to our shareholders.

- You joined Tech Data in 2006.

You took over for Steve Raymund, who was CEO at the time, and really, in essence, the company's founder, and he built it from a very, very small company.

What kind of challenges do you face in taking over for, in essence, the founder of the company?

- You know, here's Tech Data with $24 billion in sales.

The first year the company was in business, we had $200,000 in sales.

Today, Tech Data sells a hundred million dollars a day.

So think about the core that Steve built and how it's matured and how it is expanded.

You know, I never want to fool myself and think that I replaced Steve.

I just get the the privilege to walk in his footsteps.

The challenge Steve left to me is figure out how to take this company to the next level, reward our shareholders for their investment in the company.

Make sure you serve our customers better than we ever had before and become more valuable to our vendors.

And lastly and I would say is equal importance is make this the best place to work in the state of Florida.

And so our company has focused on those initiatives, really honoring the great work that Steve did all those years ago.

- We're gonna talk more about your career in a moment, but let's go back a little ways.

Let's talk about where you grew up.

Let's talk about your family, your upbringing, what kind of kid you were at school, whether you worked, tell us about growing up in the Dutkowsky family.

- Well, I grew up in Endicott, New York, a little small town in upstate New York.

When you tell people you're from New York, they think Manhattan.

But believe me, Endicott is much more like Vermont.

You know, it's rural, but it's claim to fame as it was the founding spot for IBM.

And it was the first big IBM facility in the world.

And my father was an IBMer.

So although it was this little small rural community, it had a really interesting tax base.

It had a really vibrant economy, it had great schools.

It was just kind of in the middle of nowhere.

So it was a wonderful place to grow up.

My father was a self-made man, a World War II veteran.

And after he came back from World War II, he got a job at IBM.

And he worked in the same facility for 44 years, but he probably had a hundred jobs as IBM changed its character and moved into computers and then typewriters and then printers.

And in each case, he kind of had new opportunities.

So he had a really fascinating business career, but at his core, he was a self-made man.

And he was kind of like a engineer background, and I was a sales guy and he wanted to work on projects and I wanted to play baseball.

And so, you know, we always were kind of at friendly odds about where a young person like myself should be focusing all of my attention.

But, you know, he was a wonderful person.

- You touched upon baseball.

Let's talk about sports, baseball in particular.

What role has baseball played in your life?

- Oh, when I was a kid, I wanted to be a baseball player.

When I graduated from high school, I wanted to be a baseball player.

When I went to college, I wanted to be a baseball player.

You get kind of the common theme here.

That's what I thought I was gonna be when I grew up.

And my mother and father thought that I should go to college, get a degree, and get a job.

And so although when I went to college, I went to Cornell.

I studied hard, but I played baseball as well.

And it was a very important part of teaching me about people and about competition and teamwork.

I mean, I'm a huge advocate of young people being involved in sports for that.

You know, I went to college as an outfielder and a catcher, and I thought I was a pretty good hitter.

And when I got to college, I was there for one week and one week's worth of practice.

And the coach called me in his office and he said, "You can't hit division one pitching.

You're not good enough."

I said, "No, you don't understand.

I'm pretty good at this."

He said, "Now, I've seen you for 40 years.

You won't be a good hitter, but if you want to take a shot at being a pitcher, 'cause you can really throw, I'll give you a chance and I'll give you one year and I'll work with you and I'll dedicate the pitching coach.

And if you work hard, we'll find out if you can pitch and if you can pitch, we'll keep you in the program."

And so I worked hard and there was a great coach who ultimately wound up in the college baseball hall of fame, who literally worked with me every day for a year.

And I went from being a, I thought a pretty good hitting outfielder to an okay pitcher, but it taught me that you can find skills and capabilities in people that they don't even know they have, and that you can see things that people can do that other people don't see they can do.

And I've taken that concept into the world of business with me, and I see people who say, you know, "This is what I am, I'm a salesperson."

"No, you could be a really good manager."

"You know, I'm a finance person."

"No, you could be a really good logistics person."

And that served me really well.

And I give all the credit in the world to that baseball coach who could have easily cut me and said, "Thanks for stopping by.

Go to class.

You know, you'll be a good student, but you know, baseball won't be part of what you are."

Instead he gave me another chance.

And, you know, I'm sitting here today partly because of that.

- What did you do after college?

Did you consider playing professional ball, trying out?

- Yeah, I did.

Interestingly enough, I wanted to play, but my father really wanted me to get a job.

And he was right by the way, I became an IBM salesperson.

So this was back in the late '70s, and I had the privilege to sell computers to companies that never had computers before.

So you would sit across the desk from a seasoned executive who, an entrepreneur who founded a business and ran a successful business, and you would say, "I can make your business more successful."

And he would say, "With that box, with that machine that I don't even know what's in there?"

And you'd have to educate him on how the business would run differently and how he would use that technology to make the business work.

And lo and behold, they would buy something, you know, and then all the fun would begin to try to help them get that value out of the business.

You know, you'd work all year long and maybe get five companies to say yes, you know, so you'd get hundreds of nos where you were, you'd bring them to the point of decision and they would finally say, "I can't do that."

And then once you kind of get the cadence of selling, and at that point in time, the PC became, started to come out and become more obvious.

And so computing became more prevalent.

You know, and then all of a sudden, it became much more easy to find prospects for that kind of business.

But I could easily have done that for the rest of my life.

I mean, I was really fascinated with helping these businesses get into the 21st century and to automate themselves and use computing to make themselves more competitive.

I thought that was what I wanted to do my whole life.

- Well, if you were happy in sales and doing well at it once it began to really catch on, what made you leave sales?

- Well, it's kind of the second, probably the second important character in my life.

You know, obviously my parents, then my baseball coach, and then I had a manager at IBM who saw something in me that I didn't see.

And he thought that I could be a leader and a manager.

And so in the IBM world, you end your sales career and you move into a management role.

And one day he called me into his office and said, "It's time for you to go."

And I thought he was firing me.

He said, "No, you need to go become a manager.

You've learned everything here you're gonna learn.

You need to go teach other people.

You need to go lead other people in this process."

- So in many ways, you were fortunate that you had mentors who saw something in you that you couldn't even see?

- Right.

And he kept, like, cattle prodding and saying, "You need to do this."

And so ultimately, you know, I sat down with my wife and said, "Here's the rollercoaster we're about to get on."

Because in IBM, that means about every couple of years you're gonna move to another job and physically move.

And are you sure you're ready to do this?

And she said, you know, "Let's do it."

And so off we went.

Fast forward to today, my wife and I have moved 15 times, and my wife was the one that had to find the doctor and the little league team and the right schools, because as soon as I moved to the new town, I was up and running in my job and working 12 hours a day.

And so she was the one that really had to make all those transitions work and we wouldn't be here today if it weren't for what she did and the support that she gave us.

- Now, the early 1990s, you'd risen fairly well in IBM and had a successful operation, but the company overall was going through some pretty tough times.

The technology changes were not kind to IBM in the early 19, the company's losing money.

And at that time, there was a new CEO brought in, a fellow named Lou Gerstner.

You ended up working for Lou Gerstner.

How did this happen?

- And Lou's background was a McKinsey consultant, and he ran American Express, and then he ran RJR Nabisco.

You didn't hear any technology in there any place, right?

He really brought fresh thinking, but he brought the mind of a consultant and had tremendous business acumen.

You know, he did the very difficult blocking and tackling.

He downsized the company.

He narrowed the company's focus into markets where they could be successful.

But he also unleashed the power of that company.

And I mean, he's a brilliant guy, you know, he could see that opportunity in the good of the company.

And so when Lou was in the company about six months, my phone rang one day, and it was literally Lou Gerstner on the other end of the phone.

And he said, "Bob, this is Lou Gerstner."

And I said, "Yeah, and I'm Mickey Mouse."

He gave me a phone number and said, "Call me back."

And I rang him right back and he said, "I need an executive assistant.

I hear you're pretty good at this IBM stuff.

Do you want do this?

Come on to Armonk and you can work with me."

Okay?

So I packed up and went and met with him, and the interview literally was about 20 minutes.

And he asked me a few questions and he said, "Okay, you can have the job if you want it and here's what it's gonna be.

You're gonna work with me for a couple years.

You're gonna see a lot of things and do a lot of things.

I'm gonna turn this company around and I need people who understand how IBM works today, so I can figure out what I might want it to do in the future.

At the end of that, I don't know what it means for you, you might move forward.

I might decide you're not any good at this.

I don't know, but if you want the job, you can have it."

And so I did it, but I got to also see that a powerful executive like that has the same insecurities as you and I have, that they're not Superman.

They're just really diligent, smart, dedicated business people.

And, you know, on my little yellow pad, on my little bucket list, after the time I spent with Lou, I said, "I wanna run a company.

I don't know how I'm gonna do that, but that's my goal now.

My goal is not to be a salesman in Rochester, but I'm gonna go run a company now, or I'm gonna try."

- After two years of working with IBM's CEO, Lou Gerstner, you actually changed jobs and the the next job you took within IBM was half a world away.

Tell us about that and moving your family halfway around the world.

- So one day, Gerstner came into my office and asked if I had any international experience, and I said, "I lived in Nebraska."

And I thought that was funny.

Typical, Louis didn't laugh.

He said, "Go home and tell your family that you're gonna live in Tokyo in the next 90 days."

Okay?

I mean, that's a pretty big leap, right, from Armonk, New York to Tokyo.

But that was the IBM way.

That was one of those 15 moves.

And one of the things that IBM wants to make sure as executives grow, that they really do have a global experience, you know?

And fast forward to Tech Data today, Tech Data, more than half of our business is outside the Americas.

- After 20 years with IBM, you decided though, to leave the company and you went to a company that was very different, more up and coming, so to speak.

Why did you choose to leave the company, and what were the differences between those two experiences?

- So I left IBM after 20 years and went to a company called EMC.

Whereas IBM was a very huge, did kind of everything in the computing world, computers and storage and PCs and software, EMC just did one thing and did it really well and that was storage.

It was at the right moment in time if you remember back in the late '90s, early 2000s, there were the four horsemen of the internet.

Remember Sun, Oracle, EMC, and Cisco, four companies that were making the internet go.

And the only company that was kind of the one nobody knew anything about was EMC.

So it was a wonderful opportunity to help that company jumpstart itself and grow.

When I joined sales, the company were about 2 billion, and when I left, it was almost 10 billion, and that was only in about four years.

So think about the growth that that company had.

I think in that time we hired 5,000 salespeople, and I learned a whole bunch of different skills, you know, and things I didn't know I could do.

There were things that had then in, that would take three months to get done in, in IBM, EMC would do in an afternoon, you know, like a policy change or, you know, they'll change the way something was managed.

EMC would sit around the room, say, "What should we do?

Here's the right thing, go try that.

We'll figure it out tomorrow whether it worked."

And I learned to live in that world.

In the beginning, it was hard, you know, that's not a natural thing.

It's like, you know, one foot in hot water and one foot in cold water.

On average, you're not feeling good still.

It was a very difficult transition, but I learned a lot.

- After four years at EMC through a really incredible growth phase.

You then went and became CEO of a company called GenRad.

Your first CEO position.

Were you ready for that situation?

- I thought I was, you know, I think that's certainly one of those great learning experiences.

You're never really ready for the first job until you really are into it, and then you realize what the challenges are.

There were some challenges with the strategy that the company had.

There were some challenges with where the company had resources deployed.

And then on top of that, the big meltdown in post-Y2K happened.

So we had to manage through all those problems with a whole set of economic problems that feel a little bit like what we have right now here in Florida.

It was a company that had lots of potential, lots of opportunity and it was one that just needed a little bit more focus.

- After three years at GenRad, you became CEO of a company, JD Edwards, which is a software company, I think it was headquartered in Denver.

And you were replacing the founder of the company.

- Yeah.

- How was that experience?

Yeah, I replaced Ed McVaney, the Edwards and JD Edwards.

And not unlike the Tech Data and Steve Raymund, Ed McVaney was the founder of the company.

He really built the company from the ground up, became a multi-billion dollar software company.

Worldwide, a very, very highly regarded company.

The company had all of the great components of a great company, but they were misaligned, you know, the strategy said go this way.

The compensation plan said go that way.

Just kind of basic management things that, you know, when fresh eyes come in, you could see it, you could ask the questions, and you could pretty quickly say, "Okay, these two people have to work together, so they have to have measurements.

Those are the same, and they have to get compensated the same, and let's make that change."

And all of a sudden, you got two smart people looking at a problem and you solve problems much more quickly.

So we did that across the whole enterprise.

We took out layers of bureaucracy that had built up over the years.

We flattened the organization to get much more accountability.

We got very close to our customers.

Everybody had customer responsibilities and everybody had to work with customers to understand where we were effective and not.

And in a short period of time, we turned the company around and it went from being one of the weaker companies to really one of the stronger tech companies in the marketplace.

- Now, after years of working in multi-billion dollar companies, running multi-billion dollar companies, you left in 2003 and joined a tiny little entrepreneurial venture called Egenera as a chairman and CEO.

How was it to switch gears from big enterprise to small enterprise?

- Oh, it was a wonderful learning experience again.

You know, I looked at it and I realized I worked at one of the biggest tech companies in the world.

I ran small companies, bigger companies, I bought companies, I sold companies, but I had never taken a company public.

And so when I joined the company, the company had revenues of about $14 million a year.

Sounds like a lot, but in a tech world, that's not very much.

But we had companies like Goldman Sachs, the Department of Defense, Homeland Security, that threw out their IBM or HP computers and put that on Egenera computers because it was so different.

And within a couple of years, revenues grew to $200 million and the sky was the limit in terms of the capacity of the company.

Unfortunately, we went through one of these economic downturns and the IPO market just dried up.

And so, you know, the opportunity for the company to actually go to that next step of IPO just wasn't gonna happen.

And that's the precise moment when Steve Raymund called me and said, "Would you think about joining Tech Data?"

And I remember that bucket list.

I was gonna go run a big Fortune 100 company someday, and they don't call every day.

So although I could have easily stayed at Egenera, and I think we would ultimately achieve the goal there, joining Tech Data was just too fascinating and too good of an opportunity to pass up.

- When you came to visit Tech Data, what did you see in the company and what did they see in you?

- You know, I think what the company saw in me was a global executive who had run a broad array of companies and had public company experience, had replaced the founder of another public company, had dealt with a company that wasn't performing up to the expectations that the shareholders had.

And also, you know, had the ability to make a commitment to a business like that.

And what I saw was all the piece parts that I saw in an IBM or a JD Edwards, all the parts were there.

You had people who were deeply committed, who understood the business.

You know, I call 'em domain experts.

They really understand how to make this business go.

I saw a brand that was global and in our space, really well known.

I saw a company that was hungry to get profitable and get successful again.

And I saw partners that desperately needed a successful Tech Data.

The HPs and the IBMs and the Microsofts of the world need Tech Data to be successful.

And so, you know, you kinda looked around the whole ecosystem of the company and it was screaming for somebody like me to take that job.

- And when you got to Tech Data, when you actually hit the ground running, how do you begin to interface with a workforce that had the founder as the leader?

How do you get them to look at their business and see it perhaps in a different way?

- Yeah, fresh eyes can come into a company and say, "Why aren't we selling this product to that customer?"

And and oftentimes the answer is, well, we just never thought of that because we sell this product to that customer.

Well, how about if we just tried that?

And it sounds really simple.

In a $24 billion company, it's not quite that simple, but you know, a fresh set of eyes is able to come in and say, "We're gonna try to do this.

We're gonna try to do that.

We're gonna try to do this."

We moved the company into big computers.

We moved the company into cell phones.

We moved the company into consumer electronics, and those were areas that were very near to our strengths, but things that we just we weren't aggressively pursuing.

And once the company saw that there was opportunity in those places, then we unleashed all that domain expertise that we had on new domains.

And, you know, you can see the kind of results that we've had over the last few years.

It's been a very positive experience for our company, for our shareholders, for our customers, for our vendors.

And I would contend our employees, you know, really see that this is the place to work in the state of Florida.

This is the place you want to be.

If you're interested in technology and you live in Florida, you wanna work at Tech Data.

And I have to admit, when I came to Tech Data, I thought, "Okay, we're gonna take all of this logistics capability we have.

If you order a product from Tech Data by 5:00 at night, 99% of the time that product ships that day, and it's to your office the next day, 99% of the time."

So I thought, "Okay, what else might benefit from that?

How about like medical supplies?

How about air conditioning parts, right?"

If your air conditioner's down, you need a part right away.

Well, we have this engine that could do that, but think about how far from the core that is to technology.

And so the data would say, if we did air conditioning, we might be really good at it, but we would fail.

We didn't know the customers, we don't know the vendors, we don't know all that stuff.

So we stayed close to our core and we invested in areas close to our core, and we've been able to be very successful at it.

And, you know, it goes back to my baseball coach and my sales manager seeing things that the company was capable of that the company didn't know it was capable of, and then empowering smart people to go be aggressive in those areas.

And if you do that, you can get the Tech Data story.

- Well, Bob, I wanna thank you for being our guest today.

- Thank you for having us.

It's been great.

Thank you.

- If you'd like to see this interview again or any of the other CEO profiles in our archives, you can find them on the web at wedu.org/spf.

Thanks for joining us for the Suncoast Business Forum.

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