Jim Boyle, left, will become CEO of Medline, while Jim Pigott, right, will become president and chief operating officer.
Medical supplier Medline named a new CEO today, promoting Executive Vice President Jim Boyle to the position effective Oct. 1. Boyle will replace Charlie Mills, who will retire from the role but remain chairman of the company's board of directors.
President Andy Mills and Chief Operating Officer Jim Abrams also are retiring from those roles but will be vice chairmen of the board. Company veteran Jim Pigott will become the new president and COO.
"Jim Boyle and Jim Pigott have been instrumental in Medline's growth and success during their nearly 60 years combined within the organization, and we are excited for them to lead us into the future," Charlie Mills said in a press release announcing the moves.
Boyle joined the company in 1996 and Pigott joined in 1992.
"I am incredibly honored by this opportunity. I want to express my gratitude to the Mills family for their years of leadership and for the confidence placed in me to guide this organization forward," Boyle said in the press release.
Northfield-based Medline is one of the world’s largest medical products manufacturers and distributors, with more than $21 billion annual sales and more than 35,000 employees. The company ranks No. 5 on Crain's latest list of the largest privately held companies in the Chicago area, with 2022 revenue growing 5.2% to $21.2 billion.
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Medline makes, sells and distributes more than half a million different kinds of medical products, including wheelchairs, urine-sample cups, face masks and anesthesia kits. The company also makes the ubiquitous striped swaddling blanket that almost every U.S. hospital-born newborn is wrapped in and owns brands such as Curad bandages.
The announcement of the leadership change comes about two years after Medline agreed to sell itself to a consortium of private-equity firms: Blackstone Group, Carlyle Group and Hellman & Friedman, in a deal that Bloomberg reported was worth more than $30 billion.
While the private-equity group took a majority stake in Medline, the Mills family remained its largest single shareholder and members, like Charlie Mills and Andy Mills, kept their leadership roles.
After the deal, the Mills family began building its own investment firm, Council Ring Capital, which Bloomberg News reported in December 2022 had about $5 billion in assets.
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Medline says it has invested more than $2 billion building out its warehouse and distribution capabilities since 2018 through what it calls its Healthcare Resilience Initiative. Company executives have said the investment in more domestic manufacturing, distribution and IT is intended to ease supply chain disruptions in healthcare.
As part of that initiative, Medline has constructed eight distribution centers totaling 9.7 million square feet. In 2022, Medline completed a $125 million, 1.4 million-square-foot distribution center in Grayslake. It also opened a $90 million, 1.2 million-square-foot facility in West Jefferson, Ohio, in 2020, announcing last week that the facility was fully operational.
This story first appeared in Crain's Chicago Business. Crain's Katherine Davis and Jon Asplund and Bloomberg contributed.
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