{"id":14025,"date":"2025-07-21T23:17:35","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T23:17:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/14025\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T23:17:35","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T23:17:35","slug":"after-earnings-fell-by-300-million-cardinal-healths-ceo-went-ruthless-to-turn-it-around-and-he-says-workers-backed-him-because-people-want-to-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/14025\/","title":{"rendered":"After earnings fell by $300 million, Cardinal Health\u2019s CEO went \u2018ruthless\u2019 to turn it around\u2014and he says workers backed him because \u2018people want to win\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cardinal Health<\/a> is one of the largest healthcare giants in America, supplying medical products and data solutions for over 90% of U.S. hospitals. But just a few years ago, its operating earnings plummeted $300 million<\/a> as some segments struggled. When Jason Hollar took over as CEO of the Fortune 500 company in late 2022, the business turnaround required some serious tough love.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis concept of relentless simplification and ruthless prioritization was the cornerstone of the change management and the strategy,\u201d Hollar tells Fortune.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I use the word ruthless for a very particular reason, to put a little bit of an edge to it, because I didn\u2019t want people just to reprioritize everything they\u2019re doing. I wanted them to stop doing certain things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before Hollar took the reins, certain segments were costing the $38 billion health care company hundreds of millions of dollars each year. Cardinal Health\u2019s non-GAAP operating earnings fell<\/a> 12% from $2.3 billion in 2021 to $2 billion in 2022, while non-GAAP net earnings plummeted 13% from $1.6 billion to $1.4 billion in the same time frame. So on his first day as chief executive, Hollar laid out a cutthroat game plan to bring Cardinal Health back to its former glory, including slashing business segments and slimming down the company. And so far, it\u2019s worked\u2014the business\u2019 operating earnings for Q3 of the 2025 fiscal year hit $807 million.<\/p>\n

Usually ruffling feathers is a major concern of incoming chiefs. But perhaps surprisingly, Hollar says that Cardinal Health\u2019s staff weren\u2019t just on board\u2014they were itching for an overhaul.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Cardinal Health] is a great place to work. But [employees] were getting frustrated as well that we weren\u2019t succeeding,\u201d Hollar says. \u201cIt\u2019s great to be with a great group of people, but people want to win, and we weren\u2019t winning as much as we could have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hollar\u2019s first days in office: slashing segments and halting M&A<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no easy feat to turn around a heritage company like Cardinal Health that\u2019s been operating for nearly 55 years. But Hollar\u2019s \u201cruthless\u201d approach was the juice the healthcare business needed to get back on track.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The 52-year-old executive first joined the Fortune 500 business as CFO in the thick of COVID, when the business was reeling from uncertainty around those pandemic-era changes and product liabilities like opioids. The company had a large balance sheet restructuring, and some recent acquisitions from prior leadership were driving operational challenges. <\/p>\n

Two years later as CEO, he had the extensive knowledge base to turn things around quickly\u2014so he exited product lines, pulled Cardinal Health out of a \u201csignificant number\u201d of countries, and sold off its non-healthcare portfolio.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were a lot of changes done in a pretty short period of time,\u201d Hollar explains. \u201cI saw that some poor decisions on capital deployment was a primary driver of some of those operating challenges. So I believed if we did fewer things, [if] we simplified the operations in the organization, and then took those resources and reprioritized it to the faster-growing parts of the industry in the business, that we could be a lot more successful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cardinal Health\u2019s Medical segment, which manufactures surgical and laboratory products, also needed a complete revamp\u2014it had lost $16 million in just one quarter, prior to Hollar stepping in. The CEO also increased its capital expenditures and selling, general, and administrative expenses (S&GA) in speciality growth initiatives. Simultaneously, Hollar streamlined Cardinal Health\u2019s focus. During his first 18 months, he didn\u2019t pursue any significant M&A, and instead put all his energy into existing products and clients. The business later acquired Specialty Networks<\/a> in 2024 for $1.2 billion.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an absolute pivot from where we were. We were trying to grow in so many different ways. We were not doing any of them really well,\u201d Hollar says. \u201cOur service levels improved dramatically, our productivity, our efficiency, and even things like safety and quality are at much better levels. My philosophy is that you can\u2019t just do some of the processes better some of the time\u2014all [are] deep-rooted success across the board\u2026or you don\u2019t do any of them well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not changing the culture, but finally putting in the elbow grease so all workers \u2018win\u2019<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t just the more technical side of Cardinal Health that needed a facelift\u2014Hollar says employees were happy to work there, but were a bit dejected by recent losses. To build up morale and finally get workers on the \u201cwinning\u201d side of things, Hollar delivered an honest truth.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI told the team, \u2018There\u2019s one value we don\u2019t show up with every single day, and that\u2019s accountability. That\u2019s the one we have to work on,\u2019\u201d Hollar says. \u201cWe\u2019re not going to change the values, we\u2019re not going to change our mission and vision. What we need to do is we actually just need to live up to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hollar says he knew exactly what leadership shake-up would help him achieve his mission. He separated three of his eight direct reports, eliminating two of the roles entirely. By restructuring the business, he was able to add another three direct reports. Hollar was changing up his personnel, and moving fast\u2014which he says proved to employees that his dedication was stronger than just platitudes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201c[I] demonstrated to the team that these are a lot more than happy words, these are our actual actions, that we\u2019re going to put resources behind the strategy that I laid out,\u201d Hollar says. \u201cUltimately that led to $5 billion of M&A that we\u2019ve done over just the last 18 months.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cardinal Health is one of the largest healthcare giants in America, supplying medical products and data solutions for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14026,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,12834,2926,12835,9360,12836,569,7564,9609,12837,12838,84,392,10906,9842,12839,139,12840,2145,2970,12841,12842,2459],"class_list":{"0":"post-14025","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-cardinal-health","11":"tag-chief-executive-officer-ceo","12":"tag-chief-financial-officer-cfo","13":"tag-company-culture","14":"tag-corporate-leadership","15":"tag-culture","16":"tag-executives","17":"tag-fortune-500","18":"tag-fortune-500-ceo-interview","19":"tag-fortune-500-companies","20":"tag-health","21":"tag-healthcare","22":"tag-hospital","23":"tag-hospitals","24":"tag-investing-strategy","25":"tag-leadership","26":"tag-leadership-changes","27":"tag-ma","28":"tag-medical","29":"tag-medical-technology","30":"tag-u-s-workers","31":"tag-workers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}