2008 Person of the year: Larry Powers

EdisonReport, November 26, 2007: The news came fast and furious this morning. Philips Buys Genlyte…the lighting world as we know it will change. Many ‘rules’ that we grew up with are now out the door. We called Larry Powers, President and CEO of Genlyte and asked him to confirm the story, which he did. We asked for a one sentence quote, and he gave it to us: “It was the right thing to do!”

EdisonReport has named Larry Powers the 2008 Person of the Year. Over the last month we had discussions with several leaders in the industry as well as our regular sources. What person has had the greatest impact on our industry in the last twelve months? The general consensus was that selling Genlyte to Philips has revolutionized our industry, and Larry Powers was the person who engineered that sale. While Europe has always had vertical integration, typically North America has had different players in different channels.

In a memorandum to Acuity Agents, dated 27 NOV 2007, Acuity Brands CEO, Vern Nagel, wrote, “Philips' acquisition of Genlyte will most likely alter the way the combined company operates internally and goes to market. We are prepared to compete with this entity and expect it will create opportunities for Acuity Brands and our agencies to grow our market presence through responsive, customer-focused actions.”

Before Christmas, I called Larry to tell him of our “Person of the Year” decision and to find out what he is doing. He is still employed by Philips until 22 JAN and will remain completely out of the electrical business for at least one year. He and his wife have been building a home in the Phoenix area where three of their four children live. They plan to keep their home in Kentucky at least for the time being. He is an honorary member of NAED and hopes to keep in touch with the industry through NAED events.

I asked him about Kaj den Daas, the Chairman of Philips Lighting North America, and the Philips men and how they were doing. “Kaj is a great guy and really doing a wonderful job.” He went on to say, “Philips has a different model than we had, but they have good people and are really finding the synergies to meld the organizations together.” He went on to say that he appreciates everything Philips has done to assist the people caught up in the merger. He told me of closing the Louisville office and said that Philips has gone to extraordinary lengths to take care of people, even hosting a job fair.

Larry is a few years older than your editor, and he has this voice that always reminded me of my father’s voice. It was a little more than a year ago when I had called him to ask him about the rumor of Genlyte being sold to Siemens. He tore into me (with that voice). He said there was nothing to that rumor. He heard that the rumor had been posted on the EdisonReport and that I would be better served to report facts, and not rumors. I explained that it was not on the EdisonReport, but there was a teaser “Major Company about to be Sold.” I explained that the teaser did not mention any company by name. Politely and humbly, I asked again about Siemens. He very firmly explained that the rumor was not true, and said it had been a very long time since he had had ANY conversation with Siemens. Period. At that time, I removed the teaser. The real killer for me is that I never had the insight to ask about Philips……

I conducted a formal interview with Larry in October 2006. Below are two questions and answers that seem relevant today:

Ed: Tell us about your strategy of decentralization. As you know, your large competitors are much more centralized.

Larry: Well it works for us. The brands compete with each other to some degree. Lighting is a very broad-based industry. If we tried to run a top-down business it would not work. We do not want to drive product development down thru the organization. It is too difficult to do this in an industry as broad as Lighting. For example, designing chandeliers and floodlights take different types of engineers. We want to let our engineers that are closest to the market, closest to their customers, fill the needs of their market. We believe that it is more effective in the market. Of course we have a higher cost of doing business this way; we have sixteen general managers, sixteen controllers, 16 of everything.

Ed: When you do your strategic planning, I assume you are looking at least three to five years out. How do you write a plan for 2010 and incorporate technology, like LED, knowing that the technology will change significantly before your plan is in place?

Larry: We work very close with the people that are developing the new technology. We are seeing LED already and when the technology is ready, we will be right there. Today’s big problem with LED is that it can’t compete in general illumination. Will it at some point? It might, and we’ll be ready. There are lots of new products in LED's where people are willing to pay for value of LED’s in hard to relamp areas and areas where a small footprint is appropriate.

The Edison Report’s Person of the Year for 2008 is a wise and forward-looking man (with a great voice). We wish him all the best, and your humble editor will do better in 2009 about asking the right questions!