Executive Chairman, Cencora Inc
Steve Collis wants you to join the Walk to Defeat ALS
Join Steve Collis and Amerisource Bergen at the Greater Philadelphia Walk to Defeat ALS on November 3rd at Citizens Bank Park. To sign up, visit www.alsphiladelphia.org
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About Steven Collis
Steve Collis, executive chairman of Cencora, discussed his career and leadership philosophy in a March 2024 podcast interview. He noted that he had recently completed 50 quarters as a public company CEO. Collis said that a requirement for leading the company is not being arrogant, explaining that the role requires dealing confidently with both the CEO of a large entity and a small community pharmacy. He described Cencora as having 46,000 employees across more than 50 countries and emphasized the company's need for flexibility and resilience to adapt to different market conditions and customer types. Collis has also spoken about the company's community involvement. In a 2013 video, he encouraged participation in the Greater Philadelphia Walk to Defeat ALS, describing ALS as a devastating disease that affects people regardless of age, race, or station in life. He said that becoming CEO made him contemplative about the role of the organization and the causes to support, and that the company wanted to become more active in the Philadelphia community, particularly in healthcare.
Transcript (4 segments)
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Steven Collis0:04
Hi, I'm Steve Collis and I'm president and chief executive officer of AmerisourceBergen Corporation here in Valley Forge, west of Philadelphia, and I'm pleased to be with you today. I became a chief executive officer in July last year, and 2011, and I think one of the things that a role like this makes you do is be very contemplative of what is the role of your organization? What are the causes you want to be involved in? What do you want to stand for?
And we have been wanting to get more active in the Philadelphia community, and we believe that the direction we want to be involved in is in healthcare. And as we have come to know the ALS Association, we found it to be the type of organization that we are proud and really focused on being partners with because it's involved in healthcare, serves a great purpose, and it's really involved in uplifting the patients that are suffering that are stricken with ALS. On a more personal note, probably the person that could have been among many who was very helpful when I moved here was my late colleague Michael Patrick who recently lost to ALS, and we saw firsthand just how devastating this disease was to him, how quickly it came upon him, how quickly it took him from us, and how well served he was by having the resources of the ALS Philadelphia Association, and how helpful they were in helping Mike and his family manage through what couldn't have been a more devastating event in their lives, and it was very impactful on myself and a lot of our leaders here, and we wanted to share our thanks back with the association, and this also affirmed why ALS Philadelphia was a great organization for us to be associated with.
I've done this walk twice personally, so I can speak from personal experience. I think that the ALS Association has the highest standards of governance. They've got terrific partnerships. I think AmerisourceBergen is becoming a great partner for ALS Philadelphia. Also the Phillies have really made this their number one charity, which I think, given all the good causes that we can get involved with, the quality of the associations that are choosing to partner with the ALS really speaks again to the credibility and the reputation of the organization. And I found the leadership of ALS Philadelphia to be honestly of the highest of caliber and truly devoted to the welfare of their patients almost on an individual basis. I also tell you that this is a disease that is just devastating. It affects anybody. It pays no attention to age, to race, to station in life. And it's very swift and it's really a very tough disease for families to deal with. It's also complicated from a care perspective. You need a lot of different care. You need to see a lot of different specialists. You have to deal with respiratory therapists. You have to deal with x-ray therapy. You have to deal with home health issues. You have to deal with orthopedic and physical therapy issues. It's really, apart from the usual clinical and diagnosis types that you have with all serious diseases, this disease causes a multitude of complexities, and it's why patients need the resources of a terrific organization like ALS of Philadelphia.
Okay, so I'm now going to step into my Uncle Sam mode and I'm going to say, 'What can you do for ALS of Philadelphia?' And what we'd love you to do is to go to the website, which is als.org. We'd love you to sign up. Again, it's for the Greater Philadelphia Walk to Defeat ALS. I know that's a mouthful, but that's exactly what this organization wants to do. We want to help contribute to defeating ALS, and that's going to be research. And on a more daily basis for the short to medium term, it's going to mean helping the patients in the community that get stricken with this disease. And I've seen firsthand what good work the organization does. So we'd love you to get involved. We'd love you to go to the website. We'd love you to raise teams, or we'd love you to just come on the site and donate. All of those would be tremendously appreciated and would be of high value to a great organization and a very worthy cause.