The Village Leader

When Kent J. Thiry took over as chairman of the board of directors and CEO of DaVita in October 1999, the company was tittering on the verge of bankruptcy. DaVita then known as Total Renal Care is a dialysis chain. It was being sued and investigated by the SEC and losing more than 40 percent of its employees each year.

Ten years later DaVita became a Fortune 500 company that had annual revenues of around $6.1 billion. Employee turnover was reduced by 11 percent and a stock price that had increased by over 2,600 percent. Davita’s employee number swelled to 34,000 with around 118,000 dialysis patients every week.

The company made a dramatic turnaround between 2000 and 2005 partially because of Thiry’s drive to establish a strong values-driven culture with focus on community. He transformed how the company operated and instituted a village-like concept. Employees are citizens and neighbors who watch out for each other and work toward the good of the community.

The company’s business objectives support the village instead of the other way around. According to Thiry, “We say we are community first and a company second.” He adds “That doesn’t mean we don’t care about profit, but that’s a means, not the end.” Thiry says his objective is not to create better business leaders but to create life leaders for whom business competence is a subset.

Thiry changed the name of the company from Total Renal Care to DaVita which he says is Italian for “he/she gives life”. Employees are known as teammates. Company-paid vacations can be won by teammates who do well.

Thiry is fond of wearing Three Musketeers costumes in conferences to cheer up the crowd. While a lot of what he does seems more on working at the human side of the business, the company is also said to be one of the leaders in its industry to use data to make decisions.

The factual figures show that he has truly turned the company around and earned huge profits.  The village “mayor” has produced results.