Antoinette Gawin oversees a $1.5 billion operation with 9,000 employees. She’s established herself as a well-respected business leader and was recently honored as such among a group of high-powered peers in New York City. She was known for not mincing words with her former boss, legendary General Electric CEO Jack Welch.

And it all began in Cedar, Michigan. In some ways, it’s still there.

“I’ve found that the more experience I got and the more I worked around the world, the more I came back to my roots,” she tells The Ticker.

Gawin is CEO of Terumo Blood and Cell Technologies, a Colorado-based subsidiary of the much larger Japanese company Terumo Corporation. The blood and cell division makes equipment, technology and programs tied to the collection, processing and use of blood and human cells to treat various diseases.

As one example, Terumo makes machines that (not unlike dialysis for kidney disease) take blood out of a patient’s body, separate it, remove unwanted components and return the rest. This is used to treat sickle cell disease, certain blood cancers and other disorders. It’s also pioneering technologies that take a patient’s own immune cells, modify or multiply them in a lab and put them back in the patient to help fight cancer.

Gawin arrived at Terumo in 2016. The bulk of her prior career was GE, where she served in a variety of roles in the United States and abroad over a 22-year stretch. It was there that she first realized one of her biggest natural skillsets was in line with the Japanese philosophy of “Gemba” – to go where the action is. Even as a lowly auditor, she made it a priority to convey information from those with boots on the ground to those making the big decisions.

“If you can talk to the guys on the shop floor, everybody there on the front line knows what's wrong. You just have to be able to translate that for the people at the top,” she says. “And you have to constantly keep that connection; you have to find ways as you get more experienced and more senior in the organizaition to keep the connection on the front line.”

It’s one of many things she attributes to growing up in a place like Cedar, where management silos don’t really exist (even if plenty of regular silos do).

“In a small community like Cedar…it’s like a family. If Aunt Susie's cows are out, you all go help. You don’t say ‘Well, whose job is it to watch the cows?' You just go do what needs to be done. You see a need, you fill a need,” she says.

Gawin is proud of many things in her career, including turning her subsidiary around from near insolvency at her arrival to substantial profitability. But to Gawin, this money is merely a tool to do more good. Her company makes technology to save lives, she says, and has taken an active role in making sure the technology has an impact.

For example, Terumo worked the regulatory channels tirelessly to get approvals for its machines that treat sickle cell patients, she says.

“We have the technology, but my view is if I can't get the technology into the hands of the patients, it's just a waste,” she says. “So we…pulled together the data around the medical evidence, the care practice, the disease, the equipment itself, and we worked with the government to change the reimbursements. We then worked with physician groups to change the practice guidelines. And so now it’s a standard practice that will get reimbursed just as part of anyone's normal care.”

That’s a big deal for an underserved population (sickle cell predominantly affects African Americans) and a big win for healthcare access. 

“I have always been a passionate believer that equal access to healthcare and education can break the cycle of poverty,” she says. “I know it's Pollyannish, but I believe it, and I've seen it.”

Gawin brought her entire executive team from Colorado to Cedar (Leelanau County “blew them away,” she says) and sometimes she takes a little bit of Cedar with her as well.

She was recently named a Distinguished Leadership Award winner by The Conference Board, a 110-year old, NYC-based think tank and business membership organization. Since her parents (Pat and Tony Fleis of the huge Fleis family and their Fleis scholarship) have since passed, she invited AnnaMay and Jerry Kelinski, her across-the-road neighbors whose children she babysat growing up.

“It was just tremendous. I don't think Jerry's been on a plane since their honeymoon 55 years ago. So they haven't left the farm in decades, and I take them to New York,” she says. “(It was wonderful) having people who love you, who you can share that with, and being able to bring your community with you.”