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THESE 11 REMARKABLE CEOS HAVE BUILT HUGELY SUCCESSFUL FIRMS BY SHAKING UP THEIR INDUSTRIES. HERE ARE THE INSPIRING- AND INSTRUCTIVE- STORIES OF HOW THEY DID IT
LARRY ROSSY
KING OF THE DOLLAR STORE
He's the gold standard for the truly hands-on CEO. Even as Dollarama LP Inc. has raced past $1 billion in sales, Larry Rossy, its chief executive, has held onto the jobs of head buyer and store-location scout for the chain's 585 outlets across Canada.
Rossy built Dollarama into the titan among Canadian dollar stores in part with his bargaining skills as a third-generation discount retailer whose grandfather opened the family's first five-anddime in Montreal in 1910. "There are not too many CEOs who will fight tooth and nail with suppliers for a penny on a product," Dollarama's boss told the Natrona/ Post last year.
But Rossy's skills go far beyond being a hard-nosed bargainer. He also foresaw the appeal of clean, well-organized stores to bargain hunters repelled by the shabbiness of most dollar stores. Rossy told the National Post that before opening Montreal-based Dollarama's first location in 1992, he studied existing outlets and realized: "Their stores are junky, they're buying poor product. Their stores were not well lit or merchandised. They were very unprofessional."
Over the past decade, Rossy has achieved his vision of a professionally managed chain rising to dominance. His firm has tripled the number of its stores and left rivals such as A Buck or Two shrinking fast. Although the recession juiced up sales - which reached $303 million in the quarter ended August 2, 2009, up by 15%) in a year-^Dollarama was flourishing long before the slump.
Bain Capital LLC, a Boston-based private-equity fund that now has US$60 billion in assets, bought into Rossy's vision in 2004, paying C$1.03 billion for 80% of Dollarama. Continuing as CEO, Rossy maintained strategies that helped put the chain on top in Canada. He scoured higher-priced stores for $10 items he could copy and sell for a buck - even a disposable camera. And, to keep costs rockbottom, he bypassed importers, sourcing directly from Asian manufacturers.
Under Rossy, Dollarama made some key changes in recent years. The chain invested heavily in IT to increase its efficiency amid hectic growth. It introduced...