No matter the size of the company, a CEO needs to project confidence about the changes that lie ahead.
Jerry Cirino, president and CEO of Imalux Corp., says evolution is a given in the business world, but it’s how business leaders deal with change that goes to the core of basic leadership qualities. “All constituencies — whether it’s employees, customers, suppliers, shareholders — need to feel confident that a leader is comfortable navigating through and will not be intimidated by having to deal with change,” Cirino says.
Imalux manufactures medical imaging equipment and devices based on its proprietary optical coherence tomography (OCT) technology. Invented and developed at a research institute in Russia, the patents and technical know-how were transferred to Imalux in exchange for equity. However, the design and documentation were unacceptable for manufacturing a product that met FDA, regulatory, safety, quality, good manufacturing processes and medical market requirements.
So Imalux began to document and understand the Russian methods of manufacturing the prototype, then developed a manufacturing plan to divide the work in a cost-effective way between in-house and outside consultants and key contractors.
Cirino believes in embracing change wholeheartedly.
“You don’t want to be reckless and be a cowboy about the whole thing, but a lot of business leaders … go about it too cautiously and too slowly,” he says. “People in general prefer what they’re comfortable with and the status quo. Change has risk.”
As a result of taking calculated risks, Imalux is producing the first — and to date, the only — FDA-cleared OCT product that helps diagnose certain cancers where no other imaging modality is effective. “I like to challenge myself and challenge people on my teams,” Cirino says. “If you’ve got this not-invented-here syndrome, and you don’t like outside ideas, you’re really stuck. I’ve always managed that way, and it’s generally worked pretty well.”
HOW TO REACH: Imalux Corp., (866) 628-6474 or www.imalux.com