Leading with a Smile - Phil McKenzie, CEO Pacific Smiles Group [S5.E7]

Phil McKenzie, the CEO of Pacific Smiles Group, the ASX listed (PSQ:ASX) dental services business is our final guest of Season 5. Phil joined Pacific Smiles in 2018, taking over the previously founder led business and completely reshaping the corporate culture. Many listeners may be familiar with Pacific Smiles given its listed nature, or as a customer of one of its 115 dental clinics around Australia. 

Phil is a wonderful leader – someone who intertwines himself deeply within the business, understanding his own strengths and weaknesses and ensuring he is playing to the former and allowing other great leaders cover the latter. His previous experience running a 200 audiology clinics in the US, as well as leading Apple’s retail rollout in Australia, have given him wonderful lessons to apply to Pacific Smile. It has not been all smooth sailing though, a global pandemic tested his leadership, as it did to every leader around the world, and he gives great insights into how he and his team approached the various challenges as they were thrown up. Phil’s real strength is around galvanising teams, and this theme plays out over and over again through the episode. 

Here at TDM we are trying to create content relevant for both founders, leadership team and investor. Since our last series, you may have missed some of this, including Jess Bell Allens superb deep dive into what makes a great medical device business. This is sadly the last episode in this series, but we will be back in 2022. 

In the meantime, the best place to find all of TDM content is on our website or across our social channels - you can follow TDM (linktr.ee/tdmgrowth) and host Ed Cowan (linktr.ee/eddiecowan) via the links.

Show notes; 

Dental ecosystem in Australia and the scope of Pacific Smile’s (3:25) 

Pacific Smile’s greenfield organic growth strategy (4:48) 

Role of insurers in the dental ecosystem (6:30) 

How to develop a great brand and Pacific Smile’s competitive advantage (9:45) 

Pacific Smile’s journey to further capture the dental market (11:18) 

The key successes of a leader and improving by recognizing previous mistakes (13:53) 

Phil’s leadership style and the importance of visibility in leadership (17:00) 

Importance of communication and chair-side manner (19:00) 

Pacific Smile’s people and culture, values and employee synergy (20:11) 

Phil’s personal growth as CEO and advice to his younger self (26:46) 

Impact of the pandemic on Pacific Smile’s as a consumer-facing business (29:02) 

Process of decommissioning and recommissioning dental centers during the pandemic (30:59) 

Lessons learnt from the first lockdown (Mar-Jun 2020) and applying these to 2021 (32:40) 

The fear of the unknown and investing in times of darkness for future gains (35:04) 

Experience as a public company CEO (36:35) 

Establishing the consistency of Pacific Smile’s message and story (38:37) 

Optimizing for long-term growth (39:11) 

Role of the board in a public growth company and CEO interactions (40:22) 

What makes a great chair to the board (43:01) 

10-year vision for personal and professional growth at Pacific Smile’s (43:42)