The $8.2 billion Amway Corporation, the world’s largest direct seller, does not have a CEO. Instead, at the company’s Ada, Michigan-based headquarters, two very contrasting personalities cohabit what has come to be known as the ‘Office of the Chief Executive’.
The coy chairman Steve Van Andel and the flamboyant president Doug DeVos share that office, just as their fathers Jay Van Andel and Rich DeVos did 50 years ago when the company was formed. The Van Andel and DeVos families have lived next to each other for three generations now, and share the 100% familyowned Amway business through its parent, Alticor, equally.
For half-a-century, the families have been living next to each other (not facing each other) in downtown Ada and exploring how to ‘help people lead better lives’, as the company credo goes. When CD caught up with DeVos, he was all praise for going dutch (ostensibly, the families have Dutch origin too).
“It works because we have a common value base, a common history and think that being a privately-owned company gives us a competitive advantage.†In blue stripes, flanked by his India business head William S. Pinckney and senior veep Jim Payne, DeVos digs the global slowdown and challenges the rulebook of direct selling as Amway bucks the trend by registering record sales, a 15% increase over 2007.
Logo from Amway