After creating a bit of a tease on Monday, I can now report on the appointment of a new CEO for Integrated Dental Holdings from July 2010.
Richard Smith has spent the last 5 years with Lloyds Pharmacy assuming responsibility, as Managing Director, for 17,000 staff working across 1700 branches and sales in excess of £1.7bn.
Prior to that, Richard has held management posts in Somerfield, Gateway, BAT and Unilever.
Existing CEO and founder David Hudaly will now transition into a part-time role as Chairman.
During a 1:1 conversation with Richard last week, it became evident to me that he has done his homework on the dental sector, has an enormous energy and a crystal-clear vision of where he wants to take IDH in its next stage of evolution.
Whilst I will continue to operate in both the NHS, corporate and independent sectors as an advisor, I am truly excited about Richard’s arrival at IDH and the implications of that for all areas of the profession.
The arrival of experienced retailers like Richard (and other recent appointments elsewhere) is a clear portent of the future – and I still believe it is a future where all sectors can thrive.
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(@ChrisBKH) (@ChrisBKH) said 
Richard Hughes said 
chas lister said
Richard Smith sounds like a failure in Lloyds Pharmacy. Why come from a nation wide pharmacy of £1.7bn sales to a relatively small chain of dental practice. He must be desparate. He must also command high salary + gauaranteed bonus. IDH will not be able to support such a high maintenance individual. I am starting to count the days before Richard Smith is disillusioned and leave, His experience is in retail sales; hard sell techniques and business school methods of cutting costs to increase profits, ‘targets and terror’ (Alan Milburn’s famous phrase on DoH) are doomed to failure in dental practice when personal service to the patients should rein supreme.
Michael,
I know little about IDH and even less about Richard Smith.
But in my experience, when organisations have brought in leaders from different sectors to shift into a new environment, they invariably bring new ideas and raise the bar in many parts of the business.
And if you do your research, you’ll see that whenever a senior retailer shifts to a new environment, it’s their ability to bring a fresh perspective on service standards and their ability to grow the customer base which is the driver for a change of leadership, rather than their ability to cut costs.
Just my 2 cents worth..
S
good news at least a glimmer of a silver lining