The Picture of Success: John Viscogliosi

By Robin R. Young, CFA

When John Viscogliosi says, “What don’t I know?” there’s no smirk on his face. “Quite the contrary,” says Viscogliosi, “Over the years my brothers and I have learned that because there is so much to know, it’s necessary to approach subjects with a great sense of humility.”

John Viscogliosi, principal of Viscogliosi Brothers, LLC and chairman and CEO of Raymedica, learned modesty in part from wearing multiple hats at the family business. “During my formative years I worked in my parents’ bar and restaurant. I waited on customers, cooked, cleaned … whatever needed to be done.”

So when the time came to choose a profession, would he lean towards flipping hamburgers or torts? “Although as a teenager I had no concrete career plan,” says John, “I developed an interest in the law because it sets the rules. Once I decided to get serious about school, I took up to 20 credits per semester while working full time at the bar. While I had several business and finance courses, my degree was in criminal justice. At the time of my college graduation, however, no one was hiring for the areas in which I was interested.”

One door closes and another opens. “When I graduated from college I had an opportunity at Martin Simpson & Company, Inc. to be an assistant to the institutional sales and trading department. My brother Tony worked there as an analyst focused on orthopedics, so that also made the job appealing. Through the years I worked for multiple brokerage firms prior to launching Viscogliosi Brothers in 1999. That early experience in trading, asset management, and institutional sales provided a solid foundation for starting a company.”

He could have continued on that road … learning and growing inside an established enterprise. But his entrepreneurial instinct was tugging at him. “I needed to do something different,” says John Viscogliosi. “My brothers and I started our own company because we got tired of pushing rope up a hill. At the time, the average brokerage firm had no interest in orthopedics because the deals were so small. They simply did not understand the long-term growth opportunity in the industry. They were essentially preoccupied with telecommunications and technology stocks. And then there was the fact that because my parents had a family business, my brothers and I always had a vision of working together. Add these things together and all systems were ‘go.’”

And his role at Viscogliosi Brothers? “Part of my VBrothers work is managing Raymedica. It has been an exciting opportunity to take a company that was seen as dead and restructure and refocus it. We have amassed years of clinical experience and leveraged it to remake the company. It has taken two years of full time focus for me to get Raymedica to this point. I am especially proud of the work the team has done the last several months as we prepare to enter U.S. clinical trials. Additionally, I am involved in all of the Viscogliosi Brothers businesses. Either I sit on a company’s board or advise them in a non-board capacity. While I try to stay out of the day-to-day operations of the companies, it’s challenging because oftentimes I want to jump in and be more active.”

Multiple talents, singular wisdom. “At Viscogliosi Brothers my brothers and I don’t allow our skill sets to overlap,” says John. “I tend to be strong in getting deep into the details of the day-to-day execution, reading people, strategizing about execution, and taking a large volume of information and assimilating it in a concise matter. Of the three brothers, I am most viewed as the ‘operator.’ I think one of my best skill sets is my ability to get to the heart of an issue after absorbing enormous amounts of data and information. I can sit in a ten-hour meeting without talking and come out with two sentences that capture the essence of what was said (I have been told). I also tend to be the ‘fixer-upper,’ which means the problems usually get sent my way to get solved. My brothers’ strengths include finance, vision (the real 30,000-foot view), strategy and an understanding of the science behind the products. I think we balance out very well.”

Continues John, “I have a true passion for my work. Otherwise I couldn’t work 14 to 18 hours per day. I especially enjoy attending surgeries to view our companies’ products being implanted; knowing we are helping that person on the table means so much. Being in the OR is the only true way you know how the instruments and implants function in the doctors’ hands. This is critical because the doctors are the ones who actually have their hands in the patient. If the doctors have difficulties with your products then you have very little chance for long-term success. These are the types of things that we look at first when making an investment or creating a new company. That is what makes Viscogliosi Brothers different. Compare this to other investors who are hands-off and don’t care whether they are investing in orthopedic implants or plastic cups because they are first looking at their financial return models to see if the company fits. We never forget that the patient comes first. In order for that to happen we must serve our surgeon-customers better than anyone else. If we do good for the surgeon and the patient, the financial returns will be there for us and our investors.”

John Viscogliosi’s prognosis for the future of the field? “The industry is robust and will continue to grow. Pricing and other issues continue to be hot topics, of course. We had a lot of fear and skepticism in the early ‘90s and we’re essentially reliving history now. The difference is that a lot of the people dealing with it now weren’t around then and thus don’t have the background that would help them handle it.”

John Viscogliosi was interested in the law because it sets the rules. So does he lay down the law in his professional life? Laughs John, “I have no badge. My parents taught us to treat people well, work hard, and not be envious of others when they succeed. One of their sayings was, ‘If you give food off your plate, you’ll always have food.’ Serving people all those years ago at the restaurant prepared me to serve people later in the business world. In part, what helps me understand people and work well with them today are the criminal justice classes I took in college. They heavily emphasized psychology and sociology. Through the years I have learned that having a superiority complex doesn’t pay. I firmly believe that everyone can contribute and that managers must remain open to ideas in order to grow their businesses.”

John doesn’t slow down much. When he does you can find him relaxing with a book or on the golf course. “I enjoy reading, in particular crime novels, Wall Street history, business books, and orthopedics. As for golf, because of my schedule I have only been able to play ten rounds in the last two years. On the personal side, I am engaged to a very understanding woman who is quite supportive of my work. This is a great help because my travel schedule is outrageous. As of July, I’ve only spent seven weeks in New York this year. Laughs John, “I got her to quit her job so she could travel with me.”

Perhaps one day John Viscogliosi will write his own book … on family wisdom, family business, and how to do it all with humility.

Reprinted with permission of Robin R Young, CFA, Orthopedics This Week Newsletter, Volume 2, Issue 24, July 25, 2006