Mark Kesti is the Chief Revenue Officer and President at Innovo.

With over 25 years of experience building, developing and leading sales, marketing and business development teams, Mark helps clients increase top-line sales and achieve rapid growth. 

Mark has held VP Sales and other senior executive-level leadership positions overseeing US and international Fortune 500 companies such as GE, Omron, and BD (Becton Dickinson).

His diverse and accomplished background also includes Vice President, P&L and Corporate Officer leadership success with VC-backed startups, small to mid-size turnarounds and private equity portfolio companies.

Mark is a hands-on leader who believes in building process driven, high-performance cultures that are laser focused on maximizing revenue and profitability.

He is a published author and recognized thought leader within the sales industry, where he has been a guest lecturer for the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and invited presenter at national and international sales conferences.

Mark has also served as a Board of Advisory Board Member for the Eastern Technology Council, University City QED Program, GE Integration and Eagle Scout Review Board for the Chester County Council of the Boy Scouts of America. He is a graduate of the Temple University Fox School of Business and Management.

PRESIDENT / VP SALES & MARKETING / GLOBAL SENIOR EXECUTIVE LEADER
Sales & Operational Turnaround / Revenue, Market Share & Earnings Growth / International
Business Analysis & Planning / Organizational Development / Process Reengineering
Business & Marketing Plans / Product Development / Startup
Business Alliances / Team Leadership

• Advisory Board Member – University Science Center – Start-up Incubator
• Advisory Board Member – Global Integration Team – GE Healthcare
• Advisory Board Member – M&A Due Diligence Team – Angiotech Corporation
• Advisory Board Member – Eastern Technology Council
• Board Member – Eagle Scout Review Board – Boy Scouts of America, Chester County Council, Troop 67
• Published author – “All Signs Point to Outsourcing,” Medical Device & Diagnostic Industry – March 2007
• Guest lecturer – Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania – MBA course on Medical Device Industry
• Invited Speaker – Medical Device Marketing and Sales Summit – Tampa, FL
• Invited Speaker – Medical Design and Manufacturing – New York City, NY
• Invited Speaker – MedForce Conference for medical device and diagnostic manufacturers

Mr. Kesti has performed with excellence in multiple roles demanding strong sales, market expansion, operations, technical and business growth performance for VC backed start-ups, private equity-owned and Fortune 50 public companies in markets and business environments as demanding as any faced by today’s most accomplished executives. He has been highly successful in operational reengineering and turnarounds, capital planning, cost management and startups, and created and led successful exit strategies.

Mr. Kesti has integrated sales, marketing and product development to create strong value positioning, ensuring that products can withstand competitive threats, hold their value and gain market share. He is skilled in studying and identifying market needs and dynamics, and product appeal. Using this methodology, Mark effectively positioned products for different customer types based on the markets they were serving.

He offers strong international expertise, having developed sales and business partnerships in Europe, Asia Pacific, China, South America and across the US. 

Broadly acknowledged for his leadership skills as a specialist in the resolution of complex, solution-resistant challenges, Mark’s unique value to his employers and clients was enhanced by his ability to turn almost any circumstance into an opportunity to build performance. As a valued problem solver, he has more than once crafted a business plan and then led his team to realize its full potential. He has many times prevented problems from becoming threats to company performance, and turned potentially costly business issues into creative solutions that served as the foundation for significant growth.

Mr. Kesti earned his Bachelor of Business Administration degree (Finance and Economics major) at Temple University. He also secured Lean Manufacturing and ISO 13485:2003 training certifications, and has completed numerous advanced sales and management training.

CAREER HISTORY

President
Innovo, LLC
2016 to present
Based on his consistent track record of success creating and leading high impact sales organizations, Mr. Kesti formed Innovo, LLC.  His company collaborates with small to mid-sized established, privately owned, private equity portfolio and venture capital backed companies to identify areas of improvement and prioritize actionable recommendations to drive greater top line sales growth.  

Board Member
Metaphase Technologies
2019 to present
Metaphase Technologies is a private high tech manufacturing company focused on machine vision and automation products designed to improve manufacturing throughput in the automotive, consumer packaged goods, pharmaceutical, medical device, and silicon microchip industries.

Vice President Sales
Galt Medical and NeedleTech Products
(Private Equity portfolio company)
2014 to 2016
Because of his strong track record of increasing sales and profits of private equity portfolio companies, Mr. Kesti was recruited to integrate and increase sales of two underperforming global P&Ls focused in similar products and services markets. Using his proven turnaround success, Mr. Kesti increased sales 24% in two years, achieving record top line sales.  By developing and executing a growth strategy that combined contract manufacturing and outsourcing capabilities of two P&Ls, Mr. Kesti secured $43M in long term agreements.  

Captured unrealized opportunities in new markets
Upon accepting the challenge to revitalize persistent slow to no growth annual sales, Mr. Kesti called upon his deep experience growing sales in regions outside the US.  By leveraging his new scalable sales infrastructure and processes, he developed and executed in the US, Mr. Kesti set his sights towards Europe, Middle East and Asia.  Within two years, sales outside the US increased 39%.  The strategy included establishing new Distributor channels for branded products and leveraging existing US relationships with multinational companies for contract manufacturing and outsourcing revenue stream

Vice President Sales
Angiotech Pharmaceuticals / Surgical Specialties Corporation
2010 to 2013
Because of his strong track record in turning around underperformance, Mr. Kesti was recruited to a P&L level role to guide Angiotech’s $96M surgical specialties division’s expansion in the US, the EU, Asia Pacific, China and South America through his strong strategic skills. He structured and executed a global strategic plan that increased EBITDA 40% and led the company to outperform averaged industry growth by delivering a 14% compound annual growth rate (CAGR). As a member of the Presidents Club, he led his team of 35 in winning Team of the Year honors for achieving the company’s highest overall business unit revenue growth, and personally won the Angiotech 2011 Leadership Award presented to just one employee out of 1,200.

Turned revenue stream in freefall into double digit growth.
When Mr. Kesti joined the company, sales for his unit had fallen each of the previous three years. Revenue had bottomed out at $61M. He quickly identified global market opportunities the company had not pursued, and determined that a significant opportunity for double digit growth could be created. After enlisting the support of the Board, he crafted an aggressive three-year sales plan driven by significant changes to the company’s sales infrastructure, business processes and complementary operations. Because of his work, Angiotech sales jumped 47% in three years to $88M, during a period when competitors had grown an average of only 6% annually. 

Prevented increased sales from creating backorders and customer dissatisfaction.
Success in driving sales up quickly had resulted in a 20% rise in backorders as Production found itself facing unexpected new demand. Understanding the potential threat to the strengthened customer relationships he had carefully cultivated, Mark responded swiftly by engaging the VP of Manufacturing in creating a process value map and incorporating Lean manufacturing and supply chain improvements. Within months, the company could decrease backorders 90%, which in turn boosted sales a further $1.8M while decreasing needed raw materials inventory by $750K. In addition, his work moved customer satisfaction levels upward again as lead times decreased by a full month.

Vice President Sales & Marketing
GE Healthcare
2005 to 2010
His reputation for excellence in sales and business development induced GE Healthcare to recruit Mr. Kesti to be their first VP of Sales and Marketing. In this assignment, he provided critical strategic marketing and change management leadership to this provider of medical interventional systems, and increased global sales and market share through distributor expansions into China, South America and India. Mark created and managed a new sales and marketing organization, leading directly to an increase in sales, profits and market share for disposable medical products. 

Quickly established winning sales program for acquired company with no prior sales or marketing.
GE Healthcare had purchased a disposable medical device company that had virtually no inhouse sales or marketing capability. Mark stepped in to create a new global sales and marketing organization capable of being highly effective from day one. First, he created a three-year strategic growth plan that defined target markets and established product development processes to support scalable top and bottom line growth. The proof of his plan was demonstrated in the delivery of $111M in new net revenue, and ultimately exceeding the strategic plan’s sales and profit goals for four consecutive years.

Integrated multiple disciplines and a dash of “street smarts” to bring new products to market.
GE Healthcare had developed unique manufacturing capabilities that were underutilized and consequently more of a cost burden than an asset. Mr. Kesti applied his deep knowledge of the development and manufacturing process to identify the value in using this unique manufacturing capability to modify and position an existing product for a new clinical market globally valued at $150M+. By analyzing total market value of the opportunity, design requirements, specifications, raw materials, labor, overhead, intellectual property risks, and development, regulatory and marketing costs, Mark made the business case that GE Healthcare could reasonably expect to capture no less than 25% of the market by year three and generate approximately $37.5M in net new revenue annually. Despite having no capital budget allocated, Mark found innovative ways to cover the significant costs of developing, manufacturing and commercializing the product. Thus, Mr. Kesti led the company in securing two long term, exclusive manufacturing agreements with guaranteed minimums worth $36M in the first three years. This locked in a 70% gross margin, delivered $25M in gross profit, and improved the division’s operating income to a record 34%.

Director Business Development
Colin Medical Instruments (private equity portfolio company of The Carlyle Group)
2003 to 2005
Mr. Kesti developed and executed the strategic plan to increase sales and market share for this $80M business providing patient monitoring and OEM electronic components. To achieve this aggressive goal, he applied a spectrum of direct, indirect and private label distribution models. He developed and closed a $20M, multi-year private label distribution agreement, and increased year-over-year sales by 40%, an unprecedented achievement within the company. His turnaround strategy made possible a successful private equity company exit when the firm was sold to Omron, Inc.

Vice President Americas / Sales & Marketing
CDC Solutions (VC backed start-up)
2000 to 2003
Mr. Kesti held P&L responsibility for turning around this venture capital-backed, UK-Based healthcare IT company’s US sales and marketing performance. Mark led a team of 12. His work was critical to the subsequent acquisition of the company by Thomson Reuters.

Made a high potential startup profitable.
CDC was launched to provide software designed to help global life science and healthcare companies get product approval submissions through the expensive, time consuming and critically important regulatory process, reduce time to market, and generate revenues sooner. Unfortunately, the firm’s performance had not matched its aspirations. Mr. Kesti was tapped to turn the company’s potential into reality. He assessed business risks, verified operating expenses and revenues, and worked with sales, marketing and software engineers to deconstruct the existing sales process. He also met with existing and potential customers to understand the market, the strengths and weaknesses of the software, the competition, and the actual / perceived value of the software. Mark rallied the US operational, sales, marketing and software development management teams to create a Process Value Map of the existing time, resources, stages and costs associated with the existing sales development, purchasing and installation processes. He added a web-based, scalable CRM system and replaced a technology-focused transactional sales process with a strategic / solution sales approach that moved qualified opportunities through the sales cycle faster. Within one year, Mark’s work had decreased sales cycle times by 50%, produced 60 new prospect leads per month (a 50% improvement), expanded qualified opportunities to 18 per month (a 125% improvement), and increased the average deal size to $350K (a 55% increase). Into the third year of his tenure with the company, Mark’s US team had significantly contributed to growing revenues by 56% year-over-year, which moved the startup over the line into profitability. Additionally, the value of the company multiplied 15X, making the firm attractive as an acquisition target, ultimately leading to a lucrative sale to Thomson Reuters.

Area Manager
Getinge (formerly Datascope Corporation)
1997 to 2000

Region Manager
Getinge (formerly Datascope Corporation)
1996 to 1997

Territory Manager / Sales Representative
Becton, Dickinson (formerly CR Bard, Inc.)
1991 to 1996