The 39th HBSANC Business Leader of the Year Award Dinner honored T. Gary Rogers, the recently retired Chairman and CEO of Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream. This award honors and recognizes an outstanding executive who has made a real difference in our community and whose professional achievements and personal attributes have provided leadership to both their company and industry. By these criteria, Rogers could not have been a more deserving recipient of the Award. With over 500 dinner guests on hand to help us honor Rogers on January 28, the Ritz-Carlton San Francisco’s Grand Ballroom was filled to capacity. A record 68 tables were purchased for the event, which enabled HBSANC to raise over $250,000 to support the Club’s public service mission and help fund HBS Community Partners. The amount raised exceeded the previous all-time high by over 60%.

HBSANC Chairman, Jeff Holland, welcomed the attendees, and event Chairs Karen Francis and Don Nelson acknowledged and thanked the many individuals and organizations who had contributed to the success of the evening. Nelson then went on to introduce Bob Haas, Chairman of Levi Strauss & Co., who in turn introduced Rogers. Haas described his long friendship with Rogers, which began when both were undergraduates at Cal. The friendship grew and deepened through years at HBS and McKinsey and afterwards, and culminated in Rogers’ recent election as the new Chairman of Levi Strauss, where he is Haas’ successor.

Rogers described the history of Dreyer’s, from its very early days to the time in 1977 when he and his partners serendipitously acquired the company for $1 million. At the time of its acquisition, Dreyer’s was doing about $6 million revenues. Through a combination of organic growth and selected acquisitions, Dreyer’s gradually grew eastward, on its way to becoming the national powerhouse brand that it is today. Rogers discussed candidly some of the obstacles that the company had to overcome, including labor and pricing issues, litigation and some failed acquisitions and product ideas. Through it all, Dreyer’s grew to become the largest premium and super-premium ice cream and frozen snack company in the United States, with $2 billion in sales. In 2006, Dreyer’s completed its merger with Nestlé in a transaction valued at about $2.8 billion.

Rogers gives much of the credit for what Dreyer’s has been able to achieve to the company’s unique corporate culture. That culture, which Rogers and company employees have distilled into the term “grooves,” include such management principles as hoopla (celebrate the successes of your employees) and ready, fire, aim (it is OK to make a mistake – it is better to act on a good idea that doesn’t work out, than to over-analyze and hesitate).

Nelson and Francis presented the Award to Rogers, who accepted it with pride. In a moving tribute to past awardees, Rogers noted that the very first Business Leader of the Year, in 1969, was Walter A. Haas, Jr., his good friend Bob Haas’ father.

HBSANC would like to thank especially the dinner’s Premier Event Sponsors, Nestlé and Dreyer’s and Children’s Hospital and Research Center Oakland. HBSANC would also like to thank the event’s Patrons, Benefactors and Sponsors (who are listed below) for their generosity; the event Steering Committee and volunteers for their dedication; Club officers (Kirsten Pickford, Ping Hao and Jeff Holland) for their leadership; and Lynn Nelson for her style and organizational skills. Finally, HBSANC would like to thank Diageo Chateau & Estate Wines and Beaulieu Vineyard for their generous donation of the wines for the evening.

Gary Rogers Biography: Gary is the Chairman of the Board of Levi Strauss & Company. Most recently, Gary was the Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream. When Rogers and his partners bought Dreyer's in 1977 for $1 million, the company was a regional player in the ice cream business with about $6 million in revenues. With Rogers at the helm, the company expanded its distribution nationally and built the company into the largest premium and superpremium ice cream and frozen snack company in the United States, with more than $2 billion in sales. In 2006, Dreyer's agreed to a merger with Nestlé in a transaction valued at about $2.8 billion. Gary is quick to credit Dreyer's unique corporate culture for much of what the company has been able to achieve – a corporate culture that includes such principles as "hoopla," "upside down organization" and "ready, fire, aim." Gary plans to share with us some of his perspectives on the role that corporate culture can plays in achieving corporate success.

Prior to purchasing Dreyer's, Gary was co-founder and president of a specialty restaurant company, Vintage House Restaurants, operating in California and Texas. Previously, he specialized in corporate development and financial issues as an associate in the San Francisco office of McKinsey & Company.

Gary is a 1963 graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering. A member of the varsity crew, he was named All University Athlete in 1963 and rowed in the U.S. Olympic Trials in 1964. He then went on to obtain his MBA at Harvard Business School in 1968, graduating as a Baker Scholar.

Gary is very involved with a variety of other businesses and is a member of the Bay Area Business Hall of Fame. He currently sits on the boards of Levi Strauss & Co., the Shorenstein Company and Stanislaus Food Products. He is also the current Deputy Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and is active with a wide variety of community organizations.

Many thanks to all our sponsors and patrons!

PREMIER EVENT SPONSORS
Children’s Hospital and Research Center Oakland
Nestlé / Dreyer’s

PATRONS
Accenture
American Infrastructure Funds
AT&T
Cal Men’s Crew
Mr. and Mrs. Art Ciocca
The Clorox Company
Joan & Dino Cortopassi
Rick Cronk
Deloitte
Dodge & Cox
East Bay Community Foundation
Hakman Capital Corporation
Harvard Business School
The Hellman Family
Hub Strategy and Communications
James Warren & Son
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.
Levi Strauss & Co.
Ed R. Manwell Party
McKinsey & Company
Jim and Becky Morgan
Bill and Susan Oberndorf
Senator Don Perata
T. Gary & Kathleen Rogers Family
Tom & Virginia Rogers
Think London

BENEFACTORS
Ron Conway / UCSF
First Republic Bank
Francisco Partners, LLC
Headland Ventures
IBM
PIER 39
Safeway Inc.
The Shorenstein Company

SPONSORS
Bay Area Council
Beckstoffer Vineyards
Belvedere Capital Partners LLC
California Institute for Quantitative Bioscience (QB3)
Condé Nast Publications
Cooley Godward Kronish LLP
Financial Review Group
Buck Gee
Grubb & Ellis – Alesco Global Advisors
Horizon Holdings, LLC
Il Fornaio (America) Inc.
Kern Family
Korn/Ferry International
Madison Park Financial Corp.
Merrill Lynch
Mosaic Financial Partners, Inc.
Old Oars
Osterweis Capital Management
Payne Family Foundation
Ed and Camille Penhoet
Senator Don Perata
San Francisco Giants
Seacoast Capital Partners, LP
Jean-Luc Servat, RBC Capital Markets
Spencer Stuart & Associates
Studley
University of California, Berkeley
Williams Pacific Ventures Inc.
Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati
Young & Rubicam