Robert Chapman
CEO and Chairman
Barry-Wehmiller Companies, Inc
St. Louis, MO

“Everyone wants to contribute. Trust them. Leaders are everywhere. Find them. Some people are on a mission. Celebrate them. Others wish things were different. Listen to them. Everybody matters. Show them.” from Everybody Matters, Penguin Random House.

Bob Chapman plans to change the world. Chapman is Chairman and CEO of Barry-Wehmiller, a capital equipment and engineering consulting firm with nearly 8,000 team members worldwide. After seeing the positive impact of Barry-Wehmiller’s people-centric culture on the lives of his employees, Chapman felt compelled to raise awareness about business enterprise’s opportunity to become the most powerful positive influence on our society.

Chapman took over the reins of the privately-owned Barry-Wehmiller upon his father’s death in 1975, when it was a struggling bottle washer business. Since then, the single-market company has grown into a corrugating, packaging, and paper converting equipment and consulting conglomerate through strategic acquisition, operational expertise and commitment to, as Chapman likes to say, “the lives under my care.” Today, $2 billion Barry-Wehmiller is a combination of more than 70 acquired companies around the globe. Since 1987, it has continued a pattern of 15 percent compound growth in revenue and share value.

Chapman shares his message about the power of people-centric leadership—called Truly Human Leadership—through speaking engagements, his blog, and with anyone he meets. Chapman’s list of speaking engagements includes the AME International Conference, Institute for Healthcare Consumerism Forum, Transformational Leadership Council, TEDxScottAFB Event, Shingo Prize for Manufacturing Excellence International Conference, Mid-America Corporate Growth Conference, HERO Forum for Employee Health Management, Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership’s International Conference, and St. Louis Business Journal’s Salute to the Top 150 Privately Held Companies in St. Louis.