Todd Patriacca was more than a dozen years into his finance career when two things happened that accelerated its trajectory. The first was that he found a mentor—or, rather, that his future mentor found him. The second was that he became immersed in Lean culture.
Starting his career at Arthur Andersen, Patriacca spent nearly 10 years in public accounting, a span that allowed him to gain a broad perspective on various industries. However, it was in a subsequent role as corporate controller at a private company that he found a mentor to guide him through essential areas like tax, treasury, and operations—preparing him for the CFO role that he eventually assumed.
Read MoreIt was during these years that Patriacca was introduced to Lean principles. Initially rooted in manufacturing, Lean focuses on continuous improvement and eliminating waste. Patriacca saw the potential to apply these methodologies to finance. He began by implementing standardized processes and automation, significantly improving efficiency. For instance, 80% of accounts payable invoices with purchase orders became processed without human intervention, allowing his team to focus on exceptions and strategic tasks.
Upon joining BVI Medical in 2023, Patriacca continued to champion Lean principles. He established a Center of Excellence in Poland, centralizing operations to enhance efficiency and scalability. His approach to Lean extended to leveraging AI for forecasting and inventory management, exploring opportunities to further streamline operations.
When asked how far along in their career finance professionals should be exposed to Lean thinking, Patriacca’s response is clear: “As early as possible.” He believes that early exposure helps finance professionals to develop a mind-set geared toward continuous improvement and collaboration. Patriacca’s career journey underscores the transformative impact of Lean thinking, illustrating its power to drive efficiency and innovation in finance.
“Ask as many questions as you can and ‘go and see’ where the work is being done. You can’t fully understand an issue or the business—or solve a problem—if you aren’t asking questions and gaining a deep understanding of the work being performed.” –Todd Patriacca, CFO, BVI Medical
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CFOTL: Tell us about BVI Medical … what does this company do, and what are its offerings today?
Patriacca: We are a diversified surgical ophthalmic business, focused on the surgery or operating theater with a broad range of medical device products. We make interocular lenses, capital equipment, consumables that are used within surgery, and surgical fluids that support cataract and refractive surgeries, as well as procedures for glaucoma, vitreous and retinal issues, dryness, and so on—basically, everything in ophthalmic surgery.
Read MoreOver the years, we’ve done a really good job of acquiring complementary companies to broaden our product portfolio. The business was originally just the consumables, but now we have a line of knives and blades that’s been around for decades and still is one of the premier brands within the space. Subsequently, we’ve added cannulas, forceps, and other similar products, as well as cotton swabs, drapes, and other things that might be needed in the surgical suite. To do this, we have acquired a number of equipment companies, including an intraocular lens (IOL) manufacturer. Significantly, we have created this complete product portfolio while still continuing to invest in new development activities.
In the not-too-distant future, we’ll be coming out with some new products that will be supported by our complete portfolio of offerings. Surgeons or staffs with be able to use our equipment platform to pull in both captive and discretionary consumables as well, so we will really be a one-stop shop where they can get everything that they need.
Another thing that we do—with which we’ve had tremendous success—is to make custom packs. Let’s say that surgeon Smith wants his surgical pack set up in a particular way: This knife is on top, this drape is here, this sponge is there. With one of our custom packs, the nurse just opens the thing up and the doctor doesn’t even need to lift his head up off the microscope—he just reaches in, and the next tool that he wants is right there, in the order that he wanted. These packs allow them make their surgeries as efficient as possible, so that they can maximize their revenues and ultimately their profits.
This is really an exciting business. We’ve made a number of acquisitions over the past 7 or 8 years to really leverage our base platform into a full-spectrum provider for ophthalmic surgery. One nice thing is that we are still a rather small player in this. True, we are in 90 countries, but we’re not in 90 countries with every single product. It takes time to get things registered and and so forth, so there’s still a lot of opportunity for us to grow this business with an eye toward what is known as PACE—Performance, Adoption, Confidence, and Expectation—as we expand into new geographies and get products registered in the U.S. and elsewhere.
For example, we’re now in the process of launching our FINEVISION IOL product in the U.S. We’ve implanted over a million of these throughout the rest of the world but have just needed to get through an FDA clinical trial here. We wrapped up the last patient visit for this a couple of months ago, so now we’re compiling all of the study data. We’ll get it submitted to the FDA and hopefully be able to launch sometime soon thereafter. This is a great opportunity for us, right? We’re not selling any IOLs in the U.S. right now, but they’re a quarter of our business elsewhere.
These new products are really going to accelerate our growth, as has been happening in Japan, where we’ve been launching a new product every 6 months or so. We’re enjoying outsized growth, so there are a lot of exciting things happening at BVI right now.
jb
MVI Medical | www.bvimedical.com | Waltham, MA