If any chief executive has earned the right to be cloistered in a proverbial ivory tower, it would be Jim Cerkleski. He is the CEO of Clover Holdings, a company with annual revenue in excess of $1 billion, backed by more than 19,000 employees and 60 locations in 18 countries. It stakes a claim to being the world’s largest provider of remanufactured laser and inkjet cartridges and printer parts.
Jim Cerkleski, CEO
Clover Holdings
In a little more than 20 years, Clover has grown to mammoth proportions. In the last five years alone, it has spawned Clover Wireless (a mobile device solutions platform), Clover Telecom (a telecom hardware and engineering services business) and Clover Imaging Group (which supplies printing consumables, parts and services to the global mid-market).
Yet, Cerkleski remains a grounded executive, fully attuned to his humble beginnings. He may engage in the proverbial 30,000-foot executive perspective, but Cerkleski is quick to roll up his sleeves and get entrenched in the granular details of business.
“I’m a very approachable CEO with an open door policy,” said Cerkleski, a 2017 ENX Magazine Difference Maker. “People can have candid conversations with me about the company or changes that are occurring. I’m not your typical ivory tower CEO. I get involved in all aspects of the business—the pricing side, customer side and vendor side. It’s not about being a control freak, it’s about wanting to add as much value to the company as I can with my years of knowledge in this industry.”
The onset of Cerkleski’s career didn’t quite portend the heights to which he has risen. Upon graduating from Northern Illinois University, he sold hardware (word processors, typewriters, etc.) for IBM. After several years, he decided to strike out on his own, backed by some impressive portables. Unfortunately, Cerkleski was in violation of his non-compete clause, and IBM was less than magnanimous toward its former employee’s industriousness. Cerkleski pivoted his business toward the supplies side and sold ribbons, fax paper and toner cartridges to many large clients in the Chicagoland area, including Kraft, Motorola, United Airlines and Baxter.
Cerkleski’s Superior Office Products quickly grew to a $20 million performer before it was sold to U.S. Office Products (later Corporate Express, then Staples). U.S. Office Products became a major rollup player, acquiring 250 independent office products companies, and Cerkleski cut his M&A teeth during this period, learning about due diligence and other aspects of acquisition.
“I had a vision to do the same for the imaging supplies business because it was such a cottage industry and ripe for rollup,” he said. “So I used the knowledge base that I learned in the office products channel.”
Clover Business Products was one of Cerkleski’s vendors; in fact, Superior Office Products was Clover’s largest customer. He continued to do business with Clover after Superior joined the U.S. Office Products fold and helped the manufacturer grow on a national level. Cerkleski was intrigued by the manufacturing business and in 1999 he bought a 60 percent share in Clover. He changed the name to Clover Technologies Group, in part, because CTG is the acronym for cartridge, and served many of the heavyweights in the office products space, including Staples, Office Depot, OfficeMax and Quill.
When the office products space began to shrink due to pressure from online retailers such as Amazon, and with the BTA space also constricting, Clover focused its efforts on managed print services and software solutions. “Getting more into the parts and the refurbishing of printer parts turned out to be a good move for us, because that’s where all the strength and growth is,” Cerkleski observed. “We just don’t see growth in the office products channel anymore.”
Cerkleski comes from a blue-collar background—his father, Richard, was a sheet metal worker—and credits him for instilling that work ethic. That tireless mantra has served Cerkleski well as the tides of business have constantly shifted. He’s made some tough business decisions over the years, but it has always been to the benefit of the organization as a whole.
“As far as business is concerned, don’t fall asleep at the wheel,” he said. “If you do, your competition will jump ahead. You always have to be moving and shaking the trees for new business. Print is changing and it brings about the change you have to have in an organization, and we’re going through it. We’ve bought a lot of companies and we’ve consolidated. It’s tough to make those changes, but if you sit still, you’re done.”
The 2016 campaign was spent rationalizing and streamlining business operations, a recognition of the shrinking industry, but the consolidation made for a stronger Clover organization. That paved the way for a 2017 that firmly established Clover in the world of MPS.
“A lot of companies now are utilizing our capabilities for MPS, beyond just a software,” he said. “It’s talking about our jumbo technology, our distribution expansion, to get product to the customer and end user the next day. The fact that we do not sell direct is part of our story. All of our competitors are selling direct. We continue to support the dealer and will grow our programs in 2018 so they can go out and sell more. The biggest thing in 2018 is the dealer support programs. We have all these new marketing programs for our dealers so we can help them be successful and show them what we know.”
When he’s not at the office, Cerkleski enjoys bass fishing, and Key West, FL, is one of his favorite angling haunts. “I’ve been dabbling in Muskie, but you can’t beat bass fishing,” he said.
Cerkleski and his wife, Cheryl, have been married for 21 years. They have two children—Kelsey, who attends Texas Christian University, and Bryce, a junior in high school.
