Gibson Guitar chief imparts experience, wisdom at Business School's CEO Forum Archived article from Mar 6, 2006

Credit: Dave Muha On Feb. 9, Rutgers Business School-Newark and New Brunswick hosted USA Today’s inaugural CEO Forum on the Newark campus. The event featured Henry Juszkiewicz, left, chair and chief executive officer of Gibson Guitar, the famed instrument maker, in conversation with Kevin Maney (LC ’82), USA Today’s technology columnist. Juszkiewicz told the audience of more than 200 students and faculty how he bought and turned around a sick company, restored quality and profitability, and is bringing innovation to a product that hasn’t changed much in the last 60 years. Juszkiewicz and his Harvard Business School classmate Dave Berryman bought Gibson Guitar in 1985 when it was near collapse. Juszkiewicz, who lives in Nashville, is determined to transform it into a broader kind of company – what he describes as a “musician lifestyle” company – modeled as much on the philosophy and performance of companies like Nike and Harley-Davidson as on any guitar maker. He’s also trying to make guitars and amps entirely digital, a technological departure as radical as the electric guitar, which Gibson brought to market in 1936.

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