John Fortson brings more than 25 years of experience leading transformation, capital deployment, and growth initiatives across global businesses.
Dentsply Sirona, the world’s largest diversified manufacturer of professional dental products and technologies, today announced the appointment of John Fortson as Executive Vice President (EVP) and Chief Financial Officer (CFO), effective July 20.
Mr. Fortson joins Dentsply Sirona with more than 25 years of leadership experience in finance, operations, and strategy across both public and private equity-backed companies. He has served for 13 years as either CFO or Chief Executive Officer of global manufacturing and industrial businesses. Throughout his career, he has executed large-scale business and finance transformations, capital allocation and portfolio optimization strategies, acquisitions and integrations, and ERP implementations to strengthen financial discipline, drive growth, and deliver sustainable shareholder returns. He joins Dentsply Sirona from Kymera International, where he served as CFO. Prior to Kymera, he held executive roles at Ingevity Corporation, starting as CFO & Treasurer before being promoted to CEO, President, and board member.
“We are excited to welcome John to Dentsply Sirona,” said Dan Scavilla, President and CEO of Dentsply Sirona. “Following an extensive search, John emerged as the clear choice to serve as our next CFO given his rare combination of public company CFO experience, CEO perspective, capital markets expertise, and a proven track record of driving growth and operational excellence at scale.”
“We are confident that John’s collaborative leadership style, strategic mindset, and focus on execution will make him an outstanding partner for our leadership team as we advance our Return-to-Growth Action Plan.”
Mr. Fortson said, “I am honored to join Dentsply Sirona at such an important time for the Company. With leading market positions, innovative products, and significant opportunities ahead, I believe Dentsply Sirona is poised for long-term growth. I look forward to partnering with Dan and the leadership team to strengthen performance, drive disciplined execution across the business, and deliver long-term growth and value creation for shareholders.”
About John Fortson
Currently, Mr. Fortson serves as President and CFO of Kymera International, a global specialty materials company backed by Palladium Equity Partners and Goldman Sachs. During his tenure, he has helped lead the integration of a rapidly expanded global platform spanning 21 manufacturing facilities across 14 countries, while overseeing the consolidation of 12 ERP systems into a unified operating environment and driving initiatives to improve forecasting, liquidity, working capital performance, and operational efficiency.
Prior to Kymera, Mr. Fortson spent nearly a decade at Ingevity Corporation (NYSE: NGVT), a global specialty chemicals and materials company with approximately $1.3 billion in annual revenue, serving first as CFO and later as President, CEO, and a member of the company’s board. While at Ingevity, he led the successful separation from WestRock, built its finance, treasury, tax, investor relations, internal audit, and information technology capabilities to support a standalone public company, and helped establish a robust capital structure through a $700 million credit facility, a $300 million high-yield bond offering, and more than $1 billion of strategic acquisitions.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Fortson served as CFO of AAR Corp., a leading global aviation services company with more than $2 billion in annual revenue. There, he led a comprehensive portfolio transformation that included divesting non-core manufacturing assets, retiring $325 million of debt, returning more than $150 million to shareholders through share repurchases, improving returns on invested capital, and repositioning the company around its higher-value aviation services platform.
Before entering corporate leadership, Mr. Fortson spent 15 years in investment banking at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, ultimately serving as Managing Director in the Industrials Group. Prior to his investment banking career, he served as an officer in the U.S. Army for seven years.
Mr. Fortson holds a Master of Business Administration from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and a Bachelor of Science from the United States Military Academy at West Point.
About Dentsply Sirona
Dentsply Sirona is the world’s largest diversified manufacturer of professional dental products and technologies, with over a century of innovation and service to the dental industry and patients worldwide. Dentsply Sirona develops, manufactures, and markets a comprehensive solutions offering, including dental and oral health products as well as other consumable medical devices under a strong portfolio of world-class brands.
Dentsply Sirona’s innovative products provide high-quality, effective, and connected solutions to advance patient care and deliver better and safer dental care. Dentsply Sirona is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. The Company’s shares are listed in the United States on Nasdaq under the symbol XRAY.
Visit www.dentsplysirona.com for more information about Dentsply Sirona and its products.
DISCLAIMER
This information and any attachment thereto contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such statements are not guarantees of future performance. These forward-looking statements reflect views and assumptions regarding expectations and projections about future events and are based on currently available information or information available on the date of any document incorporated by reference. You can generally identify these forward-looking statements by the use of words such as “may,” “could,” “estimate,” “will,” “believe,” “anticipate,” “think,” “intend,” “expect,” “project,” “plan,” “target,” “forecast,” and similar words and expressions. However, these words are not the exclusive means of identifying such statements.
In addition, any statements that refer to expectations, projections, or other characterizations of future events or circumstances are forward-looking statements and may include statements relating to future revenues, expenses, margins, profitability, net income/(loss), earnings per share, and other measures of results of operations and the prospects of future growth of our business. These forward-looking statements are inherently subject to uncertainties, risks, and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict. For a discussion of such risks, uncertainties, and other matters that could cause actual results to differ materially, including risks relating to, among other factors, the market for dental products and services, pricing, future sales volume of the Company’s products, the possibility of changing economic, market, and competitive conditions, dependence on products, dependence on key personnel, technological developments, intense competition, market uncertainties, dependence on distributors, ability to manage growth, dependence on key suppliers, dependence on key members of management, government regulation, our ability to integrate the businesses of Dentsply Sirona, acquisitions and affiliations, readers are urged to carefully review and consider various disclosures made by the Company and Dentsply Sirona in their public filings, including in their Annual Reports on Form 10-K and in their reports on Forms 10-Q and 8-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such statements, which speak only as of the date hereof. Except as required by law, the Company does not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this document or the attachments to reflect new information or future events or developments after the date any such statement is made.
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