Baxter International Inc. Wells Fargo 21st Annual Healthcare Conference

All good. Kevin. All good.

Go ahead. I was just going to do the obligatory forward-looking statement.

Just a reminder- So excited Just a reminder, we will be making forward-looking statements here today.

For more information, please see our IR website or our SEC filings. Okay, out of your hair now.

Yeah. Thank you. Actually, it's been a little over a year, and boy, the time has flown. If I do a step back, one of the areas and why I was excited about the opportunity, the job, and Baxter specifically, is really where the business came from and where we can go. I'll tell you, I was able to do a bit of diligence before I said yes to understand our customers' perspective and the position Baxter has with our customers, and that's very positive. The time has flown. When we do a look back on the last year, we've decentralized the organization. So we've gone to independent P&Ls that are focused on how to drive impact for customers, aligned around innovation, around on-time delivery, around quality, and around operational performance.

We've also launched GPS, which is our growth and performance system, really our continuous improvement program, that changing of culture to drive looking to make tomorrow better than today. Everybody gets fussed with it. I always say, "If you can measure it, you can manage it. If you can manage it, you can improve it." So we target areas that are going to drive impact and drive improvement on the business. So we've started our journey, and I've outlined that first stage of our journey around stabilizing the business, around debt repayment, because we know we've had a challenge on our leverage, and that target and laser-focused approach to debt repayment comes from free cash flow, comes from buying down the bonds, all the above, and also our continuous improvement journey. So we've made progress. I'm pleased with where we're at.

We have a lot more work to do, and we're excited about where we're going to take this, but it's about execution.

Yeah. So look, I can't be more excited to have John be a part of this next phase for Baxter. I'll tell you, having spent time with him, he is the right person for where we're taking this organization. Just a couple of minor items on this. When we launched this search, it was a desirable position, and we had a lot of people in it. The reason why we like John is he has a lot of experience in turnaround of big organizations. So he understands the dynamics of how to get the business aligned with a critical few and drive impact. Also, the med tech piece was also important portion for us around understanding the dynamics of our market, our space, so we can weave that into our ability to out-execute and outperform.

John checks a lot of those boxes and really aligns us where financial horsepower is going to be a critical element as we step into the capital allocation phase of our journey. So excited to have him on board. October 1st is coming quick, and we can't be more excited to have John be part of the future.