Aaron Garrity Awarded CEO of the Year in Utah Business Magazine

Here is an excerpt from the cover story in Utah Business Magazine. Aaron received the award in the Private - Medium category. Congratulations, Aaron, you should be proud.

Aaron Garrity

XanGo

A “dream come true” is how Aaron Garrity describes his position as CEO of XanGo. “I always wanted to start my own company, I talked and dreamed of it for years,” he says.

In 2007 that dream got even bigger. The company experienced phenomenal international growth, opening several new markets worldwide, welcoming 10,000 international distributors and earning more than $1 million in revenue within the first month of business in Malaysia. XanGo also hired 353 employees, introduced XanGo.TV and is expanding operations at its distribution facility Spanish Fork. If XanGo had to be summed up in just one word, “growth” would be it, Garrity says.

“When you take a company from start to approximately one million distributors, understanding growth is important,” Garrity says. “The ability to grow management and make appropriate decisions is vital. With that said, it’s also important to be able to maintain the overall corporate vision and objectives, knowing the people and the organization.”

But XanGo has not always experienced such success. In 2001, the company prepared to launch in a very shaky market. Realizing that obtaining start-up capital from outside sources would be unlikely, Garrity mortgaged his home. “We felt the time was right, so we started XanGo with almost nothing more than a whole lot of energy and a dream,” he says.

After becoming CEO of XanGo just 16 months ago, Garrity’s main objective was to keep the company focused and specialized. “XanGo tells one simple story and that’s the story of mangosteen. We’ve specialized this one story and we’re the first in our industry’s history to be five years into the market with just one product.”

XanGo’s efforts to educate the world about the health benefits of mangosteen have contributed to the company’s success, Garrity says. In 2007, the fruit’s popularity grew after being discovered by Oprah Winfrey and The New York Times.

As CEO, Garrity says he tries to create a company culture that’s flowing with energy, innovation and charity. When XanGo was first launched, Garrity stressed the importance of making charitable giving a part of his business model. Today, that model is known as XanGo Goodness, and it benefits families and children around the globe.

Overall, Garrity says that it’s a combination of focus, specialization, having a strong management team and a positive company culture that has equaled success for XanGo. As for the future of XanGo, Garrity says that he hopes to see the company become the greatest direct sales company in the history of the industry and continue the quest to share mangosteen’s story with the world.

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