In today’s fast-moving and increasingly competitive business landscape, the role of the Chief Growth Officer has never been more essential. As companies face constant disruption, shifting customer expectations, and evolving technologies, growth can no longer be left to chance or siloed within a single department. The Chief Growth Officer exists to bring clarity, focus, and momentum to that challenge. Speaking of them, there’s a name we cannot miss, and that is John Cox, Chief Growth Officer, SprintRay Inc.
At their core, Chief Growth Officers are connectors. They sit at the intersection of strategy, marketing, sales, product, and customer experience, ensuring that every part of the organization is aligned around one shared goal: sustainable growth. Rather than chasing short-term wins, they look at the bigger picture of how a company attracts customers, retains trust, and evolves alongside its market.
Uplifting People is the Aim
John’s career has always been centered on growth, but not solely in terms of revenue. For him, growth has meant expanding people, nurturing ideas, and challenging organizations to rethink what they believe is possible. This broader view has shaped every chapter of his professional journey and continues to influence how he leads today.
He began on the front lines of sales, carrying a bag and engaging directly with customers. It was there that he learned a lesson that stayed with him: real growth starts with curiosity. By asking better questions, listening closely, and understanding what motivates people beyond numbers, he discovered that success is deeply human. People don’t simply buy solutions; they buy confidence, clarity, and trust. John learned early on that likeability, often overlooked, is a powerful driver of growth and long-term relationships.
He adds, “Growth isn’t accidental. When you intentionally align people, purpose, and possibility, the magic begins to happen.”
As his career progressed, he transitioned from a high-performing individual contributor into leadership roles spanning regional, national, and global responsibilities at organizations such as Nobel Biocare, Henry Schein, and later SprintRay. With each step, his focus broadened. Selling products evolved into building ecosystems, managing teams became shaping cultures, and incremental gains gave way to transformational growth.
At SprintRay, he has played a key role in helping an emerging 3D printing company grow into a global healthcare technology leader. Across every role, one thread remains consistent: a passion for redefining what’s possible. By intentionally aligning innovation, talent, and purpose, he believes growth doesn’t simply occur; it compounds, creating impact that extends far beyond the balance sheet.
Trust Over Authority
One of John’s earliest defining moments came when he realized that leadership is more about earned trust and influence versus assigned authority. That insight took shape while he was leading a small but deeply committed team at Nobel Biocare in Canada during a particularly challenging market cycle. Conditions were far from ideal, and resources were limited, yet the team shared a belief that with alignment, grit and intention, they could outperform the competition and dominate the segment. By anchoring the group around a clear vision and reinforcing consistency and trust, that scrappy team turned a stagnant organization into a record-setting growth engine.
Another formative experience followed when he was asked to take on an underperforming division that many had already written off. Rather than seeing a lost cause, he recognized untapped potential in both the people and the business. The turnaround reinforced a pattern he would encounter repeatedly throughout his career: opportunity often lives inside what others dismiss. Where some see constraints, he looks for leverage in people, in positioning, and in unmet demand waiting to be unlocked.
He asserts, “People don’t follow titles. They follow vision, trust, and momentum that is sprinkled with passion that becomes contagious.”
Together, these moments shaped his leadership philosophy early on. He learned to empower people with true ownership, communicate the “why” relentlessly, and invite everyone to be part of the solution. Trust gets amplified when leaders take accountability when teams fail, and shine the spotlight on teams when they succeed. That human-centered approach has guided him through every transformation, from navigating the uncertainty of the 2008 recession to leading through COVID-19, and more recently, scaling global growth at SprintRay. Across changing environments, the principle has remained constant: when people feel trusted and aligned, they rise to meet even the toughest challenges. When a team genuinely enjoys the grind, takes pride in the work, and starts stacking wins, they reach a powerful state I call “FLOW.”
Curiosity-Led Leadership
John has never believed in a single universal playbook. Markets shift, cultures differ, and customer motivations evolve, but human behavior remains remarkably consistent. That understanding has shaped how he approaches leadership and strategy across industries.
Whether operating in healthcare, dental, or technology-driven environments, he believes success ultimately comes down to trust, empathy, and the ability to deliver real, measurable outcomes. In the dental space in particular, the work is never just about selling technology. It’s about enabling better, faster, and more accessible care. For John, every strategy must begin with patient impact and work backward, ensuring innovation serves a meaningful purpose rather than novelty.
He asserts, “Markets change, but human nature doesn’t. Growth lives at that intersection.”
In fast-moving technology organizations, he recognizes that speed and scalability are essential. Teams must think digitally, act decisively, and feel comfortable testing, learning, and iterating in real time. His leadership style reflects a balance between disciplines, combining the rigor and evidence-based mindset of healthcare with the agility and entrepreneurial execution of technology.
At the heart of his adaptability is curiosity. He listens closely, learns quickly, and designs solutions around real-world needs rather than internal assumptions. He places particular value on insights from those closest to patient care, believing that the people delivering the service often hold the clearest answers. By staying curious and grounded in human realities, he continues to build strategies that are both resilient and relevant.
Disciplined Growth
John believes sustained growth is never the result of chasing numbers alone. Instead, it comes from building systems and cultures where success can be repeated, scaled, and sustained over time. That belief has guided his leadership approach across every stage of his career.
At the center of his philosophy are three principles: clarity, culture, and customer value. Clarity of vision is foundational. When teams clearly understand where they are headed and why the destination matters, they are capable of extraordinary outcomes. He places great emphasis on aligning people around a shared purpose, ensuring that strategy is not just understood at the top, but felt throughout the organization.
Culture, in his view, is the true multiplier. Talent performs at its best in environments where empowerment and accountability exist side by side. He focuses on creating high-trust, high-standard cultures built on shared ownership, where individuals feel both supported and responsible for results.
He adds, “When customers grow, the business grows. Everything else is noise.”
Ultimately, he believes growth follows value creation. When customers experience meaningful improvements in outcomes, financial performance becomes a natural byproduct. At Sprintray, for example, innovation that leads to faster treatment, stronger clinical results, and expanded patient access has allowed the business to scale organically.
For him, growth is never accidental. It is the product of disciplined leadership, continuous learning, and an unwavering commitment to creating value that customers can truly feel, not just measure.
Visionary Execution
John believes that vision without execution is merely aspiration, while execution without vision quickly turns into chaos. For him, effective leadership lives in the discipline of holding both at the same time. A compelling vision sets direction, but it is execution that gives it life.
He begins with a clear north star, the “why,” and then translates that purpose into measurable actions teams can carry out every day. Strategy, in his view, only matters when it shows up in real decisions, daily behaviors, and clearly defined priorities on the ground. Without that translation, even the best ideas remain theoretical.
At the same time, John understands that execution is deeply human. People don’t execute slides or plans; they execute beliefs. He invests significant energy in creating context, helping teams understand not just what needs to be done, but why it matters. When people feel connected to the mission, they become fully vested in seeing it succeed.
He adds, “Strategy works when people believe in it, not just understand it.”
At SprintRay, this mindset shapes how strategy is communicated and lived. The focus is not simply on selling printers, but on redefining how dentistry intersects with digital manufacturing to deliver better patient care. When individuals see how their own work contributes to that larger purpose, alignment follows naturally, and meaningful results tend to follow with it.
Achieving Breakthroughs
John attributes every major milestone in his career, including scaling annual revenue by more than $100 million, not to individual heroics, but to the power of aligned teams. In his experience, sustainable success is always a collective effort, built on shared purpose and mutual accountability.
He has been fortunate to work alongside people who believed they were doing more than selling products. Together, they saw their work as shaping the future of patient care delivery. That mindset allowed teams to build operating frameworks where creativity, accountability, and data strengthened one another rather than competing for attention.
He asserts, “When vision, people, and execution align, growth becomes exponential instead of incremental.”
At Henry Schein, scaling technology meant uniting multiple divisions around a single customer-centered mission: digitizing workflows to improve practice efficiency. Alignment across functions was critical, ensuring innovation translated into real operational value for providers.
At SprintRay, that same philosophy has taken on a new dimension. Growth has required marrying deep engineering innovation with real-world clinical insight, making sure every breakthrough connects directly to patient outcomes, faster treatment times, lower costs to deliver care, and ultimately more accessible and affordable care for patients. For John, progress is most powerful when teams move together, guided by purpose and grounded in real impact.
Purposeful Growth
At SprintRay, John’s focus has been on scaling more than a company he has been intent on scaling a movement. His work centers on fundamentally transforming how dental care is delivered by enabling clinicians to design, fabricate, and deliver treatment within a single visit. This kind of innovation goes beyond efficiency; it expands access to care and meaningfully elevates the patient experience.
From a leadership perspective, John believes growth is driven by alignment. Sales, customer support, marketing, product, operations, and education must function as one integrated engine rather than disconnected parts. To make that possible, the organization has invested deeply in talent, digital infrastructure, and strategic partnerships, all aimed at accelerating adoption while keeping clinicians and patients at the heart of every decision.
He adds, “The best growth strategies start with patient impact and work backward.”
That alignment has translated into momentum. By prioritizing value creation over sheer volume, the company has achieved sustainable, high double-digit growth without compromising its mission. For him, the formula is clear: when technology is designed to genuinely serve humanity, delivering better outcomes, faster care, and greater access, growth becomes a natural consequence rather than the primary pursuit.
Purpose-Driven Resilient Teams
John believes that burnout doesn’t come from hard work, it comes from a lack of purpose and autonomy. In his experience, the strongest teams are not defined by tenure or titles, but by belief: belief in themselves, in one another, and in the mission they are pursuing. His role as a leader is to create the conditions where that belief can flourish.
For him, this means fostering real ownership, establishing clear accountability, and supporting continuous development. He encourages intelligent risk-taking, rapid learning, and the ability to reframe challenges as opportunities for growth and reinvention. By creating environments where teams feel empowered to act and experiment, he ensures that potential is not just recognized but realized.
He adds, “Pressure and deadlines don’t break great teams — it reveals them.”
Resilience, he has found, is fundamentally cultural. When teams feel trusted, equipped, and connected to a deeper purpose, pressure becomes a catalyst rather than a constraint. Under John’s guidance, organizations transform challenges into momentum, cultivating people and systems capable of sustaining high performance without sacrificing engagement or wellbeing. Also important to have a reliable compass and a keen pulse on the market for constant recalibration, the need to identify when a shift is needed and to respond quickly with conviction is another key element in today’s ever shifting environment.
Innovation is the Focus
He shares the belief of SprintRay: the future of overall health includes oral health, which ideally is delivered locally, digitally, and patient-centered.
Traditional manufacturing puts distance between innovation and care delivery. It is collapsing that distance, bringing manufacturing directly into the clinic, where technology meets treatment.
By building a vertically integrated digital ecosystem with next-generation bio materials, it will give clinicians control over both time and outcomes. That’s real innovation, not just new features, but new freedoms. The value creation, John believes, extends beyond products. Education, community, and collaboration are core to how innovation scales responsibly and sustainably.
He adds, “True innovation isn’t faster machines — it’s better human experiences.”
Management Philosophy
In situations of uncertainty, John’s leadership approach remains consistent: calm, clarity, and conviction. He believes transparency builds trust, and purpose provides stability when the path forward isn’t fully visible.
His personal formula for success has evolved into something simple but durable: Vision + People + Execution = Impact. He believes sustainable success comes from building organizations that outlast individual leaders and cultivating leadership that multiplies others.
He stresses, “The most meaningful growth is the kind that improves lives while it scales.”
The legacy he values most is impact, advancing patient care in ways that are more accessible, more human, and more technologically empowered. While also inspiring others to lead with both heart and ambition. For me, success will be measured by two simple answers. Did I help people grow beyond what they believed possible? And did my work meaningfully advance oral healthcare for the patients we serve? If I can answer yes to both, I will know the journey mattered.”
