Bob Chapman, chairman of the board at Barry-Wehmiller Companies and co-author of Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family (Portfolio/Penguin Publishing Group), died March 19.
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"The Portfolio team is immensely sad to note the passing of our friend Bob Chapman," the publisher said. "Bob was introduced to us by Simon Sinek, who described him as one of the most enlightened leaders that he had ever met. Bob's legacy of kindness and compassion will be felt by the thousands whose lives were touched by his leadership, and by the many thousands of readers of his seminal book, Everybody Matters, which we were tremendously proud to publish."
In a statement expressing "profound sadness," Barry-Wehmiller wrote: "Chapman was more than a business leader, author and speaker, he was a relentless optimist who dedicated his life to building a better world. He worked to redefine what it meant to be a leader in business, to further the understanding that it was an awesome responsibility because the way we lead impacts the way people live. He worked tirelessly to bring more caring to business and built the foundation for Barry-Wehmiller to champion new definitions for success in business: by demonstrating that economic growth and human vibrancy can exist in harmony."
Chapman became CEO of the struggling company, which at the time was a supplier of equipment for the brewing industry, in 1975 after the death of his father, William Chapman. As of 2025, when Bob Chapman handed the reins of the business to his son Kyle Chapman, the current president and CEO, Barry-Wehmiller had become a $3.6 billion-plus global business with 12,000 employees with operations in industrial and packaging automation, professional services, and life sciences technology.
In the late 1990s into the 2000s, Chapman underwent a personal transformation that changed his thinking from traditional "management" to "truly human leadership." The experiences and the principles he championed were the inspiration behind his bestselling book, Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family (2015), written with his friend, Raj Sisodia, founder of Conscious Capitalism Inc. Since its release, the book has been translated into eight languages and, in 2025, was re-released in a revised and expanded edition.
In 2013, Chapman and his wife, Cynthia, launched a nonprofit, Chapman Foundation for Caring Communities, to bring Barry-Wehmiller's communication training to communities. And in 2015, he founded Chapman & Co. Leadership Institute to bring the principles of truly human leadership to for-profit organizations through culture transformation and leadership training.
Chapman once answered a question about what he would want his eulogy to be by saying: "He genuinely cared for the people whose lives he had the privilege of touching."