For Amway President Doug DeVos, growing up around the family business meant more than simply watching his father, company co-founder Rich DeVos, go to work each day.

For Doug and his siblings, it meant welcoming distributors to the family’s home, serving food and cleaning up afterward.  He was even recruited to do product demos.

“The business came to the family and the family came to the business,” Doug recalled.  “We got to be involved. That’s not true with a lot of family businesses.”

Doug recently talked about  growing up in Amway, what he learned from his father and how he leads Amway with Chairman Steve Van Andel today in an interview with the Sunday Morning Townsquare radio show.

He also shared the value of listening to and learning from distributors in creating the products, training and support to help them succeed.  Keeping that orientation, Doug said, ensures that Amway is relevant today and remains so for future generations. 

Listen to the interview here.

“Amway was founded on the belief that, by helping people improve their lives, they could make the world a better place.”

So begins the message from our Chairman Steve Van Andel and our President Doug DeVos in the Amway 2012 Global Corporate Social Responsibility Report released today.

The annual report highlights the many ways our company, its more than 21,000 employees and more than 3 million distributors make a difference in the lives of others.

That includes building homes in Latin America, providing water filters in Haiti, building libraries in China and adopting schools right here in the hometown of our World Headquarters.

Corporate Social Responsibility is built into everything we do: our people, our products and our performance.

 Steve and Doug credit their fathers for recognizing the potential in this business for making a difference.

“They made it their mission to be more, do more, give more. And more than a half-century later, we’re still emulating their powerful example. … We’re awed by how far we’ve come and inspired to keep becoming more, together.”

Read the full report here.

Amway President Doug DeVos, in the April 2013 edition of  Harvard Business Review, shares the lessons Amway learned working through China’s direct selling ban in the 1990s.

“The idea that direct selling could be outlawed was incomprehensible to us. This method of marketing was the foundation of Amway’s business—it had been tested and proved over time and across borders. And now it appeared that we could be put out of business, despite our commitment to and investment in our China operation,” he writes in Harvard Business Review.

In “Amway’s President on Reinventing the Business to Succeed in China,” Doug describes how Amway worked with government officials to create strong direct selling legislation and made significant changes to the way it did business in China, such as opening stores.  Doug details four key lessons – understand the market, stay true to your mission, build strong, trusting relationships and take a long-term view – that helped Amway become the industry leader in China.

Doug’s column also appears in the China edition of Harvard Business Review in April, along with a story about Amway China’s innovation and growth strategies. 

Amway now operates in more than 100 countries and territories. Wherever we go, we try to connect with the community, and our hometown is no different.

We are pleased to partner with Grand Rapids NBC affiliate WOOD TV to share our stories of connecting to the West Michigan community. As Amway Chairman Steve Van Andel and President Doug DeVos explain in these videos, connecting with community has always been a part of the Amway culture.

Amway Co-Founder Rich DeVos wished our employees at World Headquarters a Merry Christmas earlier this month and read aloud the traditional Christmas story.

For those who celebrate, we extend the same wishes to you: Merry Christmas!

(Our World Headquarters will be closed Dec. 24 and Dec. 25.)

It’s a cliché, but it’s true: You never get a second chance to make a first impression.

Amid strong growth in the direct selling industry, Amway President Doug DeVos wrote about the importance of that first impression in the current issue of Direct Selling News.

“As we look to share our businesses with even more people around the world, the first impression is always the most important and the most lasting,” he said.

That is why ethical business practices are so important. Amway is proud to be a member of the Direct Selling Association, which features a powerful Code of Ethics emphasizing the importance we place, as an industry, on ethics.

“The expectation is that distributors can rely on leaders in their organizations to uphold the highest levels of honesty, integrity, responsibility and accountability,” DeVos said. “At the same time, consumers should be able to trust that people in this industry possess strong principles, moral character and sound judgment.”

Read his complete column here.

It’s been more than a decade since Amway launched the Executive Speaker Series, where interns can hear and learn from our most senior leaders about what it’s like to work here.

The series is unquestionably the highlight of our summer internship at World Headquarters.

Many of us are attracted to Amway because it’s a great place to work and has a strong global presence. But we also have this incredible access to Amway’s top leaders.

Recently, 100 interns gathered to meet the first of this series’ seven presenters: Amway President Doug DeVos. “We all have special gifts to contribute,” said Doug. “But success is not simple. It’s hard work.”

Not too many interns can say they met the president of their organization. But now we can say we did. Interns left the event feeling inspired and ready to face their internship head-on.

Stay tuned for future blog posts on the Executive Speaker Series. Our next speaker is Dr. Sam Rehnborg, president of the Nutrilite Health Institute.

Five years ago, Amway and KaBOOM! started a partnership to provide more children with safe places to play.

Four days ago, more than 300 community members and Amway volunteers teamed up to build a playground at D.A. Blodgett - St. John’s Home – an organization dedicated to providing homes and hope for children and their families.

The playground is the 14th built by KaBOOM! and Amway, the 10th built in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and one of more than 150 playground builds KaBOOM! will lead across the U.S. in 2012.

Amway President Doug DeVos and leaders from KaBOOM! and D.A. Blodgett kicked off this Amway One by One project with motivational words that stayed with us all day long. You could feel the energy build as people were dancing to the music and sweating from the heavy lifting. A heart-felt dedication and ribbon-cutting ceremony reaffirmed each person’s role in making this dream a reality. 

Building this playground brought hundreds of laughs and smiles, and it will be responsible for many more to come.

Earlier today, Amway President Doug DeVos sat down in Grapevine, Texas, in front of members of the U.S. Direct Selling Association (DSA), with former President George W. Bush. The conversation took place at the DSA Annual Meeting, themed “Inspiring Entrepreneurs.”

Bush opened up to Doug and the audience, answering questions ranging from “What is it like to not be President anymore?” to “What was 9/11 like from your perspective – from the time you heard America was under attack in that classroom throughout the capture of Osama Bin Laden?”

Bush shared his insights on business leadership as well, including that “Culture can’t be created around individuals. It has to be created around principles,” and “You can’t fake optimism. You have to believe in something to lead it.”

He also joked that his new domestic policy was to help his wife Laura with the dishes and that he had the best commute ever while living and working in the White House – just 45 seconds!

All in all, it was a great way to kick off a day of education for the industry that  DSA Vice Chairman Anne Butler called “the ultimate meritocracy.”

Watch for more updates from the DSA Annual Meeting, including the induction of Dick DeVos and Doug DeVos into the DSA Hall of Fame,  at  The Amway Insider, our Facebook page and on Twitter.

Today Amway announced a nearly USD$180 million manufacturing expansion  to better meet growing global demand for our top-selling NUTRILITE™  vitamin, mineral and dietary supplements.

The four new facilities at sites in California, Michigan and Washington state will employ more than 250 people when fully operational.

The investment includes construction of a new $81 million nutrition plant  near our headquarters in Ada, Michigan, to produce soft gels and tablets and a new $42 million granulation operations and research and development facility at our Nutrilite center  in Buena Park, California. Amway also recently announced a new Nutrilite extraction and concentration operation to be built in Quincy, Washington, and a nearly-completed nutrition powder products plant at Amway World Headquarters.

“NUTRILITE™ is integral to the future of Amway as the world’s number one selling vitamin and supplement brand.” said Amway Chairman Steve Van Andel and President Doug DeVos in a joint statement announcing the expansion.

The new facilities are an investment designed to support Amway distributors and their customers, ensuring we’re able to meet demand for NUTRILITE products for years to come.