Manufacturing Excellence: Driving Value In Healthcare with Kevin Hardage, CEO of Healthcare Components Group

[00:00:02] Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Outcomes Rocket. I'm so excited you tuned in. We're just chatting with some of the most successful leaders in the healthcare industry. And today I have the pleasure of speaking with Kevin Hardage. He is the CEO of Healthcare Components Group. Kevin has had an impressive career with leadership roles at major companies like Medtronic, where he was my leader, as well as with Teleflex before he was a leader.

[00:00:32] Before taking the helm at Healthcare Components Group, he's here today to share his insights on leadership, company culture, and the exciting future of the company. So Kevin, thanks so much for joining us. Kevin Hardage Thanks Saul. And it's great to see outcomes rocket really taking off. I remember when you first started it back in the old Medtronic days and congratulations. Kevin Hardage I did. And you know what? I do want to say, Kevin, when I did start it, I had a chat with you about it.

[00:00:59] Kevin Hardage And when you have leadership support that allows you to grow, it's so important. And you definitely provided that as a leader at Medtronic. And I know that you're likely doing the same thing. So excited to really hear more about your take on leadership and the work that you guys are doing at the company. So really from my end, just want to say thank you for all the support you've given me through the years. Kevin Hardage Of course. Of course. Of course.

[00:01:25] Kevin Hardage And so look, you've had a wealth of experience in the healthcare industry from large corporations like Medtronic to smaller, more agile ones. How have these diverse experiences shaped your leadership style and the approach to building a successful company? Kevin Hardage Yeah, thanks Saul. And by the way, it's good to join your audience. I know it's expanded over the years. And whatever insights I can provide, I look forward to it.

[00:01:49] Kevin Hardage But to your question, working across the three different companies, whether it was starting with Comedian, and then we, as you remember, got acquired by Medtronic. And then three years ago, took a little bit of a leap after 25 years with Medtronic to move into Teleflex as a president GM for their interventional urology business unit.

[00:02:09] Kevin Hardage The biggest thing is it just gave me so many opportunities to learn from success, but also to learn from failure. The number one lesson for me was just how lucky I was to work under so many great leaders. Leaders that gave me the opportunity to take risks and be supported along the way as it relates to your leadership journey. And I know you can relate to that too, Saul. Kevin Hardage Absolutely.

[00:02:32] Kevin Hardage I also think so many people today feel like you have to stay in one segment of business, whether it's specific therapeutic or case in point, therapeutic areas like cardiovascular, orthopedics, some of the areas over on the Medtronic side. But I always encourage any new leader to feel comfortable following great leadership versus trying to steer your career towards a specific market or therapy. I learned a ton just being tossed into the deep end of the pool.

[00:03:00] Kevin Hardage Whether it was from different businesses or different types of roles. Those experiences are just agnostic to that area. And what typically works with people in one specialty or industry typically works in another. And I really tried to look for those transferable skills for people that we bring into our organization as recent as today with Healthcare Components Group.

[00:03:21] Kevin Hardage But I'd really say just kind of final point to your questions is I'd say learning from failure back to what I was thinking a second ago is far greater in shaping for me, my leadership style from the very get-go.

[00:03:35] Kevin Hardage And I'm not saying everyone should take home the message of go out and seek failure, but rather don't shy away from taking risks. And when you do stumble, learn from it, self-reflect from it, own it, and diagnose it objectively as it relates to what exactly happened. Kevin Hardage And then take stock and don't make excuses for it, feel the uncomfortable nature of it.

[00:03:57] Kevin Hardage But as you start to learn from it and share that with your team members, that helps you really grow from it. And ultimately, you learn from it, but your team does too as you go through that process together. Kevin Hardage Yeah, I love that, Kevin. Fail forward, be transparent. And all those things are super valuable in building a long-lasting company.

[00:04:18] Kevin Hardage And as you and I connected before the podcast, you were sharing with me the importance of creating a long-lasting company with a strong legacy. Kevin Hardage What specific strategies are you implementing at Healthcare Components Group to foster that culture of employee engagement and development you shared? Kevin Hardage And how do you see this contributing to the long-term success of the company? Kevin Hardage Well, I should probably start first with that question and just saying, Saul,

[00:04:46] I'm only five months into my tenure at Healthcare Components Group. Kevin Hardage But so I will preface with I don't have all the answers by any stretch, but I'm walking into the organization where we have a solid leadership team in place. And some of these leaders helped start the company. And this is a pivot for me going into a smaller franchise that's a startup environment in a lot of senses.

[00:05:09] Kevin Hardage And the great thing about that is when you have these founder-led companies, you walk in and meet a lot of people that are very passionate about what they do. Kevin Hardage They've stuck it out through the challenging times as well as the rewarding times. Kevin Hardage You have this almost built-in grit and determination. Kevin Hardage And I love that. Kevin Hardage As someone like yourself, we've gone through this together in different businesses over the years.

[00:05:30] Kevin Hardage You see what tenure and experience and going into a little bit of the fire can build as it relates to that mental and physical toughness with overcoming some of the hurdles within business. Kevin Hardage Because there's cycles in every business you go into. Kevin Hardage So to that end, we're looking for members of the leadership team to bring these experiences as I look to recruit people in. Kevin Hardage I want to get some of that diversity experience.

[00:05:57] Kevin Hardage These startup kind of founder-led companies, while they have this built-in grit and they have a certain way of doing things, Kevin Hardage We're at this phase of growth game where it's now time to scale faster and to bring different talents into the organization to help complement where we're at this point in time.

[00:06:15] Kevin Hardage We have a gap even today that we're looking to fill when we look at IT or the marketing side as we talk about expanding our commercialization capabilities or even in certain parts of our operations. Kevin Hardage Because we at the center of things, we're definitely a manufacturer-first driven organization. Kevin Hardage But we're also growing a global mindset as we start to evolve the business, not just in the U.S., but abroad in other markets.

[00:06:40] Kevin Hardage So in the end, the key to building on our culture requires that we bring in those new experiences and create those new ideas, drive focus, and ultimately foster that competitive workplace that really drives performance for the future. Kevin Hardage Yeah, thanks, Kevin. Kevin Hardage That leadership mindset, getting the right people in the right seats of the bus is key.

[00:07:03] Kevin Hardage And then you overlay everything else in the world of business, and in particular, private equity, right? Kevin Hardage And so the theme of private equity comes up, oftentimes having a reputation for focusing on short-term gains and exits. Kevin Hardage How does healthcare components group partnership with roundtable healthcare partners differ from this model? Kevin Hardage And how does their approach align with your vision for the company's future?

[00:07:28] Kevin Hardage Yeah, it's an important question for those maybe in the audience that are considering making a shift in your career. Kevin Hardage As you look at going from maybe a publicly traded environment into private or into, in this case, a private equity-backed organization. Kevin Hardage There's a little bit of anxiety of, am I going into an environment that's going to have that support when we think about who you report into?

[00:07:52] Kevin Hardage And in this case, the partnership between my organization, HCG, and Roundtable Healthcare Partners, which is our private equity firm, is really strong. Kevin Hardage You're right that a lot of PE firms focus heavily on the exit strategy versus focusing on building a business that's lasting and sustainable. Kevin Hardage And that's the difference here. Kevin Hardage Through my interview process a few months back before I made this decision, I met with a lot of the Roundtable team and the partners in the organization.

[00:08:22] Kevin Hardage And they really stressed in the process, and now they're demonstrating it through their action as I've been there five months, that they have a long-term investment mentality. Kevin Hardage They focus on people first. Kevin Hardage They also are a great example of that is they're all from different facets of MedDevice. Kevin Hardage This isn't a typical private equity firm that's made of just a financial background, but we have a number of former operators.

[00:08:49] Kevin Hardage My chairman was a president in some pretty large MedDevice companies, along with functional expertise, whether it be HR or commercial or manufacturing. Kevin Hardage And the beauty of that is, is that's my sounding board. Kevin Hardage That board, so to speak, is who I go to, to bounce ideas off of. Kevin Hardage I can share just about anything relative to the business and get some really diverse responses on how they would do it.

[00:09:17] Kevin Hardage And it's coming from their experience as opposed to textbook. Kevin Hardage And I really value that, and it's probably why I think they have such a great reputation. Kevin Hardage And at the end, most importantly, they're not directing where this business goes. Kevin Hardage And they put their CEO and their leadership into these portfolios to run those businesses independently. Kevin Hardage So they let us take those risks.

[00:09:42] Kevin Hardage They let us, assuming calculated risks, and obviously with the right feedback structure, every single day, it's on us to make or break where we go with the medical component space. Kevin Hardage So that balance is really great, and it's something that I definitely, in five months tenure, can really, I guess, validate that in this instance, what I learned on the front end is actually how it's showing up on a day-to-day basis. Kevin Hardage That's fantastic, Kevin.

[00:10:08] Kevin Hardage Yeah, the importance of lived experience and having a board and a PE firm that's been there, done that, it makes a huge difference. Kevin Hardage For the listeners that are maybe your end customer, Kevin, help us understand a little bit more about the business. Kevin Hardage What types of components are you guys manufacturing? And tell us a little bit more about the model and how you guys are different. Kevin Hardage I'm glad I can share some of that. Kevin Hardage I'm glad I can share some of that. Well, first, the medical component space, it's changing rapidly.

[00:10:37] Kevin Hardage Just as healthcare is changing rapidly, as we all see, consolidation is absolutely occurring. Kevin Hardage When you look at our indirect customers, because we're a business-to-business shop, as it relates to, we make medical components for the repair industry, and then they, in turn, service and repair their customers who are hospitals or surgery centers or medical offices. And let's be honest, they're all facing financial headwinds today in the healthcare world, whether it's in the U.S. or abroad.

[00:11:07] Kevin Hardage So the need to prolong the life of their endoscopy equipment, in this case is where we specialize, has never been greater. Kevin Hardage That's where I think Healthcare Components Group truly comes in to solve their challenge. HGG manufacturers specialize parts across the entire endoscopy set of brands that are out there, helping service providers, hospitals, surgery centers with new parts,

[00:11:32] so they can repair and prolong the life of the equipment and not have to go maybe to the OEMs and expend additional capital resources. They can prolong that equipment for a longer period of time, especially when budgets are tight. So we're already a leader in this space, but my vision for the organization is to continue to lead global healthcare components industry just through innovation and manufacturing excellence.

[00:11:57] But at the same time, we're an organization that's committed to partnerships, both within our employee base, but also our trusted partners worldwide. Obviously, most notably our customers. So to get there, we just have to continue to integrate our business, help scale and grow the market. And we've got a lot of investments that are already underway, both expanding our manufacturing footprint. Here in St. Louis, we're expanding that to double the manufacturing size. Nice.

[00:12:25] While also continuing to build out our commercial capabilities and workflow abilities and technology platforms, while always focusing on that biggest differentiator, which is our manufacturing capabilities. And that's ultimately it, because at the end of the day, our customers benefit the most if we're helping them obviously provide the most reliable parts at a very cost-effective price to help the overall kind of global supply chain.

[00:12:53] That's a great closing commentary there, Kevin. And to be clear, your end customers, ASCs, health systems, all of the users of this equipment that just need spare parts, right? Instead of paying a bunch of money for them elsewhere, they could get them very economically from you guys? Yeah, it's a pretty diverse market.

[00:13:14] There's a number of service providers today that are out there across all the markets, really being the provider to the hospital or the ASC as far as those repairs. But that kind of third-party group leans heavily on a company like HCG to be there when they need them most on those new parts to be able to reliably repair things. Especially when you look at an environment today, too, where it's a little uncertain on where you can import parts globally.

[00:13:43] When you think about, for example, regulatory and tariff challenges that may be out there. So we feel like we're in a really strong position to meet our customers where they are and do it at a cost-effective way. That's awesome, Kevin. Well, look, I really appreciate you jumping on the podcast with us today.

[00:14:00] If people want to learn more about you, about Healthcare Components Group and its exciting future, what's the best way that employees, partners, customers could connect with the company and explore opportunities for collaboration? Yeah, well, first, let me say thanks again, Saul, for the time today. I love getting the word out for Healthcare Components Group.

[00:14:22] But also, if there's any small nuggets that come out of my experiences over my almost 30 years in med device, hopefully it can help someone. But to answer your question, if I could get a quick plug in. Our headquarters, as I mentioned, is growing. We're here in St. Louis. We're always looking for talented individuals outside of the organization that can bring in those diverse set of skill sets. But I also should mention, we're being a smaller company as compared to, say, the Medtronics of the world.

[00:14:52] Our team wears multiple hats, and we're obviously looking for those talented individuals that are willing to jump in and take on expanded responsibilities. But again, thanks for this opportunity and look forward to maybe checking back in with you down the road. Hey, that sounds really great, Kevin. Appreciate you jumping on with us. And folks, I'll close with sharing that when Kevin says he's looking for talent and he's looking outside, I'll be a testimonial to him.

[00:15:19] He hired me to his organization from outside and gave me a huge opportunity. And so if you're looking for opportunities for great leadership, a fantastic opportunity, take him up for it. In the show notes, we're going to leave the website for you, ways to get in touch with Kevin and to check out what Healthcare Components Group is all about. So appreciate everybody tuning back into the Outcomes Rocket with CEO of Healthcare Components Group, Kevin Hartage.

[00:15:49] Thank you all for tuning in. And Kevin, thanks for joining us. This has been a lot of fun. Appreciate us all. Thank you again. Take care, everybody. Take care, everyone.