Take Ten with Team HPNE: Meet Jeremy Tripodi
Following the announcement of his appointment to our new Director of Operations, we chatted with Jeremy Tripodi about the responsibilities of his new role, HPNE’s growth over the past ten years, and more.
Having been on #TeamHPNE for over 10 years, you have seen the company grow and develop over the years. What do you think have been the biggest changes in the company since you started?
I would say the biggest change I have seen in the company since I started is its growth. I was one of eight employees when I started, and now I am one of about 140 within High Purity New England, and one of thousands within Getinge. It has been really exciting to see the company grow so much. I joke sometimes that it feels like it’s happened overnight!
Now, about 11 years later, even though the company has drastically changed, the feel, culture, goals and values remain the same.
You previously served as a Client Services Rep, General Manager and Chief of Staff at HPNE. Could you tell us a little bit about your experience in both roles, and how they have built upon one another?
At the beginning of my journey at HPNE, I started as the Client Services Representative within our team of eight total employees. Since we were such a small organization, we all did a little bit of everything. My primary responsibilities were client services, but I got a chance to help out with purchasing, quality, warehouse operations, and more, which helped me learn a variety of different aspects within the business.
I consider myself extremely lucky to have joined #TeamHPNE at this point in its history. I was joining a company that, unbeknownst to us, would experience tremendous growth in the next few years to become a much larger, and more successful company. Throughout this time, I developed a lot of skills that naturally led to my roles as General Manager and Chief of Staff.
Ultimately, I would say that both General Manager and Chief of Staff were pretty similar positions, as they both involved a high-level oversight of all the different areas of the business. I had a little bit of a hand in everything, which is what I loved, and still love about the job.
You were recently promoted to Director of Operations. Could you tell us a little bit about what this role entails?
Although I still oversee multiple facets of day-to-day tasks, my new role as Director of Operations is much more focused on operations specific goals. This consists of every touchpoint from when we receive an order to when the final product is shipped, which involves the client services, materials, purchasing, procurement, supply chain, and production departments. Some of my main tasks in the role include inventory control, and bringing some fresh ideas and thoughts into how we can maintain success and profitability.
In all of your roles, you have worked closely with employees across multiple departments. How would you describe the overall culture at HPNE?
Firstly, I would say we are very flexible. As I mentioned above, I think our flexibility is what I would attribute our growth to. If we need to make a certain delivery to a customer, we are going to do whatever we have to do to make sure that it is done properly, on time, and doesn’t impact other customers. Although we have grown to a much larger company, I think HPNE still has that small company feel where we can quickly pick up the phone to ask one another questions to quickly get business matters resolved.
I also think a major part of our culture is inclusivity. We’ve got a good diverse group of people who work here, and I think specifically in the last few years HR has put on some trainings that have really taken our culture to the next level. Some examples of these are our management and communications trainings, and our new women's employee resource group (ERG) the Women of HPNE that meets quarterly. We have also had the opportunity to attend various speaker sessions about inclusivity, diversity, and equity, including our most recent workshop on bystander intervention in honor of pride month.
Despite our growth over the last 20 years, we still maintain a culture where for the most part, everyone knows everyone’s name. What gets me excited to come to work everyday is that we’re much bigger than when we started, but I don’t feel like the culture has shifted from the familiar feeling of being on a team of eight.
You have had the opportunity to watch the HPNE product portfolio grow and change over the years. What do you think makes HPNE products stand out from the rest?
I’ve had the opportunity to watch the HPNE product portfolio grow and change. I would say innovation makes our products stand out from the rest. Once again, I believe that our growth from a smaller organization has helped us perfect creating a personal touch with our customers. We know how important the details are to every process, so we love to hop on a phone call with our customers and think outside the box and come up with solutions that other, larger companies might not have been willing to try.
Whether it is a custom prototype or a small pivot in the design from our expert engineering team, we aim to provide a personal customer experience for every client. We will go through trial and error with customers in order to figure out the best solution, and ultimately, get those solutions into production. This is especially evident in the decades of success of our flagship HPConnexx™ Single-Use Assemblies, which are available completely custom.
With your tenured experience in leadership positions, what strategies do you find most effective when leading direct reports?
As cliche as it is, I would say honesty is the best policy. I will always be upfront with others on my team, and I hope for the same from them in return. My goal is to create an environment where we are open with each other, and accepting of each other's ideas.
By taking time to communicate with my team and removing judgment from the conversation, we are able to find new things we are capable of, create lists of what we can do, check things off the list, or remove them if they’re not good ideas. Ultimately, I love when I am able to facilitate a team where everyone is able to work together to create the best solution to any challenge.
You have also worked closely with our client services team. How do you think High Purity New England is able to provide and maintain a world class customer service experience?
Client services is where I come from, and where I have been in a lot of jobs prior to High Purity New England. It is my home, and where I feel the most comfortable. We have been able to maintain world class customer service through the staff that we have hired.
Again, when I started 11 years ago, I was the only person in customer service. As we’ve grown, we have brought the right people in who have the right frame of mind. Their focus is always on the customer. We don’t want to set unrealistic expectations for the customer, but we do want to meet their goals. So it’s a good balance of never telling you something can be done in three weeks if it can’t physically be done, but doing everything we can to meet that deadline when we are capable. We want our customers to know that if they need something, they can pick up the phone and call at any time.
Need to talk to a member of our client services team? They can be reached at info.hpne@getinge.com, or through our contact us page.
Has there been a role model in your career, past or present, that you believe has made a significant impact on you?
I think my father has made the most significant impact on my work ethic. Additionally, I have had a lot of great managers throughout the years at different jobs who I could give credit to for different aspects of what I bring to the table. But I think my professional strengths boil down to work ethic, which I attribute most to my father.
I started working with him at a restaurant when I was around 14 years old, and he has told me from day one that you need to keep moving, and the work is done when it is done — that has stuck with me. As I have gotten a little bit older, I realized that work-life balance has to play into the equation as well, but at the heart of it, my father has given me a strong foundation to be reliable in my career.
What is one of your favorite things about being a part of #TeamHPNE?
The people are my primary favorite thing about working at HPNE. I don’t know that anyone can work somewhere for as long as I have been with HPNE without enjoying the people that you work with to some extent. I really enjoy the company of both the employees I have worked with for years, and the people that are newer to the company that I may have only been able to work with for a year or two. With our acquisition by Getinge, I am excited to be meeting and working with an even bigger community of people.
Secondly, all of the job roles that I have held here have allowed me to learn a wide array of skills and cross-departmental functions. I was able to, over a number of years, really take in and learn a lot of different areas of the business. One of my all-time favorite parts of each of my roles at HPNE is that what I am doing varies each day.
What is one of the things you are most passionate about outside of work?
I really enjoy downtime. I love marathoning a good show or watching a good movie — just spending some time decompressing. I enjoy some of the relaxing parts of life. I don’t need to be going, going, going, and busy on the weekends. I also love spending time with my husband, two cats, and the rest of my family. My parents live locally, and I have a brother, niece, and a nephew. All of those people in my life I want to try and spend time with when I am not at work, but also finding time for myself and just to sometimes relax and spend a few days watching a few movies is fine with me!
What has been your favorite place to travel to, and do you have any new travel destinations on your radar?
My answer to this would probably be a surprise to my friends and colleagues because I am not known as somebody who likes to be outside in the extreme heat or sitting on the beach, but I would say one of the most beautiful islands I have visited in Bermuda. I was lucky enough to go on a bunch of cruises when I was a little younger, so I’ve seen a lot of islands, and I really found Bermuda to be beautiful and friendly. They had real pride in their island, which was really nice to see.
Italy and Greece are two places that I would love to travel to and visit, and I hope to go at some point in the very near future.
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About HPNE
As the industry needs grow, High Purity New England, Inc. continues to supply the biopharmaceutical industry with a range of innovative products, from drug discovery and development to fill-finish, including their flagship product, custom single-use assemblies, as well as pumps, sensors, bioreactor systems, storage and handling solutions and other single-use solutions. Along with their own manufactured products for the global market, they are also a distributor for more than 18 brands in North America.
