Chris Cummins is a seasoned manufacturing executive with over 27 years of experience in highly-engineered products. He currently serves as President and CEO of Micronics Engineered Filtration Group. He also serves as an Operating Partner at Vance Street Capital. Chris has held various senior leadership positions at publicly traded and privately held companies such as Danaher Corporation, Colson Group, Symmetry Medical, and Abaco Systems, including roles such as President, COO, SVP-Global Operations, and General Manager. Chris’s professional strengths lie in Lean principles and Six Sigma deployment, global manufacturing strategies, supply chain optimization, and continuous performance improvement.
In this podcast episode, Chris shares the strategies and tactics he’s found effective when leading teams through revenue and profitability expansion in manufacturing.
“Internally, within our company, we like teammates who not just find problems, but solve problems each and every day and prevent them from reoccurring… The problem solvers always rise to the top. People love to be around other people who can help them solve a problem. Customers love us because we help them solve problems.”
- Successful acquisition integrations in manufacturing businessess
- Leading through tough choices: transparency and team support
- Lessons from his leadership roles in corporations and PE-backed companies
- Talent acquisition: attracting, recruiting and developing winning teams
- Effective leadership communication
- Navigating differences between COO and CEO roles
- Streamlining sales management to provide better customer service
- Advice for young aspiring executives in manufacturing and private equity
“We’re transparent about the important aspects of our business that help us create value. We openly discuss what makes our business great, focusing on customer service. This includes on-time delivery, lead times, reducing past dues, minimizing warranty costs, and taking care of our customers should something go wrong.
Internally, we talk about the three things that are really important to our business each and every day:
- Cash flow: You can’t run a business without constant cash flow.
- Margins: How do we improve, reduce rework, remove quality defects, eliminate scrap and waste to make our company more profitable, enabling continued growth?
- Sales: How do we grow our business organically? Not just get new customers, but how do we do more for the really good customers we have? How do we take more tasks off their plate to make their lives easier? Can we be a one-stop-shop to make them better?
These areas are an essential part of who we are and ensure that our actions positively impact the three pillars of our business. We emphasize problem-solving and continuous improvement while holding ourselves accountable for doing the right thing.”
