1. Last July, leading global investment firm KKR finally completed the acquisition of Industrial Physics. In addition, they announced your appointment as the new CEO, succeeding Jim Neville, who has led the company since 2016. We imagine you are excited to lead this talented team into a new phase of growth and innovation within the company.

Absolutely. Joining the Industrial Physics team was a fantastic opportunity for me. Over the past few weeks, I have begun to get to know our talented teams around the world. I really admire what Jim Neville accomplished during his time as CEO of the company; he and the team have made my arrival a really smooth transition. I am truly proud to have joined a company defined by such strong values, and I look forward to leading us into this next phase of growth so that we can build even stronger relationships with our customers.

2. You have a strong track record of driving accelerated growth and operational excellence, which positions you well to continue leading one of the most forward-thinking companies in your industry. In your opinion, what are the issues and challenges you will face within the company? What concerns you most about current market behavior and how does it affect you directly and indirectly?

The Industrial Physics team supports a wide range of manufacturers, laboratories and production lines in a multitude of industries. We frequently work on solutions for a diverse and often unique set of customer needs. Therefore, it is crucial that we have a detailed understanding of the challenges faced by each industry.

We are a purpose-driven company that highly values data and evidence to help us fully understand the best ways we can support the needs of the industries we serve; this is one of the reasons we recently conducted research in the packaging industry. Earlier this year, we surveyed a variety of packaging professionals to fully understand their experiences, hear expert opinions on how the industry is evolving and discover where the biggest challenges lie. Our findings reflected what our teams see every day: that one of the biggest challenges we face as the pace of innovation accelerates is the testing of packaging and materials.

The reason for this varies by industry and company size. For some, the lack of a robust data sample when testing newly developed materials that behave differently from traditionally used materials presents a problem. For others, it is a matter of incorporating new processes (such as weight reduction) and not being sure how to set up the test instruments and confirm the durability of the metal cans.

At Industrial Physics, this affects us directly because we are problem solvers by nature. Our team is always looking to reach out to professionals experiencing these challenges, offering advice with the goal of educating the industry. Of course, we want to support our customers by ensuring that innovation does not stop, but it is crucial for us to help our customers ensure that quality and safety are never compromised as we strive to develop the future of packaging together.

3. The company has built an impressive global portfolio of leading brands, consolidating it as an outstanding company, while maintaining its essence as a family-owned business. What values do you think define Industrial Physics?

Our purpose at Industrial Physics is to protect the integrity of our customers’ brand and products. Ultimately, this is at the core of everything we do.

As a business, we support a significant number of sectors internationally, which gives us the opportunity to share our knowledge, but also to continuously learn about new approaches and challenges faced by our clients. We cover a wide range of specialties in the testing world, and I feel incredibly fortunate to work with some of the best experts in the industry.

Although our presence is global, we provide our customers with localized support and ensure that each solution is developed with a holistic view of our customers’ operations.

4. What new opportunities are emerging in packaging manufacturing for the rest of the year?

We are at an exciting point in the packaging industry, where the pace of innovation continues to accelerate. This means there are many opportunities for brands operating in sectors such as food and beverage. Interestingly, respondents to our survey told us that they believe packaging test processes and equipment offer significant opportunity as we look to the future, and that’s certainly something we’ve been observing at Industrial Physics.

Packaging professionals around the world continue to explore methods that enable them to achieve goals such as waste reduction. Two notable examples in metal packaging are weight reduction and the development of non-destructive seam testing methods. Both approaches require expert knowledge to ensure that the desire to innovate does not affect the integrity of the packaging.

It is clear that we have a very important role to play in this as a company: the knowledge of our equipment and the tools we recommend can give companies the support they need to maintain quality and safety, while taking advantage of the benefits that come with innovation.

What short, medium and long term actions do you plan to take and in what areas? Are growth prospects optimistic?
In the short term, one of my most important areas of focus is to understand the full capabilities of our business. I am really looking forward to discovering how we best support our customers, helping them overcome challenges and maximizing the opportunities they are presenting to us. Our purpose truly lies at the heart of our actions and, as we look to our future, it will guide every decision made and cohesively inform all aspects of Industrial Physics’ strategy. I hope to be able to share more details on this soon! As a brand with a global reach, growth prospects look very solid. We are seeing a great level of participation from companies around the world, either at industry events where we have been exhibiting or through those looking for guidance. We can see that there is a great deal of interest in the expertise we can offer.

KKR plans to support Industrial Physics in implementing a comprehensive employee ownership program, which will provide employees with the opportunity to share in the company’s ownership benefits. This strategy is based on the belief that employee involvement is a key factor in building stronger companies. Could you expand on this topic in more detail? The introduction of the employee ownership program basically means that all Industrial Physics colleagues will become owners of the business, it’s something I’m really passionate about.

KKR has been leading the way with this initiative and, since its introduction, billions of dollars in shares have been distributed to thousands of employees in KKR’s portfolio. After the initial launch, KKR became a founding partner of Ownership Works, a non-profit organization established to advance the initiative more broadly than just KKR, ensuring that more companies can benefit from it.

For Industrial Physics, the introduction of the program will build on existing company values to ensure that all team members are aligned on our goals and can share in our success together. It is very important to me that all colleagues within our business can see the link between their daily work and our positive trajectory, and that they are appreciated for the contribution they are making to the strong growth we are achieving.