Kimberly Medford was appointed President of ENTEK Manufacturing LLC in December 2020, eight years after beginning her tenure as General Counsel. She describes her path to the upper echelons of the male-dominated manufacturing industry as “very unconventional.” She joined ENTEK following a career as a private practice M&A and Finance attorney.
Kimberly has been part of the company’s executive management team since she started in 2012. Shortly after arriving at ENTEK, she got the opportunity to become directly engaged with the business. According to her, over time, she found herself spending as much time working with the company’s manufacturing, supply chain, HR, environmental, safety, and sales teams as she did on legal work. This engagement was further enhanced by her role in multiple international manufacturing site acquisitions and integrations.
Leadership Principles
Kimberly leads by example and is committed to her team’s growth. Throughout her career, she has evolved her leadership style – patterned after leaders that she respected and wanted to follow. “Over time, a theme emerged, and I adopted the only leadership style that is truly effective – servant leadership,” Kimberly says.
As General Counsel at ENTEK, Kimberly managed a volunteer workforce. She explains that she needed to rely on a lot of people who did not report directly to her. “So, adopting a servant leadership style of support and removing roadblocks coupled with accountability was critical,” she adds.
Even as President, she continues to invest in learning and practicing these principles, believing that to be a true leader, one needs to have followers and not “just employees.”
Brief Introduction to ENTEK
ENTEK is a seller of extruders and engineering services, lead-acid separators, and lithium-ion separators on six continents. It taps into in-house engineering, machining, and fabrication resources to design and build its battery separator lines, extruders, and parts.
Kimberly points out that they have leveraged their engineering and fabrication resources to help customers move away from their dependence on various chemicals of concern and produce products using more environmentally sustainable methods that also respect human health. They make products that enable other products.
“We pioneered the use of non-chlorinated solvents in the manufacture of lithium battery separators,” she adds. “We have also built complete turnkey plants based on innovative engineering to enable the production of new products.” The focus of their strategic decisions is on their customer success.
ENTEK is focused on making products, such as extruders, which are employed to create consumer goods, such as building products for our third-party customers or battery separators for our ENTEK companies that are integral to the batteries that enable cars and trucks, cell phones, ambulances, military vehicles, forklifts, and other energy storage systems. “We are always looking to disrupt our own technology,” Kimberly says.
Commitment to quality and continuous improvement are part of ENTEK’s DNA. “From the first day one arrives, this is apparent,” Kimberly points out. She explains that these are simple values to uphold across all levels because the team is committed to upholding them. They also hold each other accountable and support one another to continue to reach new levels.
Innovation and Productivity
“‘Innovation and productivity, innovation and productivity, innovation and productivity’ are the words of our founder, Jim Young,” Kimberly says. It is no surprise, then, that ENTEK embodies both. Everyone at the company is involved in R&D in some way. According to Kimberly, innovation is encouraged, cross-functional teams form naturally, and this helps ENTEK stay ahead of the competition.
The team listens closely to their customers, providing them with products that are “fit for use.” As they develop enabling products, they believe that their customers’ success is their own.
Kimberly and her team also take the time to make difficult decisions about what not to do. They stay true to their core and seek opportunities at the intersection of engineering, material science, and process technology.
Empowerment and Team’s Growth
As an organization, ENTEK has a far-reaching impact on the lives of its employees, their families, and the community. Kimberly firmly believes in taking care of the people the company counts on every day to design and produce products that everyone depends on for daily living, as well as the communities that provide the next generation of employees.
At its core, a company is a group of people from a community choosing to work together, Kimberly points out. She also says that at ENTEK, they are fortunate to have a remarkable team dedicated to doing the next right thing. This commitment is felt by employees and customers alike, which creates a true sense of family.
Kimberly ensures that everyone on the team is empowered and encouraged to “own their job.” She trusts the leaders to make decisions while remaining available to provide resources and guidance.
“The team is encouraged to define their career path and grow as far as they desire,” Kimberly points out. “ENTEK provides employees with amazing opportunities to ‘try on new shoes’ without risking their career.” The company invests in education and training for all employees who want it.
Kimberly highlights that ENTEK is a company built on “pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps.” It has a long history of bringing together amazing people, making them part of the team, and supporting them, regardless of their background or education. For example, after it acquired the manufacturing facility in Indonesia, ENTEK, not only shared its core values but also immediately put them into practice. In addition to providing private health insurance, the company began promoting women into roles previously held only by men, offering them new career opportunities.
“You can imagine my surprise,” Kimberly shares, “when I learned we had a fully qualified lawyer working in a role typing up timecards into spreadsheets.” That woman now leads contracting and compliance.
Dealing with Challenges
As part of a global manufacturing company, Kimberly has found it challenging to ensure that ENTEK’s culture and core values – respect, commitment, integrity, and innovation – are adopted across all its facilities.
“As we have worked to integrate new manufacturing teams across different cultures into the company, we always start with our core values,” she points out. “They are the tenets we live by, and rolling these out with an understanding of the culture that one is speaking to is challenging.”
So, Kimberly and her team listen carefully and make sure to learn about new cultures. According to her, this is essential for communicating their values and maintaining accountability. When they first integrated their plant in Indonesia into the company, they encountered language and cultural barriers. To overcome these, the team worked hard and learned to adapt and learn the local culture. In addition to that, they also shared some aspects of their corporate culture with the Indonesian team, including offering English lessons during paid hours.
What Is Next for ENTEK?
As President, Kimberly has set three long-term goals for ENTEK. First, she aims to continue growing ENTEK’s product lines to serve the changing needs of their customers effectively. Second, she intends to keep innovation at the forefront of the company’s efforts. Third, Kimberly plans to invest in their people. She believes these goals will drive success and ensure a healthy future for ENTEK.
She notes that there has never been a more exciting time to be part of manufacturing. Whether it is helping to deploy new equipment into a plastics recycling operation or scaling battery separator production to meet the growing energy storage demands of the new economy, ENTEK is focused on being a market leader.
Customers rely on the company to be innovators and problem solvers. According to Kimberly, with energy storage expanding to serve new markets like electric vehicles and renewable storage, ENTEK is scaling to serve customers both domestically and globally.
Work-Life Balance
Fortunately, she has an “incredibly” understanding family, who have always supported her career choices. “Jason, my husband, and I are committed to our faith and family first,” Kimberly says. After their second child was born, they decided that he [Jason] would stay home, primarily to raise their three children. “I cannot describe the freedom that provides to help manage stress and maintain productivity at work,” Kimberly shares.
She also points out that they [she and Jason] are a team. “I certainly could not do it alone,” she says. Their three amazing children are kind, honest, and well-rounded. “We could not ask for more,” Kimberly adds. “Did I always win the mother of the year – of course not, but we laugh about those times together.”
Message to Aspiring Women Leaders
Kimberly advises aspiring women leaders in the manufacturing and engineering industries to show up and do the next right thing. However, she advises them against trying to do everything at the same time.
She encourages them to respect their male co-workers in the same way they wish to be respected. “And don’t forget to have fun,” she adds. “After all, we work with amazing creative teams in manufacturing and engineering.”