Hiring for Good Ep. 26 – Christie Dudenhoefer

Hiring for Good

Thank you for tuning in to this episode with our guest Christie Dudenhoefer, Manager of Life Science Solutions Business at HP Inc.

Hiring For Good Website: https://www.hiringforgood.net/

About Christie Dudenhoefer: Manager of intrapreneurial HP Inc business that deploys HP core printing technology to new Life Science applications. Current products target pharmaceutical and biotech drug discovery and genomics research. My responsibilities in this role include end-to-end responsibility for managing the business and extended team.

Christie Dudenhoefer’s Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christie-dudenhoefer/

Podcast on Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hiring-for-good-podcast/id1725208602

Tanis Morris: Director of Business Development at Acumen Executive Search Email: tanis@acumenexecutivesearch.com

Suzanne Hanifin: President at Acumen Executive Search Email: suzanne@acumenexecutivesearch.com

Acumen Executive Search Website: https://www.acumenexecutivesearch.com/

Hiring for Good Transcript

0:00 Good morning and welcome to Hiring for Good podcast I’m Tanis Morris and with

0:05 me as usual is my lovely co-host Suzanne Hanifin good morning good morning we’re

0:10 so excited to welcome Christie Dudenhoefer to the podcast this morning

0:15 Christie is the head of the Life Science Solutions business inside HP’s specialty

0:21 print and Technology Solutions Group LSS which is the life science solutions group adopts HP Inkjet microfluidics

0:29 technology for ultra-low volume regent dispensing and single cell isolation now

0:35 this is some heavy scientific stuff Christie so we’re going to need you to break this down for us but right um you

0:40 know I’ll I’ll try to keep going with this so Christie developed a new growth

0:46 business for HP resulting in a portfolio of life science research products that address applications in Pharma and

0:53 academic drug discovery single cell proteomics single cell gen genomics and

0:59 basic research the cross-functional LSS team supports current commercial

1:04 products and develops new Solutions collaborating closely with global customers and partners to improve and

1:10 simplify workflows when we get into the science stuff we always kind of depend on you to help translate but you know

1:19 without going too deep into the science um maybe you can break down some of what

1:25 that means I think in general you have a lot of really important work being done

1:30 that supports Pharma and bio that’s right okay that’s right good morning

1:36 thanks for having me I’m so excited to be here well we’re delighted to have you you know um I I was really excited for

1:42 this interview because you have a pretty interesting story about um you know I know you’ve been a HP for a long time

1:49 but do you want to tell us just a little bit about your background and um kind of how you got to where you are today yeah

1:56 I I will do that and I’m going to talk a little bit more I expand on what I do

2:01 today yes um and and then I’ll talk about how how I got there okay perfect and

2:07 so you know Tanis you already described I run this startup business inside HP um

2:14 and the business operates at the interface of science like the science our customers want to do and HP’s

2:24 technology and um it’s super it’s really fun and it’s pretty unique inside HP um

2:33 and so to have this kind of contained startup business um that’s being run out

2:40 of Corvallis Oregon and so my job right as the as the manager we all wear a lot

2:47 of different hats and I get to work at the interface between R&D and business

2:53 and the customers and HP and I you’ll hear from me as we talk kind of this

2:59 theme of working at interfaces which I really like um the work we do on the

3:05 team spans um you know supporting customers with current products and um developing

3:14 new products so kind of you know today developing new products in R&D you know

3:19 tomorrow and then working with collaborators across other parts of HP to develop new technology so the the

3:27 future and marketing and business development and and all the other you

3:32 know kinds of functions it’s a really diverse team which is something I’ve

3:38 worked hard for and it’s highly multidisciplinary right and so that’s

3:44 that’s really fun too um so how did how did I get here I’m from Michigan I went

3:51 to the University of Michigan go Blue um and I have a mechanical engineering

3:57 undergrad my first job out of school was at HP in McMinnville Oregon in a small

4:04 division the Cardiology business unit and so in McMinnville back in the day

4:09 they were developing Cardiology products right so electrocardiographs

4:14 which we all know and defibrillators and um my first job just

4:21 kind of as it happens was a job that was at an interface an interface between an

4:26 R&D team that was developing a new um electrocardiograph and an Offshore Manufacturing group that

4:33 was going to be doing the manufacturing and the supply chain and I think that

4:39 that interface job is probably what has now drawn me to wanting to work

4:47 at interfaces right it’s one of those things that just sort of happens and you look back now after a few decades and

4:57 and go oh that was that was maybe a really interesting first job to have and

5:02 and I wonder if that’s what set me up to you know be gravitated to the the kinds of jobs that I’ve that I’ve um wanted so

5:10 I was in McMinnville for a little while not too long and um and then moved to Corvallis in inkjet business and in

5:19 those early day like in the early 90s basically um in Corvallis there was

5:25 really rapid growth as the inkjet business was taking off there’s a lot of manufacturing onsite for inkjet

5:30 cartridges and new development and so I worked in

5:38 individual contributor roles supporting the core inkjet printing business for

5:44 about a decade um again not always at an

5:49 interface but often at an interface between R&D and Manufacturing or between

5:55 the ink cartridge team in Corvallis and the printer team team in Vancouver

6:01 Washington um and so I think you know it’s like it all builds right um and and

6:08 that’s that’s what happened there and then after about a decade I

6:13 had there’s this break that happened and I had the opportunity from HP to go back

6:19 to school and get a master’s degree so they offered this fellowship program at the time and paid for all my school

6:27 wow and I didn’t have any work obligations I was the best fed Master’s student I got 3/4 of my engineer salary

6:36 and um I moved my family back to Michigan for about a year and a half and

6:41 I so I went back to University of Michigan and got a master’s degree in a a

6:46 very um interdisciplinary program here’s another big science word macro molecular

6:53 science and engineering um and uh and so I did that for you know for a year and a half it

6:59 was great had a ton of fun living in an arbor again with my family my kids got

7:04 to see their grandparents a little bit more and um and then I finished and we

7:09 moved back to Corvallis right came back to work and since then I’ve been doing

7:17 with either some or all of my time um some form of life science focused new

7:24 business um using the inkjet technology and so

7:29 in the early days of that work it was very exploratory you know there was no

7:35 commercial products it was all new there was teams trying all different kinds of

7:41 things to expand the application space for hp’s you know technology and

7:48 products and knowhow um in microfluidics really and we we were HP Engineers right

7:58 and we didn’t know about the different like the applications so we did a lot of

8:03 partnering with other companies and with academic collaborators um to to explore this this

8:13 space out of those early days nothing was commercialized but they formed the

8:20 foundation for the business that I run today right it was kind of that work um that gave us

8:28 some proof proofs of concept that we could we could add value in in some of

8:35 these research workflows and it gave us some connections and you know some

8:41 skills um that were going to be relevant in the space and so so then there was a team of

8:50 us that became very focused on directly leveraging like an inkjet print head so

8:57 a lot of people have inkjet printers maybe on their desk and the way those

9:03 work is they make really small drops of ink on the paper you know to print the

9:09 print the page that’s in front of me um and we bake those are based on

9:16 Silicon chips that we make in Corvallis in a way for Fab and um so the the team

9:23 then became very focused on directly leveraging exactly that like that specific technology

9:30 how can we take that and do something in a new application New Market new application

9:36 space and we started working with some pharmaceutical companies we developed a

9:42 prototype we would try it out in front of a customer we’d refine it we’d try it out

9:50 again they’d be like no no still not still not right you guys you know and so

9:55 over over the course of probably a few years really takes a

10:01 takes a while sometimes to refine and refine um with a ton of customer input

10:09 again because we’re not the experts on on the workflows you know the on the

10:15 application um we ended up developing the commercial products that we have

10:21 um it was it required a lot of curiosity right we had to want to learn about what

10:28 are these researchers at Genentech or MC you know or Oregon State like what are

10:33 they doing right that we can help them with and a lot of humility because again it was that was wrong the software was

10:40 wrong you know I mean everything was wrong right at the beginning um and it

10:45 was also just so fun right so we were this small team we were innovating together and trying to drive really

10:52 rapid learning cycles and um so I was an ice an individual contributor first on

10:58 the team and then I became the manager on the team and you know kind of here we

11:04 are today right it’s grown since then and um and here we are well and and what I find so fascinating is when you look

11:11 at a big organization like HP there is a set culture yeah and for you and this

11:18 team to do this entrepreneurial like you said trial and error that’s not the traditional culture

11:25 of HP yeah how did you balance and find you know kind of grow that

11:32 department yeah it’s that’s really insightful and it and it’s been hard

11:38 right I won’t I won’t lie it was really hard um HP there’s a lot of great stuff about

11:46 HP culture that we could build on right I mean HP has a culture of trust and

11:52 respect for the individual you go back to Bill and Dave that’s part of the HPA they were highly

11:58 collaborative it’s it’s a really great place to work um and there’s great

12:05 people there so so there’s that Foundation to start from and and yeah doing new business

12:13 work inside a big Corporation is hard um funding is sometimes

12:20 hard and um and then the that mindset right around risk aversion and kind of

12:28 being slow right and that that don’t really work very well for for a startup

12:33 um and so we were initially operating within a new business creation group so

12:42 at least the team we were in had the charter to you to go and find um new

12:47 things for HP and um it’s be and I think maybe because we

12:55 were directly leveraging like the core Tech technology not trying to do anything different from a technology

13:02 standpoint it was you know the same technology a different product

13:07 embodiment in a new market so that brought the risk way down for

13:13 HP um which is important I think um it’s if we had continued on trying to do

13:20 something really different I don’t think we would have ever made it out to commercial to

13:25 commercialization um and we we were

13:30 just really careful about um trying to learn

13:38 quickly and and convince the org that it was it

13:44 wasn’t going to be a big risk right there’s no regulatory hurdles it’s it’s not Diagnostics or anything like that

13:50 right it’s all research it’s another important um decision that got made early on and the volumes you know we’re going

13:58 to start small all we’re going to go out with a minimally viable product right

14:03 and so just it was all about I think keeping the risk low for the corporation

14:08 and and through this evolution because it you have evolved

14:14 through through your career talk to us about that those valuable lessons what

14:19 were the formative learnings that you look back and go wow that was amazing

14:26 yeah I so there’s a a couple that that come to mind

14:32 um and one of them is around feedback and I had a

14:39 manager kind of early I early on-ish

14:45 and and I so this is before I was doing new business work and

14:51 the manager so HP of course does 360 feedback right and um and so he’s at

14:59 it’s the year-end and he’s sharing you know feedback with me in my performance review and um there was feedback from

15:06 kind of a pier another manager but that I had been working with um and he had

15:12 wanted me to be like do more do a better job on like recording the schedule and you know

15:19 I think he was envisioning like a Microsoft Project schedule that you know that you keep track and everything and

15:25 um it was something that through conversation with my manager was like yeah I could have done all that so

15:32 there’s truth in it sure I could have done that better um but the thing that my manager

15:38 did was allow me to question would that have been impactful like would it really have made a difference in achieving what

15:46 we did right and so he gave me very explicit permission to to do what I

15:52 wanted with a feedback right kind of a a little bit take it or leave it and so it’s you know I think we get feedback

15:59 all the time or like oh I better make that change maybe maybe you should um I think

16:06 it’s important to try to see the truth in it and then decide you know you get

16:11 to decide for yourself how am I going to act on it um that that’s a very respectful and empowering style of

16:19 leadership from from that particular man it was for sure yeah I mean and it was

16:25 it wasn’t recent right it was a long time ago and I still remember so um did that kind of shape

16:34 your own leadership style I yeah I think it must have yeah um I think it must have

16:41 I I I hope it did no I mean I I it’s really

16:47 interesting to hear I mean I think um it’s really interesting because it

16:54 sounds like you’ve not only gotten to kind of grow and create

16:59 this startup business or this this kind of like one off with NP but um you’ve

17:07 also gotten to you know build your team yeah and um and when you when you get to

17:14 kind of run run the shop you get to set your own cultural tone yeah so if you

17:21 think about your own approach to leadership or organizational management or anything what are what are your own

17:29 personal values that that kind of inform who you are and how do you how have you

17:35 been able to translate those to the the teams that you you’re leading MH I um my

17:42 team my team knows this about me I I love to problem solve right I am

17:48 an engineer um you know that’s it it it comes out for better or worse um and and I

17:58 love to to I love to problem solve in a in a group I I’m I’m highly

18:04 collaborative I’m very curious and I think that just sort of

18:09 permeates um like my one of my favorite things is and you know problem solve

18:16 could be just workshopping anything right um if there’s a dry erase board in

18:22 the meeting room like I’m the person at the and everybody in the team is like oh here she goes um but I’m the person at

18:29 the dry erase board and partly it’s like I’m writing it down because then I can internalize it right

18:36 it’s how I learn it’s how I understand and then it and then it can help you know it helps people move

18:43 through okay now what now what um asking those questions really from a place of

18:50 curiosity right it’s not not I’m sure sometimes it seems judgmental like or it

18:55 could be but but it’s not ever meant to be yeah um and uh and so that’s that’s

19:02 one thing just really the importance of collaboration we have

19:07 the um the really fortunate advantage of being all Co collocated the team like

19:14 the core team so we all sit in in Corvalis together and um you know COVID of

19:21 course disrupted everything we all know that but we are working really hard

19:30 to try to instill you know people coming back and and being together in the

19:35 office I mean I love the flexibility of a hybrid schedule that is what we have

19:41 but but we’re so we’re we’re much more efficient um when when we can just have

19:49 quick one-off conversations we don’t have to schedule a meeting or send an email

19:55 or try to find an open time you know it’s just we’re in the aisle like oh so and so walk four cubes away hey what do

20:03 you think about this um and so that’s that’s something that we’re we’re working on again you know as we come

20:09 we’re still coming out of COVID basically and and the company is very much on a on a hybrid um work schedule yeah so yeah

20:16 that’s that’s nice it’s a rousing endorsement for in person I mean which makes sense for engineering you know

20:22 because I think there is that kind of collective brain power that happens oh absolutely but your team your group

20:29 supports global I mean we came in here and you’re leaving on a trip shortly and

20:36 you know again taking this culture and this culture of curiosity you’ve mentioned curiosity many times looking

20:44 at partners and looking at teams globally yeah what are some of the lessons learned that you can share oh

20:53 yeah it’s and of course we so we have partners and customers globally

20:59 we have internal collaborators mostly on the west coast

21:04 mostly we do have internal manufacturing partners that are that are

21:10 global um it’s it can it’s it’s harder right it’s

21:17 harder than than working everybody together in in one place and

21:25 so some different some different skills I guess when

21:31 we we have close collaborators down in Palo Alto um at HP’s headquarters and in

21:38 HP Labs basically and um when we started

21:43 working more closely with them we made a lot of concerted effort to really bring

21:50 them into the team right and so they come to all of our meetings if they want to right so they’re invited to team

21:57 meetings we’re sharing priorities so everybody has the same understanding of

22:02 what are the overall business objectives what are the priorities trying to um create inside HP

22:10 they’re calling it like one team right create this feeling of one team um even

22:16 though we we might not be all in the same aisle in in Corvallis so yeah I think

22:21 that’s part of it well and then to follow up on that then what qualities are you looking for when you add to your team how do how do you successfully grow

22:28 your team yeah it’s um so one of you know of course hiring Engineers I they

22:35 have to have the right you know technical background skills and all that yeah yeah yeah and then you know beyond

22:41 that or in addition to that I guess diversity is really important to me I said my team is diverse it’s something

22:47 I’ve worked on um so all kinds of diversity right I think we just we’re

22:52 we’re more powerful together when we have different you know life background and experiences

22:59 um I also want people who work for me to be curious right we have customers doing

23:04 something that we aren’t experts in um we didn’t we didn’t grow up like with a

23:11 printer like everybody you know we all understand what’s the printer supposed to do um we don’t understand what our

23:18 customer researchers are trying to do um and so you know having some curiosity to

23:25 learn about that and um and then being flexible we’re a new business we’re a

23:32 startup business inside a big company it is a different culture it requires a different mindset than working in kind

23:39 of the core part of HP and that’s especially true for the

23:45 like the leaders on the team to be adaptable and be able to

23:52 um thrive in ambiguity because there can be a lot of ambiguity um yeah yeah and

23:58 do you find yourself recruiting other HP employees to bring to your team or do

24:04 you do outside and bring bring in different perspectives we’ve we’ve grown

24:10 both through both ways yeah depends on depends on the role um on the

24:17 team we’ve got you know a good number of engineers on the team have different of

24:23 Engineers of different disciplines have come from other roles inside HP um we’ve made several intern

24:30 conversions which is super great to be able to do um you know you it’s a it’s a

24:37 good trial run for everybody you know they learn more about do I really want to go work there and um and then of

24:43 course we learn more about you know working with them um and then we’ve done targeted hiring

24:53 for roles that like people the skills just don’t exist inside HP so I have

24:58 several um PhD scientists that work for me that are the translators so you know

25:05 their role on the team is to work more closely with customers and understand

25:11 their needs and bring that back into the R&D team so that the R&D team can be

25:17 developing the right product Solutions um to address customer needs yeah I I

25:23 love that multifaceted approach because it’s not one fits all right right right

25:29 and then as we talk about the culture is so important to keep growing and and and

25:36 and you have to balance that with the bigger culture of HP that’s right so looking

25:43 back with with a again huge company Innovative company looking back what

25:50 advice would you either give your 20-year-old self or that

25:55 intern oh yeah

26:01 you know for for myself it’s um it’s a little

26:09 bit like be patient it’s not my strongest

26:17 strength it’s gotten better through Parenthood um but I which is probably

26:22 true for most of us be patient with yourself and be patient with other

26:28 people right um there been times in my career when I’ve been too quick to you know kind of rush to judgment and so

26:36 like taking a step back from that I don’t do it too often anymore you know

26:41 every once in a while still and um and for the

26:48 intern it’s um I guess I this isn’t

26:56 um this might not be a popular sort of bit of advice I I haven’t moved around in HP

27:05 because I had a plan I mean there’s there’s a lot of executive leaders in HP who they had a plan and and every move

27:13 was very calculated you know up lateral getting a different experience um that hasn’t been my

27:21 career I’ve taken advantage of opportunities when they came I applied

27:27 for that Fellowship and I went right and I moved my family across the country um

27:33 I was doing the the new business work because I could then it was an opportunity for me um and so I

27:43 think I think that’s another really valid way to have a good fulfilling

27:49 career right taking advantage of opportunities and doing things that you enjoy and maybe not taking that rotation

27:57 that you’re like well I’ll go get through that one for the next two years so I can do the next thing that I want

28:02 to do I love that I do too follow your bliss in a in a in a practical sense I

28:11 guess you know you know I mean it’s it’s a beautiful sentiment to communicate um

28:18 I think it’s also kind of reinforces the idea like if you do what you love and do

28:24 your best things work out well yeah you know so right it’s really nice good so

28:30 the last question we always ask our guests on the podcast is what does hiring for good mean to you yeah it’s um

28:39 so what you know I was reflecting on that of course and um and maybe it’s

28:44 going to sound a little bit like the answer to my last question and it’s because it’s it’s mostly about having

28:51 fun having fun at work yeah right having an engaged team being

28:56 engaged having an engaged team um that’s doing great stuff um you

29:04 know we have the good fortune to be um developing products that I think

29:11 are adding a lot of value in the world um and and so that feels good um but and

29:19 then being able to work work with people that you enjoy being with that are good team members we all remember those you

29:27 know teams we got assigned to in college and there’s like the person who doesn’t show up and then the person who does all

29:32 the work instead you know we all want to work on teams where everybody’s you know

29:37 pitching in and doing and doing 110% um because it’s just so much more

29:44 fun that way so so there’s that aspect of it and then it’s it’s also just um

29:54 developing people right and so it’s you know developing people people

29:59 into into the employees and maybe leaders that they want to be so yeah we

30:08 talk about those concentric circles it’s the person their family the community

30:15 and really the world and if you get that right with that one person it’s amazing

30:21 how it builds outward yes and it sounds like you and your team in HP are doing

30:27 that so that is wonderful I can’t thank you enough what a pleasure thank you I knew

30:34 this would be a fun conversation well thanks for joining us today Christie uh we are proud to be

30:40 sharing this thank you yeah and if you like this podcast again like subscribe but follow chrisy this is I think I

30:48 think HP is turning a page and this is going to be really exciting to watch how

30:56 this is going to change that organ fantastic we’ll put your bio in the show notes thank you thanks so much for being

31:03 here thank you very much thanks for joining us today at hiring for good if you inspired by our conversation don’t

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31:16 Search Services check us out at www.hiringforgood.net or our company

31:22 website Acumen Executive Search thanks so much and don’t forget to join us next time for another in-depth

31:28 conversation about transformational leadership till then have fun