Jacqueline Hochheiser, Corporate Communications
The Founding of Mini-Circuits Europe
Mini-Circuits Europe (MCE) serves as Mini-Circuits’ sales and technical support center for the EMEA region to supply customers with accessible, reliable and fast service. When the office was first established, its main purpose was to serve as a sales stronghold for our customers across the Atlantic, but it quickly grew to comprise an applications department of its own with a team of capable engineers. Situated in the beautiful English countryside of Surrey, about an hour drive from London, the location offers an ideal place to conduct business.
On May 13, 1980, Harvey Kaylie made the decision to establish a corporate office to serve the European market when a unique opportunity arose to purchase an existing distributor in the U.K. Dale Electronics occupied a small shopfront in Camberley, roughly 30 miles Southwest of London. Owned by the Mist family, it initially served as a re-seller of a broad range of electronic products across Europe including everything from RF test equipment to ice cream makers.
When Dale Electronics ultimately went bankrupt, Kaylie saw an opportunity and acquired the business. A corporate base across the pond would provide a direct hub of contact and management of customers in the European region and later the whole EMEA.
Building the Dream Team
John Paul (JP) Newbold was an early employee in MCE’s history, joining the company shortly after graduating from university as part of the fledgling field sales team in December of 1994. From there, JP worked his way up through the organization and is now the head of Engineering and technical sales. Around the early 2000s, Caroline Norris joined the company as the head of internal sales. Jacqui Roberts was also added to the team as the financial controller, completing the third point of the triangle of the management team at MCE.
This leadership triad has been the hub of innovation to keep MCE at the top of the its game and on top of the market. Newbold developed an aggressive organizational development plan with Min-Circuits President, Ted Heil’s help to drive continuous improvement and organizational expansion to scale with business growth. This included a roadmap for business development in MCE’s existing territories as well as a redrafting of the map to encompass the entire EMEA region. To resource the wider geographic swath, the office would recruit to grow the applications, field sales and customer support teams.
MCE’s leadership team believes seamless teamwork between their teams and their global Mini-Circuits counterparts, customers, reps and distributors is vital to achieving the desired result. To reduce lead time and response time to customer requests, sales members are assigned customers in the same time zone. Each sales member is trained for cultural familiarity in their assigned territory to improve communication and rapport with their customers. The expansion and recruitment process will enable MCE to create personal relationships with customers in order to provide the best service possible, and align local reps with Mini-Circuits’ efforts and business etiquette.
These process improvements benefit collaboration between MCE and their Mini-Circuits colleagues around the world, and ultimately their relationships with customers. The smoother flow of information and communication between offices and members across the globe has enabled better sharing of best practices and an even higher standard of service among MCE members and the entire Mini-Circuits family, regardless of their geography.
A Culture of Family Values
Since the founding of MCE, Harvey Kaylie, Founder and CEO of Mini-Circuits, always sought to create a culture of family within the organization where members felt they could express concerns about both work-related and personal matters. JP and the rest of MCE’s leadership team has also made it a priority to carry on this tradition and creating an environment where members feel they can grow both personally and professionally.
JP knows that members work very hard and that sometimes workloads can be stressful. But like any family, members work together to support each other and stick together through good and difficult times. Everyone is always willing to help each other out to support the common goal of helping the company to succeed. There is a higher sense of duty to Mini-Circuits that unites members.
“Everyone gets on very well here. We have been together in the office for a long time. It’s a small environment so it feels more like a family,” said Caroline. “I’m very proud of my team, they do a good job and they work very hard.”
The key to MCE’s success is not only promoting change, but also in inspiring the newest generation of people coming into the company, because the future of the company will ultimately rest on their shoulders. The MCE leadership team is constantly challenging its members to cultivate. In order to continue on an upward curve, the leadership team looks to recruit new hires that have the ability to think critically, learn quickly, and who have the Mini-Circuits’ mindset of forward thinking and the ability to implement those initiatives.
Moving Toward the Future
MCE serves as Mini-Circuits’ trusted representative in the EMEA region supplying not only our customers with the value and care they deserve, but also our own team members. While the location in Surrey, U.K. was a strategic decision, the company’s success is largely due to an excellent management team that puts the health, success and happiness of their team first. With this support, MCE team members thrive and in turn, help the company to thrive.
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