Welcome to Corporate Examiner’s exclusive interview with Kelly Farhangi Najafi, the visionary President and CEO of CP Lab Safety.
With a passion for lab safety and a commitment to environmental sustainability, Kelly and her dedicated team have been making remarkable strides in the industry.
In this insightful conversation, Kelly shares her personal experiences and the pivotal moments that led to the founding of CP Lab Safety. Over the past year, the company has achieved groundbreaking milestones, introducing innovative solutions to address critical issues in laboratories and launching revolutionary products like TELLI, which prevents accidental spills.
Kelly also sheds light on the vital elements that contribute to employee happiness and engagement, emphasizing the importance of a positive work culture and open communication.
Furthermore, she discusses how CP Lab Safety is capitalizing on the digital revolution to provide exceptional customer service and thrive in the evolving business landscape.
Join us as we delve into the inspiring story of Kelly Farhangi Najafi and CP Lab Safety’s mission to revolutionize lab safety, prioritize sustainability, and shape a safer and more environmentally conscious future.
We are thrilled to have you join us today, welcome to ValiantCEO Magazine’s exclusive interview! Let’s start off with a little introduction. Tell our readers a bit about yourself and your company.
Kelly Farhangi Najafi: My name is Kelly Farhangi Najafi and I am the President and CEO of CP Lab Safety, a leading manufacturer and supplier of environmentally conscious laboratory safety products for industries around the world.
Myself and my team at CP Lab Safety are driven by the mission to keep workers and the public safe by helping laboratories reduce chemical waste emissions in order to work towards a healthier and more sustainable planet.
CP Lab Safety was founded in 1996 by myself and my husband Dr. Ron Najafi, who was inspired to improve lab safety after experience working in the biotech industry and witnessing dangerous conditions.
Myself and my husband pride ourselves on our unwavering commitment to creating a better planet, and doing what we can to make sure that lab safety is understood and practiced, and that education on safe chemical handling is more widespread.
Now, more than 25 years later, CP Lab Safety is a global leader in safe solvent disposal, helping to reduce chemical waste emissions, lab fires, and safeguard employee help, while saving more than 1.5 million litres of pollution from chemistry labs.
And our commitment to environmental sustainability is just as strong as our commitment to lab safety. Just this spring we made the environmentally conscious move of moving 100 percent of our manufacturing back to the US.
After more than seven years of using a contract manufacturer in China’s Guangdong province, in China, we shifted production of our ECO Funnel and some 80 other products in our portfolio to Wright Engineered Plastics in Santa Rosa, California. As a result, we can now manufacture at a comparable cost to China.
We are working with our customers daily to help them avoid laboratory accidents. People and communities are becoming more aware of chemical exposures.
That’s why we’ve focused on our safety, laboratory, and chemical products, with a Made-In America approach, as connecting these three product lines can reduce the number of points where an accident can happen and promote safety everywhere, in academia and industry.
In the past year, what is the greatest business achievement you’d like to celebrate with your team? Please share the details of that success.
Kelly Farhangi Najafi: We are proud to know that every year we are disrupting the lab safety industry with simple yet effective solutions to address systemic problems in the lab such as overfilling of liquid receptacles, and the ‘open waste container’ problem that allows toxic fumes to escape into the lab, and inevitably into the environment.
We are continuously looking to expand and improve our product lines and continue our commitment to sustainability, and in the past year I am proud to say that we recently manufactured another safety and environmentally friendly product called TELLI, Talking Electronic Liquid Level Indicator.
It’s a small, radio frequency, banded device that fits around the outside of a waste container. TELLI will verbally indicate to scientists when a container is about to overfill, solving the accidental spill problem in labs around the globe.
Overall, our greatest business achievement is helping companies stay compliant with federal and state regulations regarding clean air, hazardous waste exposure, secondary containment, and fire safety.
We want to continue our mission of keeping lab workers safe, preventing toxic chemicals and vapours from entering our environment, and ultimately mitigating the effects lab accidents have on the public.
Quiet quitting, The Great Resignation, are an ongoing trend causing many businesses to struggle to keep talent engaged and motivated. Most are leaving because of their boss or their company culture. 82% of people feel unheard, undervalued, and misunderstood in the workplace. In your experience, what keeps employees happy? And how are you adapting to the current shift we see?
Kelly Farhangi Najafi: It is of the utmost importance that I remember, acknowledge and recognize that the most important asset to a company is its people, and that those people are happy, valued, and understood.
In order to keep my employees happy, I motivate and support them to help accomplish what needs to be done to reach their goals.
Part of making sure my employees are happy is creating a good culture that supports and fosters constructive feedback and positivity, and getting employees involved in decision making as they may be more knowledgeable in their areas of expertise.
Online business keeps on surging higher than ever, B2B, B2C, online shopping, virtual meetings, remote work, Zoom medical consultations, what are your expectations for the year to come and how are you capitalizing on the tidal wave?
Kelly Farhangi Najafi: Our expectations for our business in 2023 is capitalizing on our customer satisfaction and loyalty.
CP Lab Safety provides outstanding services in every single step of customer interaction, including communicating swiftly and thoroughly online, answering the phone promptly, sourcing to find products for customers, following up until the customer is satisfied, and providing and taking feedback.
Technology has made customer service faster, but it hasn’t necessarily made it easier. Many customers feel frustrated by automated customer service and don’t get the right answer.
I believe having dedicated customer support specialists on staff that can provide concierge type of service to the customers can tremendously help businesses to thrive.
Business is all about overcoming obstacles and creating opportunities for growth. What do you see as THE real challenge right now?
Kelly Farhangi Najafi: I believe that businesses can overcome obstacles by being proactive in working towards their goals, looking forward instead of backwards, and also by having clear communication with employees.
I always engage my staff in decision making.We believe in a test and invest approach in decision making in order to decide what goals we want to achieve, and have regular meetings to collaborate and ensure everyone is on the same page in our ideas and goals.
2020, 2021, and 2022 threw a lot of curve balls into businesses on a global scale. Based on the experience gleaned in the past years, how can businesses thrive in 2023? What lessons have you learned and what advice would you share?
Kelly Farhangi Najafi: Many businesses find challenges in become more sustainable and environmentally conscious of their as a company. Fortunately, we take our environmental responsibility very seriously.
As a certified Bay Area green business, we are making a concerted effort to reduce our carbon footprint. Over the last 25 years our flagship product, the ECO Funnel, has prevented over 1.5 million liters of toxic solvent from going into the environment.
This has created excitement among our employees, giving everyone a sense of pride in everything we do throughout our day. In today’s business environment, organizations are not only judged based on their ability to deliver products and services, but also on how they impact the environment.
Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle must become part of the culture of every organization.It is imperative that businesses demonstrate high standards of corporate citizenship and apply sustainability principles to the way in which they conduct their operations to prosper and have meaningful relationships with their customers.
What does “success” in 2023 mean to you? It could be on a personal or business level, please share your vision.
Kelly Farhangi Najafi: When I know CP Lab Safety’s workers feel happy and valued, then I know our company is on the path to success.
As an individual, I feel a sense of success knowing that I am a woman who immigrated to the United States and helped build a company from the ground up and become a CEO.
In the year so far, and for the remainder of 2023, CP Lab Safety will continue on our path to success through our energetic and creative work environment where we develop and emulate new ideas and technologies that positively impact people’s lives.
This interview was originally published on ValiantCEO.
