When Eleanor Freeman talks about integration, she doesn’t talk about imposing systems, creating layers or making every business the same. She talks about bringing good companies together without getting in their way.
It is an important distinction. As Kaleidex Group continues to grow through acquisition, the opportunity is not simply to assemble a collection of specialist medical manufacturing businesses. It is to connect them: their capabilities, customers, people, systems and knowledge, while protecting the qualities that made those businesses successful in the first place.
That is where Eleanor comes in.
As Integration and Value Creation Lead at Kaleidex Group, her role sits right at the point where acquisition becomes something more meaningful: where individual companies begin to benefit from being part of a wider group.
And after 15 years at Johnson & Johnson, spanning engineering, sales, marketing and strategic roles across MedTech, she has arrived at Kaleidex at a moment when there is still plenty of opportunity to shape what that group becomes.
“I think it’s a really exciting thing that we’re doing. It’s a real, tangible thing that we’re doing, which I really like.”
And for Eleanor, that tangibility matters.
From medical engineering to the bigger picture
Eleanor’s career has always been rooted in medical technology. A trained medical engineer, she began in research and development at Johnson & Johnson, working within the knee team on total knee arthroplasty and the Attune programme. From there, her career moved beyond engineering into the commercial world.
“My background is in engineering, but then I moved through various commercial roles in the business – sales, marketing, lots of things like that.”
She went on to sell J&J’s trauma, sports med and shoulder arthroplasty portfolios before moving into sales management and marketing, eventually working at a broader Johnson & Johnson level across multiple business units. That journey gives her an unusually broad view of MedTech.
She understands the product. She understands the engineer developing it. She understands the customer buying it. And she understands the opportunities and complexities that come with working across a large global organisation.
Now, those different parts of her experience are coming together.
“It’s a weird feeling of almost having worked for 15 years bringing me to this point, because of all the things that I’ve collected along the way. I feel like you can use them now to build something real.”
That word “real” comes up repeatedly when Eleanor talks about Kaleidex.
“That’s the phrase I always use. It is real, what we’re building. You’re very close to the people in the companies and the products that are being made.”
Integration without interference
The first half of Eleanor’s role is relatively easy to describe. Whenever Kaleidex acquires a new business, she helps bring that company into the wider group. That means looking at the processes surrounding finance, digital systems, people, customers and the ways in which the business can begin accessing the wider capabilities available across Kaleidex.
But the more interesting part is what Eleanor is trying not to do. “My job is to onboard them into the company. I’m trying to create that cohesive group company, bringing them into a group and making us aligned as a group.”
Then comes the important caveat.
“The other part of my onboarding piece is to make sure that we don’t get in their way.”
There is a simple logic behind it. Kaleidex is acquiring successful specialist businesses precisely because they already possess valuable capabilities, strong customer relationships, knowledge and ways of working. The purpose of integration is not to replace those strengths. It is to give them more around them.
“We buy these amazing companies because they’re amazing companies. They’ve usually got really great people, really great customers, they’re growing, they’re successful. So yes, bring them in as part of the group, but don’t let the group get in their way. Keep their fundamentals and keep them looking after their customers as they always have.”
That is a subtle but important philosophy. For Kaleidex, successful integration is about creating access: to new capabilities, knowledge, systems, people, capacity and customers, while protecting what already works.
Creating value beyond the acquisition
The second half of Eleanor’s title — Value Creation — widens the picture further. Her work does not stop once a new business has been onboarded. It includes projects designed to make the whole group stronger. One of the clearest examples is the Kaleidex Academy.
The ambition is to create structured development pathways across the group, supporting apprentices, graduates and future leaders while helping people see Kaleidex as somewhere they can build a long-term career.
“We’re building an academy that’s at group level, which will enhance the experience of anyone that works here.”
For apprentices and graduates, that means access to extended learning and further education. For emerging leaders, it includes the Ascend pathway.
“The Ascend pathway is all about future leaders, so really making sure that we’ve got a pipeline of talent in the business that have a really long-standing career in the business.”
There is a wider purpose too. An academy creates another connection between businesses that may historically have operated completely independently. It helps turn individual sites into part of something larger.
Alongside the Academy, Eleanor is working across areas including supply terms, digital quoting tools and pooling ERP data to create greater visibility of capacity across the group. That last point becomes particularly important as Kaleidex grows.
Rather than viewing capacity only site by site, the ambition is to understand what the entire group can offer a customer and then direct work to the right place.
“We want visibility of the whole group’s capacity, so that we can bring work in from customers and get it to the right place.”
That is where integration begins translating directly into customer value.
The objective is not growth simply for the sake of being bigger. It is about creating a Group that can solve more of a customer’s problem, connecting different technologies, skills and manufacturing capabilities so customers can access more of what they need through Kaleidex.
That is where operating as a true Group begins to make a tangible difference: not simply having more businesses, but creating a broader, more connected capability than any one of them could offer independently.
Everyone gets stuck in
There is another reason Eleanor is enjoying the move to Kaleidex. The people.
She talks with obvious respect about the founders and leaders across the operating businesses: people who have spent years building specialist companies, developing their expertise and earning the trust of customers.
“I find myself surrounded by exceptionally intelligent, talented people. Especially when you get to site level and business-unit level, they’re really inspiring people. They’ve built these businesses and have them running in a really exceptional way.”
That creates a particular kind of working environment. There is ambition, but there is also a sense that nobody is too senior or too specialised to get involved when something needs doing.
For a group growing as quickly as Kaleidex, that mentality matters. There will be new acquisitions to integrate. New systems to build. New capabilities to connect. New customers to support. New careers to create. The organisation will inevitably become more structured as it grows. The challenge is making sure it never loses that willingness to get things done.
Building something you can see
Ultimately, Eleanor’s motivation comes back to the same idea that attracted her to Kaleidex in the first place. The opportunity to build something and actually watch it taking shape.
“A big driver is the people that you’re surrounded by, and the vision that we have of what we’re going to create.”
The pace helps. Plans become projects. Projects become systems. Acquisitions become part of the group. Capabilities begin connecting. People begin seeing new opportunities.
“Because we’re moving so fast, you can see things happening.”
And that visibility creates its own momentum.
“Things are actually happening. And they’re real, and you can see success, so it really keeps you going.”
For Eleanor Freeman, integration is not about making every Kaleidex business identical. It is about making the connections between them more valuable.
Protecting what already works. Adding what can make it stronger. Creating opportunities that would not exist independently. And building the structures that allow customers and people alike to benefit from belonging to something bigger.
After 15 years building experience across engineering, commercial roles and global MedTech, Eleanor now has the opportunity to bring all of those different perspectives together at Kaleidex, and apply them to a business that is still taking shape around her.