Minnesota contract manufacturer’s new CEO sees opportunity in reshoring from tariffs

Protolabs’ new CEO, Suresh Krishna, has a clear goal: return the contract manufacturing company to growth.

The timing, in many ways, couldn’t be better. President Donald Trump’s tariff policies are aimed at balancing trade imbalances, but they also are meant to encourage reshoring of manufacturing operations.

The Maple Plain-based Protolabs has both the prototyping ability and manufacturing capacity to help companies develop new products and increase production levels.

Since May, when Krishna took over after several years of stagnant revenue, he said he has studied the company from the ground up, discovering what works and what doesn’t.

“I’ve been to every site all around the world,” Krishna, who most recently was CEO of Northern Tool & Equipment, said late last month. “I’ve probably touched in small groups or in one-on-one conversations almost 900 of our 2,400 employees.”

He also convened 75 to 80 top leaders at the company to launch a strategic planning process.

“The ideas we are seeing from our own employees show us we’ve got tremendous potential for growth,” Krishna said. “The opportunities for us to grow in prototyping and in production is enormous.”

But customers want Protolabs to gain more industry certifications so it can be do full production runs of certain types of parts.

For the company, Krishna said, that would open up more opportunities to take those prototypes to production-level volumes.

At the same time, Krishna believes Protolabs can benefit from the reshoring trends, especially lower-volume orders for specialized parts.

“What we do is literally what the future for advanced manufacturing should be,” he said.

Bob Kill, president and CEO of the manufacturing consulting nonprofit Enterprise Minnesota, believes Protolabs is in a good position to grow because of its technology and manufacturing capability, but it does face some challenges.

“This is not an easy journey, but I really think that Protolabs has the relationships that they could build from,” Kill said “Because they have a proven track record.”

Since its founding 26 years ago, Protolabs has made more than 15 million different custom parts for customers in a variety of sizes and materials.

Today, the company uses injection molding, CNC machining, 3D printing and sheet metal fabrication to make custom parts.

In an abrupt move, the board hired Krishna in May to immediately replace CEO Rob Bodor, who had held the post for four years after longtime chief executive Vicki Holt retired.

A veteran operations and supply chain executive, Krishna also held a senior management role with Sleep Number before moving to Northern Tool.

Since then, shares have rallied, mostly after the company reported strong second-quarter results in July, and have gained more than 20% in value.

“What stands out most about Suresh is his genuine connection with people. From the factory floor employees to our customers, he listens, learns and engages with every team member,” Rainer Gawlick, chair of Protolabs’ board of directors, said via email. “His leadership is rooted in collaboration and empowerment — qualities that align perfectly with our culture and future vision.”

A proponent of servant leadership, Krishna believes his role as CEO is to remove roadblocks and reduce friction so Protolabs workers can do a better job of satisfying customer needs.

Through his previous stops, Krishna said he has tested and tried to perfect a strategic development playbook where customer centricity is the leading tenet.

Joe Ryan, founder and CEO of the Excelsior-based national property development firm Oppidan Investment Co., would agree with Krishna’s approach.

Ryan credited Krishna with helping his team better its property management processes to benefit Northern Tool and for improving processes for Oppidan after joining its board in January.

Ryan said he and Krishna shares similar leadership mindsets and values.

“We’re focused on culture and people, and he just adds to that equation,” Ryan said.

Krishna doesn’t necessarily believe Protolabs needs new customers to grow. It serves more than 50,000 customers a year, a roster that includes nearly all of the S&P 500 companies but also garage-based innovators and entrepreneurs.

“By getting the whole organization end to end focused on the customer, we execute our strategic initiatives a little differently and better,” Krishna said. “That allows us to win new customers but, more importantly, also grow our share of wallet with the existing customers.”