Cam Hicks is a human resources executive with a passion for driving organizational success through people. As corporate vice president and chief human resources officer at Teleflex, a global provider of medical technologies, Hicks has played a pivotal role in shaping the company’s organizational strategy.
Hicks’ career journey began in operations, where he managed the profit and loss for one of the largest regions in his company’s clinical diagnostics services division. However, recognizing his true passion for people and their development, Hicks took a risk and transitioned to human resources. This move proved to be a turning point in his career, leading to rapid advancement and global leadership roles within the organization. When approached by Teleflex’s chairman and chief executive officer in 2013, Hicks accepted the role of CHRO with a transformational mandate, ensuring that HR had a direct seat at the strategic table.
Teleflex, is focused on being a high-growth global medical device company, both organically and through strategic acquisitions. The company said it strives to create an inclusive, high-performing and diverse workforce, where each associate brings their true self to work. Hicks emphasizes talent development, promoting a learning culture and ensuring promotion-from-within opportunities at all levels of the organization, the company said.
Hicks has received numerous awards, including Philadelphia’s Lifetime Achievement Award and CHRO of the Year. Teleflex’s HR department under Hicks’ leadership has been recognized as Philadelphia’s HR Department of the Year.
Hicks said a turning point for his career was moving into a general manager role, pushing the limits of his comfort zone.
“Looking back, the most important career risk I took was at the age of 26 when I stepped into a large general management role in the diagnostic laboratory space of Canada’s largest life sciences company,” he said. “I had no technical background in life sciences. All of the management team I would be leading was older and much more technically experienced than me, and this was the largest region in the province of Ontario (Canada) also providing 24/7 reference laboratory services to virtually every other region in the company. On paper, I had no business being offered — let alone accepting — this role. It put me right on the edge of my comfort zone at an important and early stage of my career, but the company believed in me.
“At 26, my personal ‘risk’ was perhaps limited: while married, we had no children to provide for; if I failed, I could seize the learnings and move on with the decades remaining in my career. The company was arguably taking a much bigger risk in me, and I felt the weight of that, which was key to my growth from this experience. The learnings from my years in that first GM role have been important with application in my career since.”
