Independence
No supplier money, ever. No exceptions, no “marketing partnerships”, no preferred-vendor lists we are paid to maintain.
An independent firm, run by people who used to do the buying
HPS Holding LLC was founded in Hartford in 2014. Eleven years later we are still deliberately mid-sized, still independent, and still doing the same work.
Our story
Started because a $60M manufacturer could not answer a simple question
In 2013 John Johnson was a category manager at a Connecticut components manufacturer. The CFO asked what the company spent on packaging. It took eleven days and four people to produce an answer, and the answer was wrong by about 18 percent.
That gap — between what companies think they buy and what they actually buy — is the whole business. HPS Holding opened in Hartford the following year with two consultants and one client. We now run roughly $284 million of annual client spend through our processes, with a team of seventeen.
We have turned down the obvious growth path more than once. No franchise offices, no offshore analyst factory, no software product we quietly push into every engagement. The firm stays a size where the person who scoped your project is also in the room when the supplier says no.
2014Founded in Hartford, CT
17Consultants & analysts
Ownership
John Johnson, Owner & Managing Director
John spent fourteen years inside manufacturing and distribution businesses in New England before founding HPS Holding — first in inventory control, then in category management, finally running a purchasing department of nine.
He still leads client engagements personally, particularly first-year diagnostics and any negotiation involving a sole-source supplier. He is a member of the Institute for Supply Management and sits on the advisory board of a regional manufacturing extension programme.
“Nobody has ever thanked us for a nice-looking slide deck. They thank us when the invoices match the contract and the truck shows up on Tuesday.”
What we hold to
Six operating principles
These are not wall posters. Each of them has cost us revenue at least once, which is how you know they are real.
Evidence over opinion
If we claim a saving, it reconciles to your general ledger. If we cannot prove it, we do not count it.
Senior people on the work
Median consultant tenure in industry: fourteen years. You are not paying us to train someone.
Finite engagements
We plan our own exit from day one. A consultancy that never leaves has stopped being useful.
Responsible sourcing
Supplier diligence covers labour practices, conflict minerals and environmental compliance as standard, not as an upsell.
Confidentiality
Client names are never published without written permission, which is why our case studies are anonymised.
Our office
Hartford, Connecticut
We are on the Embarcadero in Hartford, a short drive from Bradley International and within a day’s round trip of most of the Northeast manufacturing corridor. Clients are welcome at the office; we prefer to visit yours.
- 375 Embarcadero, Hartford, Connecticut 06132, USA
- Monday to Friday, 8:30–18:00 Eastern Time
- +1 (718) 462-8415
- contact@su.hpsholding.com
Milestones
Eleven years, briefly
| Year | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 2014 | Firm registered in Connecticut. Two consultants, first client in industrial MRO. |
| 2016 | Logistics practice added after three clients asked for freight benchmarking in the same quarter. |
| 2018 | Moved to the current Embarcadero office. Headcount reaches nine. |
| 2020 | Emergency sourcing programme run for four healthcare clients during PPE shortages. |
| 2022 | Inventory & demand planning practice formalised. First $200M year of spend under management. |
| 2024 | Tenth anniversary. Supplier ESG diligence added to the standard onboarding pack. |
| 2026 | Seventeen staff; $284M annual spend under management across 40+ active clients. |
Let’s look at your next sourcing decision together
Send us a short brief — the categories you buy, the volumes and the pain points. Within two business days you will get a written response from a senior consultant, not a sales script.