LG Electronics

The corporations on our annual list of the world's 500 largest companies combined to generate $41.7 trillion in revenue over the past year.

Fortune Global 500

Leaders in all industries rely more than ever on Big Tech—and appreciate the giants that deliver, at scale, without drama.

World's Most Admired Companies

The corporations on our annual list posted aggregate revenues of $41 trillion for the second year in a row.

The 26th edition of the list shows how much esteem Big Tech giants command among other business leaders.

The 25th Fortune World’s Most Admired Companies list suggests that tech giants’ peers respect them as much as ever.

The corporations on our annual list of the world’s largest companies delivered a record $41 trillion in aggregate revenues.

Just as it dominates our economy, Big Tech now dominates Fortune’s annual ranking of corporate reputation.

Aggregate sales hit $37.8 trillion last year—an increase of 19%, the highest annual growth rate in the list’s history.

After a year in which humanity leaned more heavily than ever on tech giants, see which companies topped Fortune's ranking of corporate reputation.

Total revenue for the world’s biggest companies fell 4.8% to $31.7 trillion this year—the first decline in half a decade.

G500-2021-192-LG ELECTRONICS

For an astounding 13th straight year, Apple claims the top spot in Fortune’s annual ranking of corporate reputation, based on a survey of almost 3,800 executives, directors, and analysts.

This year's Fortune Global 500 generated $33.3 trillion in revenues and $2.1 trillion in profits.

G500-2020-207-LG-Electronics

Here are the World's Most Admired Companies for 2019 as ranked in their industries. See who made the list.

This year's Fortune Global 500 generated $27.7 trillion in revenues and $1.5 trillion in profits.

Here are the World's Most Admired Companies for 2018 as ranked in their industries. See who made the list.

This year's Fortune Global 500 generated $27.6 trillion in revenues and $1.5 trillion in profits.

Business insiders have spoken: Asked which companies they most admire, more than 4,100 executives, directors, and analysts chose these top 50 All-Stars.

The world's 500 largest companies generated $31.2 trillion in revenues and $1.7 trillion in profits in 2014. Together, this year's Fortune Global 500 employ 65 million people worldwide and are represented by 36 countries.

Global business is back. After limping through a worldwide financial crisis and economic slowdown, the 500 largest companies ranked by revenues shattered all sorts of performance records in 2013: They racked up combined revenues of $31.1 trillion, up 2.5% from 2012, and profits soared 27% to nearly $2 trillion. China’s 95 companies (up from 89 last year) posted $5.8 trillion in revenues. The U.S. has four fewer companies on the list than last year but remains (for now) the country leader, with 128 corporations on the list—including No. 1 Wal-Mart Stores—reporting $8.6 trillion in revenues. 

Sector

Industry

Current All-Star Rank

Previous All-Star Rank

Industry Rank

Previous Industry Rank

Overall Score

Innovation

People Management

Use of Corporate Assets

Social Responsibility

Quality of Management

Financial Soundness

Long-Term Investment Value

Quality of Products/Services

Global Competitiveness

Key Financials (last Fiscal Year)

Revenues ($M)

Profits ($M)

Assets ($M)

Total Stockholder Equity ($M)

Profit Ratios

Profit as % of Revenues

Profits as % of Assets

Profits as % of Stockholder Equity

Get insights into LG Electronics including business profile, stock information, news, and rankings from Fortune.

LG Electronics Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings

legacy

lg electronics

Companies

LG Electronics | Fortune

LG Electronics Company Profile, Stock Price, News, Rankings | Fortune

Malaysia is pursuing an ambitious agenda to expand cross-border energy infrastructure, build seamless regional payments systems, and attract high-value electronics manufacturing. Finance Minister II outlines how these priorities fit into a broader plan to strengthen and secure Malaysia’s interests and technology tensions and shifting global economy.

Malaysia's Economic Strategy: A Conversation with Finance Minister Il Datuk Seri Amir Hazmah Azizan

Conferences

We heard earlier in the day that Malaysia is at a turning point, scaling cross-border energy and trade links and expanding its foothold in high-value electronics and manufacturing. Those aren't isolated initiatives. They're pillars of a national strategy to strengthen Malaysia's competitiveness in a world defined by new technologies and shifting global supply chains. We are pleased today to be joined by a leader who has been instrumental in shaping Malaysia's economic strategy. And the decisions guiding the country's next phase of growth. Please join me in welcoming our forum's guests of honor, YB Senator Datuk Seri Amer Hamza Azizan, Malaysia's 2nd Minister of Finance. Thank you. Thank you so much for taking the time to be with us here this afternoon. It is this is a busy man. He has not just the finance portfolio, but he's also the economy minister. We are right in the middle of budget season in the parliament, so that he would carve time out of his schedule to join us is extraordinary, and we thank him. Um, I want to ask you to begin with a little bit about your own background because it's, it's quite remarkable. Um, your journey has come through the private sector to your current, uh, uh, post. You're not a kind of traditional career politician at all. Um, you began at Shell Oil and there for many years, worked at Cazana, uh, the employees, uh, pension benefit fund. Um, patronus, so really extraordinary portfolio of different, uh different roles. How, how do you think your, uh, private sector experience shapes the way you approach your current public job? Oh, thank you. Uh, yeah, I'm always constantly reminded I'm not a politician. I'm very happy to say that I'm not a politician. Yeah, uh, because effectively what I bring to the table, uh, is, uh. An ability for us to actually look at it on raw data, start taking decisions based on what we need to do, and then adjust with what's required from the country point of view. So, um, if you look at the experience I've had, I've been lucky, I've had a tremendous amount of opportunity to try different things. So in trying to cobble together government policy and implementation, the most important thing that I would like to bring on the table is the ability to say, OK, fine and understand the wider things that we need to do, but what does it take on the ground to make it stick? What's the issue that you have that that makes it stick and understanding the business community allows me to also address the needs that required. So we kind of a uh A pragmatism about, OK, we can do that if you want, but these are going to be the consequences. Is that really what you want, which is, which is a really valuable and beneficial approach and you know as I look at at Malaysia and and the policy framework, it's, it's very impressive. I have to say I mean we have been talking all day about turbulence in the global economy, all the challenges. The changes that are going on, we've got superpowers, you know, at loggerheads. We've got crazy tariffs that go up and that go down and disappear and get holes carved out of them. We've got restrictions on exports of technology. And then on top of that, we've got all these technological changes, AI and and maybe even more dramatic changes just over the, the horizon, um. You know, I, I just think back to where we were, you know, quote unquote liberation day and and all of ASEAN sort of had a collective heart attack about that. But you look at where, you know, particularly Malaysia is today, and I wonder if I could ask you a little bit about, you know, your, your kind of sense of where the economy is. Um, it's doing pretty well. It was 5.3, was it in the third quarter, 5.2% in the third quarter. And um I just noticed that I know that your own forecast is more conservative, it's like 4.2 to 4.8 for for 2025, but many of the private banks have started to come around and be much more optimistic. I was just mentioning that Standard Charter just a few hours ago raised its GDP forecast to 5.2, which would be pretty impressive. What's your, what's your thought? Are you more optimistic than you? You know, now that we're into this quarter, and this year has been a very challenging year for everybody, right, uh, but Malaysia's approach has always been an approach that is always measured and actually trying to take and take decisions what is necessary for the long term in doing it. So when Liberation Day hit, we didn't panic, we, we weren't the first going out there and say I'm going to reset my target to be this. We took some time to understand what were the capacity of us to be able to respond, what were the key things that we needed to do, and then execute against that. Hence you saw Benara came up with a revised estimate only in July, you know, this year and we reduced our rate from 4 to 4.8%. Uh, and touch wood, uh, we're still being able to get to a 5.2% in the third quarter, and I think that's the, the, the strength of the Malaysian economy. The Malaysian economy has a very deep diversification at its base. No export market is greater than 13%, yeah, so it's a wide range of markets and the base of the economy is also quite well integrated uh along the way and that's helped us being able to address the challenges that we're seeing today in in the ever-changing world. So the, yeah, the diversity of the economy has really been part of the secret of its of its resilience. Um, the other thing that has struck me as extraordinary is that, um, in the midst of all this upheaval, uh, you've been very disciplined on the fiscal side and, uh, you know, trying to keep the, the budget deficit coming down. Can you talk a little bit about some of the benchmarks there and kind of where we are in the budget and, and, uh, what, what you, I mean, where, where are we now? I think we're 3.8%, is that right of GDP? Yeah, so if you look at the Malaysia, I think like most countries in the world, we all had to respond during the COVID period and most of us use fiscal balances that we had actually to stimulate the economy to make sure the bottom end of society are protected and we had the capacity to continue to move on. But that meant fiscal deficit widened quite dramatically and Malaysia in 2021, we hit the 6.4% fiscal deficit over GDP. And that was not a sustainable number and one of the key things that this government has done is actually to refine forward to say what we need to do is to find balance. The balance that we need is good fiscal discipline, but also the capacity to inject things into the economy that will grow it in the future, but more importantly also rebalance the economy that makes it future-proof. The future in terms of investing in the right segments of the market and making sure that it flows back into society. So we carry the whole society along. That's why under the Economy Madani framework, we talk a lot about lifting the ceiling, lifting the floor, because making sure it translates down to the bottom, makes sure it's sustainable going forward. And in that process, we take decisions. Some of it not easy, reducing fiscal discipline meant we had to retarget back uh subsidies in the country. And looking at it meant that we have to also address the fiscal base that we actually have, which means some tax measures that had to be put in, but always with the mind that whatever measure that we do is got to be balanced so that the impact of society can be contained along the way. And This year we're looking at 3.8% of fiscal deficit over GDP. Next year we're looking at 3.5%. So hopefully by 2028 we'll get to below 3%, which is our target. That's incredible. I mean, you know, America could take a leaf from Malaysia's book on that. Can you say anything about the, the political challenge of that because, you know, um. That's hard for me to imagine in the current kind of gridlock of of American politics, but Malaysia also has a very fractious political system with all these complicated different parties and coalitions. How was everybody able to agree on on those painful kind of uh uh measures of restraint? I guess the most important thing to understand is that we all have to accept the fact that we need to address fiscal deficits, yeah, because there are long term consequences of letting it go uncontrolled. The key then is to understand if you're trying to address what levels do you have to pull and what impact does the level that you pull have on society in totality. So the key measure that we've been doing in Malaysia is making sure that we get better targeting done. Yeah, so we understand that for example, in society, not all the segments of society are equally protected along the way. Some are much more affected than the others. So if you are going to to address subsidies, make sure you have targeting that actually gets it to the to the groups that probably need more support along the way. And start adjusting it to market practices for the groups that can take adjustment. So you've seen that happen when we address electricity in the country. So 85% of domestic consumers in Malaysia did not see an increase in electricity prices. The top 15% did, industrial and commercial did. You saw us also addressed it in. patrol, so we limited it only to uh citizens are allowed to get uh subsidized petrol and for diesel, we targeted also in the same similar manner where groups that were necessary to get support, we give support, the groups that had inflationary effects, we protected it, but the rest had to pay market price. By doing that, we address the arbitrages that exist in either commercial to residential and vice versa. We address the potential leakages in smuggling that actually occurred and because of that, we've got the ability to save. And if you do it well, you refine your process as well, you use data as the base of how you look at it, you can contain the effects in a better form and bank your savings. So in Malaysia, Uh, we've achieved about 15.5 billion ringgit of savings per year coming in from the measures that we've done. At the same time, we kept inflation at a low level. Today we are seeing about 1.5% inflation. The remarkable and, and what are the employment numbers looking like right now? Employment levels are pretty strong. We had about 3% unemployment rate, which pretty much full employment. Remarkable. Um, let's talk about what comes next and, and some of the challenges. I mean we've heard in numerous number of sessions here today about how Malaysia aims to kind of leapfrog to the frontier of the digital revolution that it's, it's investing incredible amounts in data centers in in light manufacturing, trying to figure out ways to kind of move up the. The the value chain, um, one of the obstacles to that of course is going to be figuring out how to provide enough power to keep all those data centers and manufacturing facilities running. I was just looking at some of the numbers here. They're kind of hard to get your head around, but I've seen analysts estimating data center uh electricity use rising from 8 to 9 terawatts today to about 68 terawatts by by 2030. And load ships going, you know, up by like 8 times. Can Malaysia supply that step change, that kind of step change reliably? I think you, you've got to understand where we began, right? When we began this journey in say 2020, 2021 when the early stages were starting up, we had very, very large reserve margin. Our reserve margin had gone crept up to about 55% of total capacity that exists. So there was an opportunity because the capacity was just sitting over there. But we had some structural things that we had to fix, so among the structural things that we had to fix was address the subsidies to make sure that it doesn't leak the way it's not supposed to leak. Second is to make sure that it induces the right behavior from industry. So if you notice the change in the power tariffs this year, we are now adjusting power tariffs every month. So when you do that, you allow the prices to catch up faster or decline much faster along the way, provides better certainty for for industries along the way. Uh, the third is actually to look at, uh, in terms of forward planning, what do we want. So the first rounds of data centers that came in helped build a critical base for Malaysia. The next round of data centers we said we wanted it with a bit more capability for Malaysia. We wanted it with AI, we wanted with a lot more regional providing services. So it helps build a sustainable business for Malaysia in the long term. And the third round of data centers that we want that. Plus we want you to also have things that reduces the consumption of power, better smarter usage of water along the way. So you build on your basis so that you can over time address the requirement. And going forward under our national energy transition roadmap, we have quite a clear direction forward how we are actually going to transition the economy into greener power. Part of it is actually renewables in the country, solar, hydro. Uh, part of it is also bringing in through the Asian power grid into supplying into Malaysia and then connecting it onto the wider grid of ASEAN. This is important because it grinds the grid, but more importantly, over time also it reduces the total capacity that needs to be injected in uh the whole ASEAN region. Net net, everybody gains. Right, you can do load sharing and uh uh that's that's very interesting. So, um. The renewables goals are quite ambitious for Malaysia. Can you say a little bit about what the what the what the current renewable capacity is, you know, what percentage of of energy demand is renewable in Malaysia right now and what's the, what's the goal by? I think the target is 2030, is that right? The, the, the country has adopted the net zero by 2050. We will get to net zero by 2050. In order to do that, the energy mix is likely to be about 70% of our energy mix must be renewable in order for us to get to that state. So what does it requires a lot. That's a lot, I agree. Uh, so one of the key things that we have to do is to transition it in a proper manner. Part of the transition means utilization of gas for the short term, have to step up and we remove coal as the base load fuel in Malaysia, and that's ongoing at this point in time. Every time a coal plant expires its contract, it doesn't get renewed. Yeah, going forward also as other coal plants and we also will not renew it but replace it with temporarily gas and over time put in renewable replacement. That includes hydro, which we have still some resources in uh Sean, Malaysia and a lot inrawa. And second, bringing renewables from Asia grid, yeah, and that's why we have now a memorandum of cooperation that connects Vietnam, Malaysia, and Singapore to bring 2 gigs of power along that line and we will use uh wind power from that site to incorporate in the country, push a lot more in terms of solar, bringing batteries at the same time to stabilize the grid and look at inducing better efficiency so that we can also reduce demand. Uh, based on growth that's coming in. I ask you about the push into uh higher value added in in uh in manufacturing. I mean, Malaysia is already a global powerhouse in assembly testing and packaging for semiconductors, and it's a top tier electronics exporter. Um, what has to happen to kind of step up to the next level in the value chain? What are the kind of critical factors that you see? Well, Malaysia didn't fall and got lucky in doing this. We built the, the ENE and semiconductor sector since the 1970s, early 1971 was when Intel first came into Malaysia, and over the years what we've been trying to do is strengthen the ecosystem that exists. So the more places that you have in, the more work that is built around supplying to the ecosystem, you build capability within the system. So now what Malaysia's next push is actually we want to go up the value chain a bit more. That includes advanced packaging, that includes also cheap design. So as this is going down that path, what we will have to do is to also prepare our workforce to be able to go up that path. We will also have to provide capital to allow venture capital to come in and PE to come in to support mid-tier companies to grow to be able to do it. But make sure as we grow it, the ecosystem gets bigger and more diverse and stronger along the way, and the government plays a role in that. It provides capital, it provides support in terms of training along the way. It goes out and looks at where can it strengthen infrastructure in the country so that the infrastructure can support the plants that actually come in whether you open new industrial land, you provide more power mechanism or water mechanism, it provides infrastructure that will support businesses. And hence a better planning and execution on that helps build the story move on. We've got just a couple of minutes. I want to get back to this idea of resilience. Uh, I wonder if I could ask you just for your quick take on, on, on these tariffs, you know, the tariffs that were announced in April have been rolled back to 19%. Uh, they're comparable to tariffs for Thailand, Indonesia, and, and, uh, you know, Vietnam is a 20% or something like that, I, I think, but sort of roughly the same. Uh, on the other hand, Singapore's tariffs are lower, and China's tariffs are probably higher, although that's kind of a Swiss cheese. It's very hard to calculate. Um, there's a carve out for Malaysia as well though, for, for chips, for pharmaceuticals. I gather palm oil is still kind of under discussion somehow that could really help a lot. How much headway do you feel that these tariffs are to Malaysia achieving its? Its its economic goals over the next kind of 2 or 3 years. I think there are a couple of things that we need to understand when we look at the supply chain for the ENE semiconductor space. The supply chain is a very globally connected supply chain. Disruptions to it causes quite a big backflow elsewhere. And if you look at the base that Malaysia has built, it is a base that has been built by Western and Chinese entities in the country. And the key was being able to balance both sides to be able to play an active role in supporting the mechanism. So our proposition to both is actually to say we are key to your long-term supply chain, we provide the intermediate goods that you need in the long term to support your growth. And we want to continue to be because we are a reliable partner to it. So the differentiation that Malaysia brings is its reliability, ecosystem, it's a supply chain mechanism that is very different than than most other players. We are not at the top end of the supply chain, which requires deeper capital base, deeper knowledge base, and so on. So we are not a threat to to uh aspirations of the US who wants to bring a lot of things back home, yeah. Neither are we at the bottom end of the chain, uh, which is not good enough margin for us. So what we are doing is stay in the middle but grow a little bit more of the margin take inside it and increase the complexity of the economy. And as we do more of that, we strengthen the value chain, the economy is able to sustain going forward. Well, I think we have gained a little bit of insight as to why Malaysia has managed to navigate all this turbulence so well. It has someone so knowledgeable and pragmatic helping to frame those policies. So I really want to hope you'll join me in thanking the minister and taking time to share his thoughts with us. Thank you very much so much.

Best Buy CEO Corie Barry, ranked No. 30 on the 2025 MPW list, discusses the challenges of implementing AI into the customer experience, meeting expectations of today’s tech consumer, and navigating the dynamic tariff situation her complex global electronics supply chain relies on.

Clarity in Complexity: A Conversation with Corie Barry

Oh my gosh, well, everyone's excited to hear from you, and we were just hearing from the Duchess about everything she's doing for the holiday season and how important that is for her brand. That's something you two have in common. Yeah, it turns out holiday is kind of a bit, I'm so excited we have something in common. Um, holiday is kind of a big deal, and you know, joking aside, our focus is just maniacally on the customer and you want this to be like a joyful fun, you want to help people deliver their holiday dreams and so we think about it a little less as like what product people always ask me what product's going to be hot. I'm not sure it matters. All that matters is what the recipient thinks, and we have so many ways in which I think we can make you the cool gift giver, which is something I always want to be. That's so fun whether you want jam or whether you want some new technology. I mean, maybe it is your jam. That is so true. Well, that was a good one. Thanks, um. OK, I want to, you have such great insight on the state of the world right now, and I think if any company was impacted by tariffs over this year, it has been Best Buy. So walk us through what these past months have been like for you. Where did your experience Best Buy's exposure to tariffs start and where is it today? Yeah, so maybe some context setting, um, we're in an interesting position. We are actually a brand of other brands and the consumer electronics supply chain is a very different one. Less than 10% of all the consumer electronics in the world are manufactured in the US, so it's an incredibly global supply chain with some of the world's biggest companies, um, and. Our position is here in the US, which is the largest market, we are obviously the last man standing or woman standing, I guess as it is in the consumer electronics industry. And so when we entered the year, about 55% of products as we could tell, were manufactured in China. That has already shifted to 30% to 35% with another 20%. 5% coming through Mexico and the US and then the remainder from a variety of other countries and so everything in some way, shape or form since March in essence has been impacted by some kind of tariffs and I think what like if you take a bigger step back in COVID we learned some really interesting lessons. There's 85,000 people who work at Best Buy. They can't be worried every day about the ups and downs of geopolitical policy. And so how do you create some just like light post moments, and there are just 3 guideposts for using one, stay anchored in the facts and take action. Don't worry about the hyperbole. Go fast, be urgent, be clear, be convicted, make decisions. The second is to provide context. It can be very easy to want to just kind of do things under the cover of night. Our people deserve to understand why we're making the decisions we are, and we are incredibly transparent. And then finally this isn't just something that you try to live through you come out of this a vibrant company you come out of it actually with more capabilities and better partnerships and that's what we're really focused on. Do you feel you're there today? I mean 5 minutes ago maybe I you know I I don't think it's their question um one of the things that's really important to me uh is building a company that's resilient so this shouldn't be about. And you navigate this particular situation. The question is, is the company operating in a resilient way and therefore whatever happens, it will live far beyond tariffs or far beyond AI or far beyond the coronavirus or, or, or, and so I I think about it less as a destination and more about the muscles that we need to build to continue to navigate and what I think will just continue to be a volatile environment. What do you do as a leader to make that possible to make sure that that workforce of 85,000 people is not taking that on and that you are the one. Taking on that burden and deciding what those moments are where they do need to be engaged. I think it's always a question of what, what do you share in terms of urgency and what do you hold in terms of urgency. Part of the way we're navigating this is again similar to how we navigated the pandemic, a small SWAT team of people who are thinking 24/7 about how you navigate the tariff situation in global. Politics in general, not everybody needs to be doing that, but everyone else needs to be really clear about confidently how we're navigating, confidently how we come out the other side and what our position is in the marketplace. And so we just had our holiday leadership meeting we had 1500 people, all of our general managers, and that was all about the unique culture of Best Buy. What makes us special. What makes us special to our customers, what makes it an amazing place to work, you keep people focused on what they can control and use the expertise of few to ensure you keep the money focused. So in addition to tariffs from where you sit, you also have such an incredible view into the state of the entire economy, not just the consumer economy. So let's talk about that macro environment. Give us the rundown. You said it's uneven. What are you seeing today? I mean, uneven should be the word of the century, um, and, and it's hard because this consumer conversation becomes the consumer is a monolith. And if there was ever a time in my career where it's been about very different behaviors depending on the consumer you're talking about. It is now. In general, we've used very similar language for the better part of 18 months, a more resilient consumer than we thought, who continues to respond when they have a need or when there's really interesting innovation. But they are very value focused and by value I mean it doesn't always mean they're looking for the cheapest. They're looking for how do I fulfill my need in a way that matches my budget. And so as it relates to the tariff of conversation, I think what what people don't realize in consumer electronics, this is all about breath. So it's not like an egg. If you go buy an egg, you know exactly how much an egg costs week after week after week. You haven't bought a computer for probably 4 or 5 years, and since then the whole assortment has changed. Last year we had 45 co-pilot plus computers. This year we have 145. What you need is just help navigating. What's the right device for my price point. And that for our consumers is what we're seeing gravitate. Definitely we're seeing some dispersion between the high income earners and the low income earners, and I think again if I just level up, that is probably what keeps me up at night most. You went from call it 30% of GDP spend coming from the lower income consumer pre-pandemic. Now you're, you're talking about something materially less than that. I mean it was 30%, I'm sorry, the high income consumer, now it's 60%. And that reliance on the high income consumer, while it makes it feel like there's really resiliency in the overall market, um, that's that's an issue because your lower income consumers are really struggling. So our high earners holding up the economy right now? Yeah, I mean, I think that there's a lot of data points that would say that is where the spend is happening and a lot of the other indicators, whether it is credit lines and the level of credit delinquencies, whether it is the inability to find housing or food discrepancies, a lot of that is impacting the lower income consumer to a much greater extent. And you said that keeps you up at night, like, talk about that more. What exactly about that keeps you up at night? I think it's, it's any time the entire economy is heavily reliant on a small narrow population of people that is not good for the long-term health of the economy. And so I think what again in our business what we're trying to keep an eye on and then make sure we assort for is whatever your budget is, how can we make sure we have something that will cater to you so that the answer isn't no I can't afford anything, the answer is no, we can get you that like very entry point price point skew that'll work for your child going to high school who needs a computer in order to be able to be in high school. Um, I wanna remind everyone you have the opportunity to ask questions of course if you have any, start thinking now please raise your hand. Um, not only is the economy uneven, there's also all these conflicting signals. So when you're looking across housing, employment, consumer confidence, which ones do you rely on? What do you turn to for the answers right now, if anything? Yes. Um, we use all of them, and, and one of the greatest joys, uh, I'm a learner by heart, um, and, and we were talking about, especially with AI as a backdrop, this ability to unlearn and then relearn. We actually were talking with our board about at least the Caputos here as a Simatai. And um we this concept of how you constantly unlearn and then relearn is going to be incredibly important I think to all of us. So one of the greatest joys of this job is how many chances I get to learn. It is something that fuels me, so I get to spend time with economists and when we sit down with an economist from JPMorgan or City. It's 90 minutes of all those metrics and what you're trying to do or what I'm trying to do is take this immense amount of data, this disparate set of metrics, turn it into what I think that means for how we need to show up for the consumer because I'm not trying to predict the future. That is a useless task at this point. Um, what I am trying to figure out is how do we best position and then again create resiliency where I'm maybe starting to see some cracks or I think we need to be positioned slightly differently. And when those metrics seem to contradict each other, is there one that you turn to over the others? And I think that's why it can't be, it can't be in the job of predicting the future or using a perfect set. AI is great. Even AI can't kick out. Like I can ask Chat what's going to happen in the next 6 months, and Chad's very confused right now on that one. Oh my god, maybe it's not up to date um I think we have a question up here if we have a microphone available. Thank you for asking a question, yes. I love the fact that you said you love to learn. That's what the question is about. As you look at all your peer groups around the globe because the whole world is a bit of a mess. This is not just US or North America. What have you seen that's interesting that you said, ah, I'm going to copy that, something that somebody has done that's profound that you thought copying is the best form of compliment. Um, it's, it's maybe not as much copy. What I'm interested in your question about learning is, um, not just AI for the sake of AI, but especially in consumer retail. Boxes like ours. Where does the human element matter so incredibly much and you're actually going to double down on it versus where can you make those human-like interactions? I mean, I think one of the most ironic things about generative AI is that it is the most technical set of specifications we've ever seen, requires more compute than anything ever, and the irony is it's to make your products feel more human. And I think what I'm watching is a proliferation of if I were to predict the future, a proliferation of interacting with devices in a way that feels very human. Like if you want my 15 year old, she talks to her phone all the time, she does not type anything in the chat, right? She's just talking to chat like it's a person. And so I'm, I'm what I'm really interested in though is where is that a great solution versus where does the human really matter because I had an experience where I went into a big box. I asked the person in front of me, can you help me find X, Y, or Z? They looked it up in their own generative AI tool and then just like pointed where to go. I was like, oh, that's not the interaction I wanted like I wanted, I wanted you to talk to me and tell me about it. And so I think for consumer brands, it's a really interesting world to try to discern who's doing interesting things in the space, but also who is doubling down on those real personal interactions and where and why. We've been talking about such a period of uncertainty, unevenness, etc. What are the skills that are needed to be a CEO through all of this? Oh my goodness. Um, I, I, this idea of unlearning and relearning is one of the most important. I mean, look, as CEOs, none of us, I think very few of us at least graduated in a degree with advanced AI anywhere around our title, right? That it's true and so having a willingness to do that. Um, the second is I, it sounds trite, but boy does it matter now, surround yourself with people way smarter than you, like way smarter than you. And then the third that has to be a corollary of that then is don't be afraid to ask for help. I ask my board all the time for help. I ask my team for help. And so what I think what you're trying to create, again back to this resiliency point, it can't be about you as the CEO. I stood in front of my team and I was talking about culture and I said, our culture is our culture because I told you it's going to be so. Our culture is our culture because you've decided this is the culture that matters here. And so when I first came in the job like 6.5 years ago, I, I tried to define what I thought the role of the CEO was and my definition was to create the conditions for other amazing leaders to execute the strategy with urgency. And for me that's more relevant today than it was even when I walked in those 6 years ago. So it just, I think it's more having the humility every day you wake up to say there's a bunch of stuff that happened in the last 24 hours that I need to like get smarter about, and I need a whole team of people and all of their best superpowers in order to keep this thing going. Has how you do that changed in the past 6.5 years? How do you create those conditions? Is that different today? I think any CEO would tell you the CEO, they are 6 years into the job is wildly different than the CEO. They were 1 year into the job. All of us feel that, right? Like there is a confidence that comes from just sitting in the chair. That being said, I still wake up nervous every day. I wake up in a good way, like what else has happened? What else do I need to learn? Where are we behind? And so yes, I think there's a level of confidence you get um in terms of surrounding yourself with the right people and of course over that time I've also had a chance to continue to refine the board and the people I surround myself with, which means you just wake up with a different level of like excitement to go do this work with the people around you. Do we have any other questions for Corey? Oh, we have one right up here. Because if you're gonna do tariffs, you need a fun team of people. Hi Corey, I'm Marisa Andrada. I'm curious about what it is that you've had to unlearn. Yeah, I, I mean, so many things like in our case, let's let's, the traditional bricks and mortar retailer is very good at creating an SOP, standard operating procedure, and then we push the SOP out over 1000 stores and everybody is judged based on the SOP, right? Um. We have again 85,000 people who are used to doing work that way, and all of a sudden we wake up one day and we need massively more flexibility. We need empowered general managers who know how to meet the needs of their particular consumer. We need different operating models, I mean. As we came out of COVID that year, we had, I think when we look back at 187 different operating models that we put in place. You can't mandate those with SOPs. You have to completely rethink the way that you're going to market or in a digitally native economy. How are people really, where, how are they going to search? Where are they going to look for the product? How do we just embrace the fact that the store plays a completely different role and lead all our decision making for people like me who never go into a store and only shop digitally. The, the, the examples are almost limitless and what's fascinating to me is they happen almost every day. Something has changed and we have to kind of unlearn our traditional way of doing it and think differently about how we'll meet the consumer. Great question. So 2 years ago you coined the term fundflation for how consumers were spending. They were going to the Aeros Tour, spending a lot of money on Taylor Swift tickets. They were not buying big electronics and big home purchases. Do you have a word for what consumers are doing today? Oh, I got in trouble last time for the funflation Taylor Swift thing, so I don't think I'm gonna be in trouble with who? I'm just kidding. It got, it got a lot of, got a lot of press, um. I actually think what's trickier right now is that um it's it's it's a very individualized consumer experience. I mean we sold more laptops in Q2 of this year than we have in 15 years. So, You just can't. I think this is the hardest part about your question about metrics all pointing in different directions. When there is innovation, when there's something, I mean we had lines around every one of our buildings for a switch to launch, and this is in a world where people could pre-order. They knew they had it and they were still in lines at midnight because they wanted that personal experience to get a $500 gaming console. This bifurcation of how the customer is reacting and acting, I think is one of the new challenges of retail, and if I guess if there was ever a word, it's not a very interesting one, but this is just an individualized time. The hardest part about being in retail right now is you Need to meet every single individual's need across an amazing assortment and you need to do it seamlessly across every channel and that I would like the team would love for me to say like this channel at this time is the most important and that's just not that's never how it's gonna work again. That sounds kind of like an impossible task. Is that possible to do? I, I actually, I absolutely think it's possible. The question is what is the core of your decision making? Sometimes people will ask me like how are you using AI? What's your AI strategy? And I'm very clear that it's not strategy of AI. It is what is the customer behavior look like and then how do we use all the tools at our disposal to help the customer and if you keep the customer at the center of every decision that you're trying to make, I do. Think and then you trust people to go make good decisions across touch points to use AI to measure whether or not those decisions are actually working the way that you thought across touch points. Like there are more tools than there have ever been to actually understand the efficacy of your actions as it relates to individuals, and I think as you put that infrastructure in place, that's what creates a really resilient company that moves as fast as the customer and as technology. Thank you so much, Corey, for such a fascinating conversation. Thank you. Thank you

Since she took the helm at Flex in 2019, Revathi Advaithi has overhauled its portfolio, exited volatile markets, and quietly positioned the global electronics manufacturing giant as a major player in AI infrastructure. How to pivot and lead a company that make everything from electric car circuits to cardiac catheters? We sit down with its chief executive.

Revathi Advaithi
Chief Executive Officer, Flex 

Ellie Austin
Editorial Director, Most Powerful Women, Fortune

How Flex Got its Groove Back

Flex is the kind of company that most people don't see, but everyone depends on. Since taking over in 2019, CEO Revathi Adviti has recast Flex from being a sprawling manufacturing company into a major player in reinventing AI infrastructure. To discuss more about how she's led this transformation and what it means to run a company that builds the hardware behind the future of technology, please welcome Rayati. At BT and she'll be interviewed by our amazing Ellie Austin. OK Wow, what a welcome. Thanks, guys. OK, so I want to start with a very important note that Ravay is one of our 100 most powerful women in business globally. As per Fortunes List, which was published in May of this year. So it's such an honor to have you with us today, Ray. Um, so as we heard in Jason's introduction, you've executed a pretty impressive transformation at Flex. You joined the company as CEO in 2019. Give us a brief overview of what your strategy was in those early days when you went in. Yeah, so when I started in 2019, you know, Flex is one of the world's largest contract manufacturing companies, around $25 billion. I'd say when you hear about contract manufacturing companies, you hear about people like Foxconn. So The top three in the world and it was going through a transformation phase that didn't go well. So when I joined in 2019, the stock was, you know, around $7. The CEO had just left the company, so I was brought in, my background being mainly in industrial companies to remake the business itself. And I approach every job the same way, and this has been in every sector I've been in, which is oil and gas or aerospace or any electrical, any sector is really focused on the portfolio, kind of say, do you have the right products for what the customers want and will they pay for it, right? Pretty simple. So focused on the portfolio, did the stuff of exiting a pretty significant part of our portfolio, which is more consumer driven, and then refocused the business on really kind of high value goods that we could actually drive value for with customers and in the middle of that. As we were doing all of that, this is well before kind of people were talking about AI and Nvidia and all that. My background being with Power, you know, Flex was building compute racks for kind of the data centers, and I thought, well, someday compute's going to be power hungry. Why don't we Build a power infrastructure and so started buying a whole bunch of power companies and put together a power infrastructure so today Flex 20% of our portfolio that's growing at 35% builds power, cooling, and compute for data centers so really have become. A contract manufacturing company and then somewhat of an industrial AI infrastructure company and then in the 7 years this is my 7th year we've done really well. The stock's around 500+% we've spun off a certain part of our portfolio so really. Do a full blown transformation of the whole company end to end. So you mentioned that about exiting certain markets, and I know that you exited things like footwear, like smartwatches, like laptops. Tell us a bit about what your criteria was for making those decisions to leave certain markets. Yeah, so if you think about, you know, You know, you're a Western company that if you look at our capital markets and our cost of capital, you have to get the returns for it. So if you're in high volume consumer goods that have very cyclical ups and downs, you don't get the return in the time period you're looking for. So if it was a very cyclical. and the product portfolio moved really fast. I felt like the returns wasn't being made through the cycle, and maybe the Asian companies that had a different cost of capital and were funded in a different way were better suited for doing that. So we exited cell phones, you know, very famously things like Nike footwear, all those things we. Exited because I didn't feel like for our returns that we were looking for it would provide that through the cycle. So to use a very systematic way of thinking about what are the financial returns. Will customers pay for those financial returns over a long period of time? Can you drive value? And if you can do that, you stay, otherwise you exit. It's obviously been a huge year for manufacturing with the current administration prioritizing reshoring a lot of manufacturing. What will, in your opinion, never be made on US soil? Um, well, it'll be hard to imagine phones being made in the US soil. I know that's, uh, publicly not a great thing to say, but, um. You know things that take uh a significant amount of labor still will be difficult things to be made in the US soil. I would say not because we're not capable or we don't have the capacity to do it. I would say that the population doesn't support that kind of skill level so it's more to do with what is the best use of our resources in the United States, right? You want higher skill level jobs. Jobs and to do higher skill level jobs you want to do the more complicated things and cell phones are not the most complicated things to do, you know, so is in footwear, right? So I don't think those things are the things that you would make in the US and hopefully you can do final assembly or other things that would add value to it, but I don't see those things being reassured in. And I know you speak a lot about job creation, and so how do we go about upskilling the domestic workforce? I would say, you know. There's a lot of work involved in this, so some important things that are happening in the US today is, you know, a significant part of our employment is around warehouses, right, e-commerce, and you think about the future of warehouses and e-commerce with automation, with human robots, all of that that's being worked, you see those. Jobs migrating to a higher skilled workforce, so companies who are in that space have to undergo significant transformation and say what is our role in reskilling this workforce, right? And I talk about this even in our factories today. So my uh employees who come into the factory today and maybe operate a 5 axis CNC machine in the. Future they may be just programming that from their phone. This is my responsibility to train and reskill that workforce to be able to do that. So I'd say organizations have a pretty significant role. You have to kind of say there's the world going in the next 5 years and we have to have a systematic way of really reskilling the American workforce, and I'm a huge fan of that. I feel like. Organizations own it. I feel government owns it, and a good cross partnership between industry and government is really important to be doing that. Now. Flex is very clearly booming. At the same time, your revenue has dipped slightly over the past couple of years. I think it was $27 billion in 2023. It's now $25.8 billion still huge. But what do you attribute that slight dip to? I would say because we're continuing to remake the portfolio, right, so, um, you know, we used to be less than 3% manufacturing margin type of business, right? Today we're like a 6% operating margin business, so we continue to exit parts of the portfolio that we think long term are not financially viable for where we need to be. So I don't really focus on kind of. Revenue per se at the top level. I focus on revenue and the high value areas that we're growing so our data center AI infrastructure business is is around $6.5 billion growing at 35%. That is more important to me than trying to figure out, are there other parts of the business that aren't long term for us that will continue to kind of re-scope. So that's how I think about overall. Revenue. Flex operates in 30+ countries, I think, um, and you and I caught up yesterday and you were saying that a few days ago, well last month, one of your facilities in Ukraine was hit by a missile, which I'm sure is an incredibly kind of complex and upsetting time. Take us inside kind of your response in those hours afterwards, and then second part, what are your operations going to look like in Ukraine going forward? I would say, you know, this is the role of every CEO, right? I mean, you never know what's going to come in the next minute and the next day, and you have to kind of go with the flow as these things happen. It's like the pandemic. Nobody realized you'd wake up one day and half your workforce couldn't show up. The next day, I think it's similar to that, right? It was around 10 p.m. I got a text from my team saying that our site in Ukraine was hit. I first thought it was a joke because we're in the western part of Ukraine, really far away from where any of the shoes have been. So I picked up the phone and called and then I'd say our team was on the phone the entire night, right, trying to figure out what happened and why it happened. But the incredible part of this is how good our teams are, right? 600 people evacuated in 7 minutes, no loss of lives. We had bomb shelters in place, unbelievable. So once we understood our employment. were good. Everything else fell in place, right? That's the most important thing as far as I'm concerned. We're in the process of evaluating and rebuilding, right? We still don't have a good view of kind of how the site looks. There are parts of the site that are destroyed, so I'd say the team will reevaluate, very committed to making sure that awesome team in Ukraine gets a chance. So I would say that, you know, it's one of our best teams. One of our best manufacturing sites and we'll continue to be supportive. And so when you say rebuilding, rebuilding the site or going elsewhere, or is that not a decision that's been made yet? I would say we definitely rebuild the site. OK. And and this is connected is kind of the resilience of supply chains, particularly in this time of really kind of unending geopolitical. Volatility. I know that you've integrated AI into your supply chains. Talk to us a bit about that and the efficiencies that you're seeing as a result. Yeah. See, I think the whole AI story is interesting. It's funny. It depends on the news of the day. Some days, AI is the most coolest thing, and then suddenly, oh, everything's coming to a, you know, grinding halt. Is it really happening? Um, so. I want to talk about it practically speaking, how I think it works in industries and you know factories like ours. First is, most companies like ours, most industrial companies, most manufacturing companies, anybody who's making anything probably has 50 plus software systems that are sitting in your factories. Like 50 is probably the low end, right? And so putting all those together and getting information that can then harness the power of AI, forget it even generative AI, it's happening but happening slowly. There's a lot of work that needs to happen for that, but I feel the future of this is very significant for for companies like ours and for everybody in this space because. Manufacturing productivity, despite everything that's been said, really hasn't moved in the last decade. Labor arbitrage maybe has been added a little bit, but other than that it really hasn't moved. Why? Because things are super fragmented in factories. Most factories you run into other than a few maybe in China are not fully automated end to end. So to be able to do that we need to take all these fragmented systems, be able to harness the power of information that comes in from that, and be able to run our factories like your car navigation system. Think about the future of that. So much to be had. I'm very bullish about this. I feel like the productivity journey through AI has just started. For most organizations like ours, and so I'd say don't pay any attention to the to the news cycle. It's not about who's using Chad GPT today. That's just barely the starting of of everything. When big industrial companies can harness the full power of AI, it's going to be a game changer. And what's the timeline for that, do you think? I think the time, I think in the next. My view is in the next 3 to 5 years, this whole data issue will get figured out, right? Because it's going to be controversial when I say this, but enterprise software companies, I'm sorry, a lot of you are here in the audience and listening, have sold as many softwares, fragmented systems that have been hodgepodge and, you know, jerry rigged together. So the first thing we have to do is fix that. And so that's going to take a little bit of time, but there is such innovative startups that are coming up that are going to skip all these systems and processes and really put overlaying, I'd say, systems in place that doesn't do all this data integration work. So I would say in the next 3 years we should be seeing full blown productivity coming out of these AI. at least for us, that's what we're pushing our teams to do, right? And I think most companies, most organizations, if they're thinking about it the right way, we'll be driving for that. I'm gonna ask you one more question and then open it up to see if any of you have a question for her. What's one thing that Flex isn't doing well at the moment that you're excited to see progress over the next year or so I'd say this is, I mean, the AI question is a big one, right? You know, we just, I was just talking to my teams last week about this. I want to see all this happen in the next year. I don't want to wait for 3 years. Like, who doesn't want to get this done? Like if I can go into like, you know, loud or chap TPT and it's solving these complex problems. For me, I don't want my supervisors to walk into a factory and then having to do spreadsheet and resources and MES systems and all that. I want them to be able to do it from their bed in their home, and I want them to do it tomorrow. So I would say that is where we need to progress and really go fast and um as far as I'm concerned, 3 years is too slow, OK. I love the impatience. Um, question over here. Nazar, is that you? Tell us your full name, Naz, um, where you're from. Uh, thanks. So thank you so much. You're such an inspiration. Um, it's been a pleasure listening to you during the MPW as well as this session. Um, so I'm Nas. I'm, um, co-founder and CEO of Vernie KI. We are all about making it so that operationally heavy enterprises can actually be silo, which is exactly the point that you were making. They make it so that in an AI native way we give you guys basically this operating platform that ends up helping both your employees as well as, you know, basically consumers. You have one across the board in a very unified and transformative way so that you don't have an AI that answers questions of your employees in a completely different way than the AI that answers the questions of say your um customers. So on that point what we've seen as the biggest uh challenge is that of course enterprises are very complicated with so many owners, so many hands. Uh, we've seen this, uh, 3 in a box model where the CEOs in the are in the driver's seat with the CTOs on a CXO next to them, 3 people helping drive the agenda, but the question back to you is, as the CEO, uh, how do you think such a transformation can happen if you are in the driver's seat to help. Silo and kick out all these again legacy software providers that have bloated your organization and become very expensive gold plated silos. How do you think you can work with your C level executives to actually go about these transformations which naturally take time and a lot of resistance? I would say that the CEOs have to be at the forefront of rethinking organizational design to drive this kind of change. It has to come from that office, and you know the MIT study that everybody was surprised about that 95% of AI projects are failing is not a surprise because. Because most of these are kind of someone is just, you know, kind of finding a project and resourcing it and doing it. So I just had this conversation with my team yesterday is that, you know, everyone is doing projects across the organization, but it has to come from my office to think about design. organizational structure. How do we break the silos? How do we pick the top 5 things that will drive the most change in the quickest way and get that done? And I would say, and most CEOs I'm talking to are thinking the same thing. So I think it's a common conversation across almost every CEO that I hear and talk to today. Thank you, Nas, um. Yes, one final question from the audience. If you could keep it brief, please, because we are running short on time. Thank you and tell us your name. Hi, I'm Emily Sherberth with APO. We do advisory and communications work. Um, I, I know several people that work at Flax, they talk about how incredible the culture. There and I just maybe wanted to ask you um what's what how have you really instilled something special in the culture at Flex and what are some of the the things that you think are most important in this time of uncertainty and um chaos. Well thank you for that and um I love the fact that our flex people talk about our culture. It's based on very simple principles, right? Treat everyone with respect whether you're in a shop floor in Poland or, you know, China or in the C-suite. We like to say just treat everyone the same way. That's the cornerstone of everything we do. And so in a time like this when geopolitics and. Having people across the globe can be quite traumatic for our employees. We just keep reminding everybody of that. It doesn't matter where you are, how you work together. It's really important that you respect each other. And how do you do that? Is that communications? What does that look like? Lots of communications. When I first came, we published kind of very simple 3 to 5 rules on how you treat people, and we've kind of stuck with that, and we remind everyone of that all the time. And you see that in meetings with our teams and my team, and, and so you have to live it. You have to show it by example, and then you hope it spreads to 140,000 employees across the world, right? And I love the fact that it does. I will say, and don't confuse that with the fact that we aren't competitive. We're competitive. We want to win, you know, we're very aggressive about everything we do. That's why we've delivered the performance we've done. and I think those two things can exist side by side. So, and I like to think that we'd like to show up and be competitive, but at the same time do it in a way that we have fun with each other and like being around each other. So a culture that's really important to me. Great question. One very final quick question for me that I would be remiss not to ask as someone who works for the most powerful women. Only 30 to 35% of the global manufacturing workforce. Is women. It's made up of women. I know it's something you're very passionate about, big question, 30 seconds to answer, how do we change that? I would say by doing what we continue to do, which is every woman around the world should push the story of why aren't you hiring more women? It has to come from women, men across every single platform. You have to ask the question of what makes them different? is it skills? Is it competencies, and really change the thinking around it. This will not come by just some C-suite initiative. It has to come up and down the organization. It has to come horizontally across and it's going to take a lot of work. I feel like in my lifetime we'll get to the 50%, which is where we need to be, and I want to see that in my lifetime, but it has to come from conversations like this. It has to come in everyone asking the question in their organization and forcing it to happen. OK, well, I count on you to keep asking that question. Ravay, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank

Sean Kerins says his “foot is on the gas” when it comes to hiring tech talent.

Arrow Electronics' new CEO says supply chain is doing better, but still not back to normal

Leadership

Arrow Electronics' CEO: Supply chain better, but not normal

Sean thank you so much for joining us to talk about arrow electronics. You know, most people probably don't know about the critical role that your company plays if they're looking to buy a car, like an electric vehicle or a smartphone or some high tech home appliance? Tell our viewers exactly what does Well Susie, we're a global technology distributor and that means we help some of the biggest names in technology get their products to market. And that could be everything from semiconductors to data center computers, to cyber security appliances, to software and cloud solutions, You name it. And you know, we like to say an arrow that if a device takes an electronic charge, there's a good chance that we probably played a role in designing it, building it and certainly selling it well last year there was a big shortage of chips, semiconductor chips and we all know that there were long wait times if you were looking to buy any kind of electronic device. What about now is that chip supply crunch over? There's been progress for sure. Are all the issues fully resolved? No. And the way we know that is we see, you know, lead times for all the semiconductor technology that we helped sell are still twice their pre pandemic average. And that means that, you know, if you just bought a car a few weeks ago or if you're still waiting on something you ordered for home automation. I think we got a little ways to go before supply and demand fully normalizes and those lead times can become more predictable. What are you hearing from your other customers? Besides the consumers, you sell components to big companies like Microsoft or IBM Panasonic, what are they telling you? So they're seeing a couple of things. One in fact in places they're still working their way through inventory that built up over the past couple of years while they waited for that, that famous golden screw. And they're also telling us that they're now starting to re evaluate their own supply chain processes, that they get better visibility to semi semiconductor supply going forward. And despite all of that, your company just reported very strong sales. In fact you told investors they were the strongest financial results of any year in the history of the company. So can you keep up that pace or can you do better in 2023, given everything you've told us, I think there's enough uncertainty out there to uh to tell us that, you know, looking much beyond 90 days is going to be a bit of a challenge. Having said that we still believe in the big mega trends over the long term and you know, we want to come out of this year, even if it's more challenging in a position to really hit the ground running in 2024 beyond. So we're gonna stay invested in our our growth priorities as best we can. So what if the U. S. Economy goes into recession, what does that do for your plans? Well, you know, I think this is a time where the phrase uh cautiously optimistic is very appropriate obviously if a recession were to occur more deeply, you know, we're certainly well prepared. I think the big question is you know, are we in for a moderate decline over a reasonable period of time or are we in for something sharper and longer lasting? And there's still I think a number of variables to play out including you know, the question around you know, when does the chinese economy get back up on its feet? Well whatever happens with the economy and the business environment, I understand that you are laser focused on hiring, tell us why what is your thinking on that? Well look, we think beyond this year we think the you know the big technology megatrends are all lining up in our favor. You know, we talk about the electrification of everything, you know, E. V. In the automotive industry is a great example. We talk about, you know, the automation that we're now seeing embraced in the medical device and healthcare industry. We think that's a great future market for us as well. So I think the job of any Ceo and his or her team uh in a more challenging year is to make sure they emerge even stronger uh than when they came into the year. And so we know exactly where we think growth will come from long term and for us that means more sales capacity, that means more engineers. And that means more people to be able to help our big customers and suppliers manage their supply chains. And I really don't want to take the foot off the gas when it comes to those disciplines uh for our prospects down the road. Well, are you finding it easier for Arrow to find top talent given that there are so many talented tech people looking for jobs right now? I wouldn't call it easy. Um and I would say attrition is still higher than it's been historically across the industry. So we've developed a pretty good motion around, you know, constantly looking to replace people that may have left at the same time looking for new talent to fill uh new roles that we're investing in. I think our our HR team does a really good job sourcing from all kinds of places. And um you know, I'd say we're keeping up pretty, respectively, you've also made it a priority to hire and promote more women in leadership positions. You've said we need to do better. How's that going so far? You know, Suzy, I've always believed that, you know, we're going to be most effective when we look like the world around us and so we're making progress, you know, building a more diverse uh workforce, not just in the individual contributor ranks, but also at the top of the house. I'm really proud to say that we now have four women on our executive committee, but don't get me wrong, there's still a lot more for us to do. Well sean, let's talk a little bit about you, you became Ceo of arrow just last summer and this is the first time that you've been Ceo, what's the most important leadership lesson that you've learned so far as you're running a huge fortune 500 company? You know, I'd say two things. The first is learning is paramount as a ceo. You now encounter things that maybe you never did before in your career. So you've got to be willing to probe and learn, uh, each and every day. The second is you've also got to learn how to let go and rely increasingly on others to get the right things done for your company. And I would say I'm making progress with both, but it is a journey. Well you said many times that you learned a lot about team building and leadership from playing basketball at Syracuse University, you are the captain, you were the star player. And what would you say that college sports taught you about leadership? You know, I think sports is a great proxy for what you'll find in the professional and working world. Uh, you just don't happen to know it at the time, but you know, being part of a team means you're part of something bigger than just you. Uh, and there's a lot of reward in that. But great teamwork comes with lots of trust and lots of sacrifice and that's a lesson that stood with me over time. I think the other things you learned from competitive support, competitive athletics at a young age is this idea of overcoming adversity when things don't go well, this idea of persistence and work ethic because you know, you don't get good overnight, you get good over time. Um and that's true of companies and leadership as well. Uh you know, you've got to continue to work on the skill sets that will make you better. Well, your coach at Syracuse University was the legendary Jim Boeheim. What's the best advice you got from him about leadership when it comes to coach Boeheim? He was the one that taught me that as a leader. It's all about the examples you set and the deeds you do not the words you speak. And that's a lot about, it says a lot about how I think about leadership now as the Ceo of Arrow electronics. Well let's talk about that because in the corporate world, the job description for Ceo has changed so much over the past couple of years. The expectations um from customers from employees and from even the public has really increased. So knowing all of that, how would you describe the way that you want to leave Arrow electronics? You know, I think listening is more important than speaking, I think being accessible uh to your leaders and their employees in the right ways at the right times, uh, means a lot to them. I think being able to show them that you'll never ask the organization to do something that you're not willing to take on yourself. And being someone who, everyone understands, uh, will ensure the company always does. The right thing goes a long way to, you know, our character and our values going forward. And I will, you know, remain committed to those thoughts.

LG Electronics

LG Electronics in Coins2Day Rankings

Videos