Automotive News Canada - July 2023 - 14

14
* JULY 2023
Leading the charge to align EVs with customers
CLAIRE KIM
Senior manager of product pricing and
strategic planning, Hyundai Auto Canada
CHOSEN BECAUSE:
CLAIRE KIM IS CONSIDERED A RISING
star in Hyundai Canada's financial division.
Since joining the automaker six years ago,
Kim, 33, has been promoted five times, and
the senior manager of product pricing and
strategic planning is being touted as a future
CFO.
" My philosophy at Hyundai revolves
around delivering value to our customers
while ensuring long-term sustainability and
growth for the company, which is a challenging,
yet rewarding balancing act, " Kim said.
Hyundai credits Kim's pricing strategy
for helping to maintain robust demand for
its vehicles in a market upended by troubled
global supply chains. On the electric-vehicle
front, Kim and her team developed
a successful pricing strategy - approved
by Hyundai's global headquarters - and
ensured that variants of the Ioniq 5 and
Ioniq 6 were eligible for federal government
consumer incentives.
IN HER OWN WORDS:
" My approach to pricing strategy stems
from this ethos, which is all about prioritizing
customers: making sure every customer
with different needs and preferences
finds their perfect car at their desired
price. "
Cybeats' cure for the common code
DMITRY RAIDMAN
Chief technology officer,
Cybeats Technologies Corp.
Taking OnStar
to new levels
DAVID CANELLA
Head of digital products, OnStar Canada,
General Motors
CHOSEN BECAUSE:
AUTOMAKERS ARE MOVING TOWARD
a subscription model that charges consumers
a regular fee to access specific features or services
after purchasing a vehicle. As head of digital
product, OnStar Canada at General Motors,
David Canella is leading the charge.
" The rise of digital automotive experiences
has positioned OnStar to build on its safety
roots to include
a wide variety of
cross-channel safety
and connected services, "
said Canella,
37. " My vision aligns
with GM's - that
we continue on this
journey of creating
great experiences
connected by OnStar and that we do so in a way
that gives our members flexibility in how they
access them. "
Launched more than 25 years ago, OnStar
was a safety-focused concierge service. Today,
Canella's team is working on developing applications
in infotainment systems, mobile apps,
over-the-air updates, connected vehicle features
and business solutions, he said.
" I lead an experienced team of product managers
who I trust as experts in their domains.
I rally the team around owning their product
area, distilling features down to the mind-blowing
experiences they create and looking holistically
to understand how it all fits together. "
IN HIS OWN WORDS:
" Our industry is rapidly evolving with electric
vehicles and connected technologies at the
forefront. OnStar is the in-car tech ingredient
brand for GM, and many of our latest innovations
in these areas are connected by OnStar. "
CHOSEN BECAUSE:
CYBERSECURITY
company Cybeats is keeping
tabs on the origin and
potential vulnerabilities
embedded in the software
that underpins everything
from industrial equipment
and infrastructure
to health-care devices and
vehicles. It has developed
a platform to catalogue
and continually monitor
software bills of materials
(SBOMs).
As the Automotive
Parts Manufacturers'
Association's Project
Arrow electric-vehicle
concept powered up in
January, Cybeats' SBOM
platform catalogued where
the millions of lines of
computer code in each of
the vehicle's components
came from.
" This is actually the
first vehicle that will have
software supply-chain
transparency, " said
Dmitry Raidman, chief
technology officer at the
Toronto company.
Raidman, 42, also a
co-founder of Cybeats,
expects Project Arrow
to be just the start of an
inates. As protecting drivers
with cybersecurity
tools becomes increasingly
non-negotiable, he
expects SBOMs will rapidly
become a priority for
every automaker.
industrywide shift toward
tracking where code origIN
HIS OWN WORDS:
" Whether it's OEMs, the
Tier 1s, the Tier 2s, they
will have to be transparent
with each other about the
software ingredients that
they put in the vehicles.
Whether it's the infotainment
system, whether it's
the controller of the vehicle,
it doesn't matter. They
will have to be transparent,
and they will have to
exchange these SBOMs. "
The future of GM's 'most important' segment
ALICIA VEREYKEN
Plant launch operations manager,
Oshawa Assembly,
General Motors Canada
CHOSEN BECAUSE:
GENERAL MOTORS RECENTLY
announced plans to invest $280 million
to build next-generation full-size
internal-combustion-engine pickups
at its assembly plant in Oshawa, Ont.
Leading the retooling is plant launch
operations manager Alicia Vereyken,
who will coordinate the efforts of
product and manufacturing engineering
teams and suppliers.
" I love the . . . design
of the full-size pickups,
which I now get
to be part of working
with the GM family
to produce, from
the design concept
to execution, " said
Vereyken, 39.
GM's investment
announcement comes
as the automaker
gradually shifts
to producing electric
vehicles. Oshawa
Assembly will play a
critical role by building the automaker's
most popular and profitable vehicles,
helping ensure there's enough
financial resources to
support the EV transition.
" Pickup
trucks are
GM's most important
market segment and
with surging demand
for our new family of
pickups, we will continue
to build ICE pickups
for some time, "
Vereyken said.
IN HER OWN WORDS:
" I like to give my
team the creative freedom
to obtain GM's goals, while supporting,
coaching and guiding them to
pave their own path to success. "
Fighting climate change on the factory floor
RYAN BROWNE
Environmental health and safety
manager, Etobicoke Casting Plant,
Stellantis
CHOSEN BECAUSE:
NOT THAT LONG AGO, RYAN
Browne was sitting in his university
lecture hall, feeling absolutely helpless
about the looming climate-change
crisis.
The 32-year-old environmental
chemistry graduate is now the environmental
health and safety manager
at Stellantis' Etobicoke Casting Plant,
just outside
Toronto, and he
is making a difference.
Browne
has taken on
the company's
Dare Forward
2030 challenge
to have plants
operating at a
carbon neutral
level by 2030.
Not only is he
doing it, he's
aiming to do it by 2025.
" I am at a time in history when we
have mechanisms like carbon taxation
that can make a project like this
IN HIS OWN WORDS:
" If we can make the plant more efficient
and use less energy, that's good
for this plant. That keeps us going. It
keeps people we have here employed.
If we can improve just one plant
under what I'm doing, that's a step in
the right direction. "
" My goal is to provide a smooth transition
experience for the customers to move
away from ICE and adopt EVs, " she said.
" This will involve various aspects from managing
affordable pricing for EVs and securing
enough supplies that meet the future
demand of EVs. "
make financial sense, where previous
generations didn't have that, " he said.
" It's very cool and very unique. "
When completed, Browne's project
will result in carbon reductions equivalent
to taking 2,600 cars off the road.
" [The plant is] getting off natural gas,
and we're electrifying, just like we're
doing with our cars right now. "
Automotive News Canada - July 2023

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