Leading Women - 54W

54W * NOVEMBER 9, 2020

lisa LORTIE

 Global Director, Powertrain Testing and Analysis
| Fiat Chrysler Automobiles | Auburn Hills, Mich.
| Age: 47 | B.A.Sc., mechanical engineering, and
MBA, University of Windsor
What drew you to the auto industry? I grew up in
Windsor, Ontario, and it's a very automotive-centric city.
Chrysler, Ford and GM all had a big presence in the city at
the time, and when I did my first internship at Ford, I
worked in an engine manufacturing plant, and I was sold. I
loved the hum of the machines, just the daily satisfaction
that you got out of working in a production environment,
and even the smell of the cutting fluid in the manufacturing plant. I love the smell of it. I think it brings me back to
my childhood when my dad was a tool and die maker. He'd
come home, and he'd play with us. [The] smell always reminds me of my dad.
First automotive job: I started my internships at Ford
[in 1993], and I was a process engineer for crankshafts in
an engine manufacturing plant. I worked more than just
the internships in the summer. We had a co-op program
that went throughout the year, and then, even when I was
in school, I was working at the plant on weekends and felt
more like an employee.
Big break: When I talk to young talent coming up, the
promotion isn't always the next step, and in my case, it certainly wasn't. I took a position and had an opportunity to
go back where I first started with Chrysler. I started there in
'96, at an R&D center in
Windsor. Then I did
most of my career after
that in the U.S. I had an
opportunity 15 years
later to go back and
run the test operations
at that R&D center, and
it was a lateral move,
but it did offer me other things. Obviously,
being closer to home
and working within a
familiar environment.
It gave me a large sense
of responsibility because I was running all
the operations. I eventually returned to the
U.S., but that role was key to me getting the role that I'm in
today, this global testing role. Now I'm running all of the
test labs for [powertrain] systems at FCA, and taking that
role that was a huge sidestep actually helped me get the
next couple of steps in my career.
What is the major challenge you've faced in your career? I would say this pandemic. Being responsible for a
global group and then just watching everything that was going on in China and Italy, I have labs there as well. And then,
finally, when it hit the U.S. My team in any of the locations
was one of the last to leave the building, and then we've been
the first ones back in the building. It's been a very stressful
time for me and for my team. When we were shut down, it
was also the first time many of the staff, at least in the U.S.,
had been laid off. It was very long days for weeks on end. I'm
working with my counterparts and a cross-functional team
at FCA coordinating the return-to-work plans to ensure employee safety, making sure all the workstations were deepcleaned. I lead a large team, so it's about 1,450 people worldwide. We had to ensure a safe workstation for each of the
folks, so that when they came back, each of those workstations had been analyzed to ensure that they met safety requirements, and make sure we had enough PPE. It was a lot
of work, and it was a huge challenge. We've overcome it; everybody's returning to work, almost everybody's back now.
But you know we're still dealing with it and the safety measures on a day-to-day basis.
You've been in the industry 27 years. What has been
the most important change you've seen? I think we are
in the midst of that change right now. With more stringent
emissions regulations and a continued desire for improved fuel economy and performance, the move to electrified propulsion systems in the industry is inevitable. We
are well into the shift from traditional internal combustion
engines to electrified systems, and this is important to
meet our customer demands, government regulations as
well as have sustainability in the market.
What do you struggle with? I'm a people person, and
one of the things that I struggle with is leading such a large
team and not being able to know each person individually.
It's not at the core of who I am. I really want to interact and
know people. Then there's also a language barrier because
now many of the people on my team either don't speak
English or English isn't their first language, and I wish I
spoke many different languages so that I could communicate with everybody. I just wish there was enough time to
get to know everybody on my team.
- Vince Bond Jr.

10 0 L E A D I N G W O M E N

rosa SANTANA

nity that was provided to us by the OEM
was that we were surrounded by numerous people that wanted to become mentors to us that have been in the industry for
a very long time, including our customer,
Toyota.
You've been in auto manufacturing for
six years. What has been the most important change you've seen? The opportunity for growth for us has been amazing.
The ever-changing, continuous improvement that occurs in the everyday life in
manufacturing has been not necessarily
surprising because the other businesses
that I own are very similar, but it's how fast
you have to change and train and ensure
that you know your processes are updated
and that everybody is trained - utilizing
the same data, utilizing the same information, so that you can deliver a quality product to your customer.
What work achievement are you most

proud of? I'm most proud of being named
the first Hispanic woman-owned direct
Tier 1 supplier to Toyota. Without having
any experience in manufacturing, per se,
to be selected and given the opportunity to
learn and to grow in this industry has been
amazing.
What have you learned from the
COVID-19 crisis? We shouldn't let our
guard down. We need to be more careful
and definitely alert to anything that is
communicated through the news media.
It pains me to think that we heard that so
much was happening in other countries,
and we didn't take any action. From a
business standpoint, what I've learned is
that we need to be more agile.
What should be done to encourage
women to enter the auto industry?
More women like myself should tell our
stories and should be involved in the
recruitment of young women to enter the
auto industry. Many of the women that we
are hiring to work in our manufacturing
facility, we are quickly putting them on
development programs so that we can
promote them as we grow and as they
grow in skill sets and training.
Tell us about your family. I have two
daughters. I have six grandchildren. Everything I do is around my family. I've
built my business with my daughters. I am
building this business for my daughters
and my grandchildren to eventually take
over if they'd like.
If there were 25 hours in a day, how
would you spend your extra hour? Doing
more one-on-one mentoring of team
members. I think it's really important that
as leaders we impart a lot of what we've
learned and the experiences that we've
had - good, bad or indifferent - on our
teams. I don't think that people really understand the hardships that we as business owners go through unless they hear
us talking about them.
- Audrey LaForest

ing at the same time is a lot of work. It's a
lot of scenario planning and it's a lot of being able to adjust very quickly to adapt to
the changing dynamics of what's going on.
You've been in the industry 21 years.
What has been the most important
change you've seen? The fast acceleration into e-commerce and into much
more digital retailing. That's taken place
really since the pandemic started. Online
retailing isn't new, and you see it across almost every industry. It hasn't been as
prevalent in the automotive industry. And
a lot of that is foundational.
With COVID-19, online retailing became
the way that consumers felt safe to shop. It
also became, depending on where you are
in the country, the only way that you
would be able to purchase or transact in
automotive. [The pandemic] accelerated
all of the plans that we had in place for online retailing and e-commerce, it brought
all of that forward.
What should be done to encourage
women to enter the auto industry?
Women need to see other women in positions of power and leadership. You don't
aspire to be something that you don't see.

So, I think women need to be able to see
women in leadership positions to understand that it's possible. What we're working on is how do you start to give that visibility early [to] women. [Automotive is]
kind of this perfect intersection of engineering, design, technology and manufacturing. If you have a leaning toward any of
those, automotive can be an incredibly exciting career. When you look at where the
future of automotive is going and all of the
very future technology and the future way
of mobility, I think that's very exciting.
How do you bring your best self to
work? Everyone is responsible for how
they show up. That's really what drives culture. I try to bring my positive self. Sometimes that's difficult because not everything is perfect every day. I try to bring simple and focused direction so people are
clear on what needs to be done. We can
discuss it, we can challenge it even. But everyone is clear and we can move forward.
And we're not burdened by hundreds of
different competing priorities. I'm a person who has a lot of energy and tries to
bring that energy to whatever I'm doing.
Tell us about your family. I am the youngest. I have a twin brother. I have kind of a
built-in buddy. I'm single. I live in Nashville,
I also have a ton of friends. They're all
around the world, so I enjoy traveling a lot
and going out and visiting them.
Are you able to maintain friendships? I
would say it's difficult. I've spent the majority of my career, especially over the last
10 years, out of the country. You have to
commit to it. The friendships and the relationships that I have in my life are massively important for me. It's a challenge,
but kind of like your career, it's all about
committing to it and making the effort
with everyone.
What's your favorite weekend activity? I'm a runner. There are some great
trails right outside of Nashville. It's my way
of just kind of detaching from the week. I
- Urvaksh Karkaria

 CEO | Forma Automotive | San
Antonio | Age: 62 | Education:
Completion of two minority business
executive programs, Tuck School of
Business, Dartmouth University; and
the advanced management education
program, Kellogg School of Business,
Northwestern University
What drew you to the auto industry?
In 1981, I was recruited to work for an international staffing company. A branch of
that company was based in El Paso, which
is right across the border from Juárez,
Mexico. El Paso, at that point, was a major
distribution area for the auto manufacturing that was happening across the border
in Mexico. The work that I did was provide
lots of human capital to these companies
in the automotive industry.
First automotive job: I became a supplier of human capital to numerous Tier 1
companies operating on the U.S.-Mexico
border in 1982.
Big break: When I diversified and became more than a human capital provider.
Toyota offered me an incredible opportunity to utilize our proven expertise in talent scouting and business management as
a Tier 1 supplier, and they mentored us as
we transformed into an outsourced contract assembly provider.
What is the major challenge you've
faced in your career? I went from providing human capital solutions to automotive
and other industries to becoming a Tier 1
supplier to an OEM. The greatest challenge in that was us not having knowledge
or expertise, and actually doing the work.
We had all the knowledge and expertise in
hiring the people to actually do the work
that we were hired to do, but not necessarily the experience. The wonderful thing
about those challenges and the opportu-

allyson

WITHERSPOON

 Vice President and U.S. Chief
Marketing Officer | Nissan | Franklin,
Tenn. | Age: 43 | Education: B.S.,
marketing, University of MissouriColumbia

What drew you to the industry? I've always loved cars, ever since I was a little
girl. I loved the design. I love the independence of it. I've always been drawn into
the automotive industry. As a career, it was
the perfect intersection of design, technology, engineering, manufacturing.
First automotive job: I started my career in automotive right out of college. So,
in 1999. I was a consultant for Mercedes-Benz, Honda and Acura. I was
working on implementing their Tier 3
brand advertising standards with dealers.
Big break: My big break was when I was
on the agency side. I was working for BMW
and then I took a position in Amsterdam,
leading Volvo's global agency team. I was
based in Amsterdam but in Sweden every
week, working with the team in Gothenburg. That international experience and
the opportunities that came up after that
were very different than what I had had before. China was just becoming a very large
automotive market at the time. Volvo had
been purchased by Geely, which is Chinese. So, it gave me a completely different
set of tools that I had access to to help solve
some of the brand challenges and marketing challenges around the world.
What is the major challenge you've
faced in your career? Right now is definitely the biggest challenge. It's been a difficult past couple of years for Nissan. We
are on a path of a major transformation
from a sales and operating standpoint.
And then we have a major global pandemic on top of that. Those two things happen-

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