Visions - Summer 2019 - 13

S T R AT E G I C PA R T N E R I N T E R V I E W

You have worked with Sumitomo Corporation of Americas'
Aerospace & Defense business teams since 1991. What has been
the main ingredient that has fueled the longevity of this
business partnership, in your opinion?

GEOFFREY NEWMAN
Director, North Asia,
Customer & Account
Management,
Collins Aerospace

That's a great question, and I think people understand that
similar corporate values really do matter. Regarding partnership, in the words of Collins Aerospace CEO Kelly Ortberg,
"we believe in the power of intelligence and partnership to
guide our customers into the future." Ethics and compliance
are fundamental to the underlying philosophy and principles of
both Collins Aerospace and Sumitomo Corporation as we continue
to grow in partnership. Along the way, we expanded from Hamilton Standard to Hamilton Sundstrand, merging with Goodrich
to become UTC Aerospace Systems, and in late 2018 merging with
Rockwell Collins to be where we are now as Collins Aerospace.
How do you keep it all together, and how do you keep the
culture together? Thanks to these ethical systems shared and
practiced by both Collins and Sumitomo, we have been able to
do just that. Sumitomo is very similar to us. They emphasize
ethics, ethical behavior, ethical compliance, and that's really been key to our ability to work together almost seamlessly.
This is the framework that our relationships take place in,
and it allows us to communicate smoothly. Both sides have the
same understanding, and the same values, and that's been really key to enabling us to work together.
How did the Collins Aerospace and SCOA relationship
change and grow?
As our business grew and evolved, we began to understand that
Sumitomo Corporation is a global, international marketingfocused and market-driven company. In the 1990's, our senior
management had the vision to take the space business to a
higher level, so that's why we initiated a collaboration with
Sumitomo to explore opportunities in the space industry. Over
the years, we've seen a step-by-step evolution, beginning
with the simple, early days of a Sumitomo sales representative selling products for commission. Then, we started working
and investing together, and that led to the creation of joint
ventures and partnerships. I'm happy to say that over the last
three decades, we've seen consistent growth in our businesses
as our partnership expands

Geoff Newman (left) confers with Construction and
Transportation Systems Group GM Kevin Hyuga

What have you enjoyed the most about this longstanding
relationship with Sumitomo?
The best thing about the collaboration with Sumitomo is that
through this process, I've been able to participate in some
very cutting-edge business relationships with Japan; like
our international co-development teams, which when that began, was a very new idea for us. We did that together. To get
where we needed to go, the process involved putting together
a team with different responsibilities and different areas
of ownership, having to communicate and collaborate closely,
taking into account different time zones, different cultures,
etc. We've built upon that in all the business that have come
after, and working off that framework continues to be the fun
part of it for me.
Sumitomo Corporation of Americas

Visions - Summer 2019

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