A Conversation with New Isola Chief Revenue Officer Michael White

Estimated reading time: 14 minutes

Matties:

White: The executive leadership team gets together on a quarterly basis. Each meeting has different strategic themes; this one was really around organizational health. Do we have the right communication vehicles? Are we looking at engaging with employees and making sure we’re doing the right things to retain the key people that we have, and bring in the new skills that we don’t have? Do we have the right footprint worldwide to achieve what we want to do? I would say the majority of the conversation was at the strategic level.

Matties: If you’re managing strategy, then you’re doing the right things. It’s going to be really interesting to see how your strategy unfolds and is implemented and is received by the industry. Because you have a lot of competitors out there, especially in the Asia market. There are a lot of things going on there, as you know. It will be really interesting to see how this strategy unfolds over there.

White: I had a chance to get out to Asia for a couple of weeks and dig into the team out there, the customers, and what the market looks like. I was able to put together a picture of the last five to seven years, where Isola has been and where it’s going. I see that some very formidable competition has come online. Something that market leaders tend to do that doesn’t serve them well is underestimate new competition, and I think maybe Isola did that.

It was a wake-up call for Isola that we not only need to take a leadership position from a product standpoint, but quality and cost have to be at the top of the list also. Because a lot of these competitors have good product at high quality, at good cost. We have some advantages, both from a technology and an IP standpoint, and I don’t think we’ve been leveraging those correctly.

Matties: It’s going to be interesting to see what you find like that that is being underutilized, and how you can re-energize those to your advantage. Patty, do you have any thoughts?

Goldman: I’m happy with everything I’m listening to. I’m excited to see what’s going to be happening over the next months. We will definitely be talking with you again, say, in December or January, to get an update.

Matties: Well, the December HKPCA show will be about a six-month window for a follow-up interview, and it'll be really interesting to see Isola’s progress. Is there anything that we haven’t covered that you think we should be sharing with the readers right now?

White: Just that, as a leadership team, we recognize that Isola has an opportunity to refocus the company on great new products that have high quality and at a cost structure that the market needs. Those are the things we’re going to be putting laser focus on. I know there’s a lot of customers that stuck with Isola through the last few years when we maybe haven't achieved all of those goals or met all their expectations. Our customers will begin seeing a change in the culture of the company. This is the result of the leadership that Jeff has put in place. I’m really excited to be working with Jeff again. I can’t emphasize that enough.

Matties: When you guys add up all the billions of dollars in sales and revenue that you've created over the years, it must be tens of billions or more, perhaps. You guys have seen a lot of revenue in your days.

White: Yeah, and hopefully we’re going to be bringing some fresh energy. I was looking back over some of your previous magazine introductions, and a couple of months ago the theme was around the graying of the industry. Is there enough talent in this very mature industry, and who will be the next leaders? One of the ways to do that certainly is to bring young, more unseasoned talent in and develop them. Another way is to bring in energy from different markets and different perspectives. We’re going to try to do both. We’re going to try to cultivate a next generation of leaders, and as we have an opportunity to build out some functions, that’s going to be a focus for us. Also, coming from different industries gives us an interesting perspective to do things a little differently as well.

Matties: It’s going to be really interesting to see how the market reacts to this. Bringing in new people with those skills for this industry would be great. We certainly wish you guys the best of luck with this. It's always fun to watch a company redefine itself, and then put it into action.

White: Thank you. I look forward to meeting both of in person.

Goldman: It’s been great to talk with you.

Matties: Thank you so much, and congratulations again.

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