IPC President’s Award: Xaver Feiner

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

The IPC President’s Award is given to IPC members who have exhibited ongoing leadership in IPC and have made significant contributions of their time and talent to the association and the electronic interconnect industry. Individuals can receive this award only once.

Throughout his career, Xaver Feiner, vice president of marketing and sales at Zollner Elektronik, has developed extensive expertise in account management and new business development with a strong focus on the semiconductor industry, aerospace, and industrial electronics. Xaver has cultivated a profound understanding of global markets and remains deeply engaged with the challenges and opportunities presented by digital transformation. Since 2020, he has been an active member of the IPC Europe Advocacy Group, where he is dedicated to advancing the position of the electronics industry and the EMS sector across Europe.

Nolan Johnson: Xaver, what was it like to get the phone call about your award?

Xaver Feiner: It was strange for me. I got an invitation for a call from the secretary of John Mitchell, which was scheduled for 15 minutes. Usually, we talk about some strategies, or our activities in Europe, so, I had no clue what was going on. He said, “Hey don't worry, I have good news. I just wanted to let you know that you will receive the IPC President's Award.” I was not prepared for that. I was really surprised and very happy at the same time.

Johnson: The President’s Award is based on leadership. Why do you think it's important to be a leader?

Feiner: First, the most important reason is to move things in directions that are important from the point-of-view of our industry. This is a very important topic for us here in Europe because we saw, as EMS providers, during the COVID crisis, that we had no voice in the industry on the one hand, and on the other, we had no visibility in front of the governments.

The leadership here at Zollner realized we need to have this representation in Europe. This is when we started to meet with John Mitchell and with Sanjay Huprikar. We went to an EMS executive meeting program to really get things moving. With our company and our board, we decided to lead these things because it's important to be the face of the industry here in Europe. This is why we keep on moving since. As we were early adopters of this effort, this was also one of the reasons why John considered me.

Johnson: Are you involved in committee or standards work, and if so, how would you like to see IPC’s involvement in Europe change over the next year to 18 months?

Feiner: I'm not involved in standards work because we're doing advocacy work here. We create papers for the European Commission and also for the local governments. This is what we want, and we have ambition for this work. We need to bring manufacturing back to Europe. We need to achieve a more balanced global work share with European manufacturing. In the end, it's about subsidies on the one hand or tariffs on the other hand, with goods and activities that we get from Asia.

The first thing we are working on is to support the industry from the point of view of defense, to bring defense manufacturing back to Europe, specifically for PCBs but also for EMS manufacturing, and to get subsidies for process innovation. If we are service providers in semiconductor, PCB, or EMS, most of the innovation subsidies are for product innovations, and as service providers, we don't have a product. At Zollner, we do manufacturing as a service, and we have to invest heavily, but we also have to innovate heavily in automation and miniaturization in order to do leading-edge manufacturing here in Europe. This leads us to bring more subsidies into the industry so that not only are we able to grow but also sustain global competitiveness. This is what we are fighting for.

We are faced with challenges from geopolitical influences, including tariffs from and to the U.S. and tariffs and restrictions into or from China. So, we work to balance all global activities and ensure the long-term survival of our industries here in the region.

Johnson: With so many challenges right now, it’s easy to focus entirely on resolving those challenges. Share with me something that you find that's exciting in the industry right now.

Feiner: I think what excites me is that in the electronics ecosystem, we are part of every mega trend that is existing. We are in the AI stuff; we are in the human robotics things; we are in e-mobility. We see a huge transformation in Europe away from the classical car. We are seeing a huge transformation, especially in Germany.

We also see disruptive elements that are challenging as well. But this is the exciting stuff because we see a consistent change. There is no industry where change is so obvious as the one we're in, and this makes it so exciting. That's also the reason why we have to be a part, to be able to influence it and to really form an industry that is independently sustainable. One thing is sure: We will experience the mega trend of electrification for the next decades. That's why, in the long term, it's so crucial to be part of the work, to not only work with it but also form it and be creative in this industry.

Johnson: Xaver, thank you, and again, congratulations.

Learn more about Xaver and his work at Zollner in this Spring 2025 IPC Community article.