Episode 160
Transforming Webasto: Why Legacy Automotive Companies Must Rethink Leadership & Culture to Stay Competitive
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Webasto is a legacy company with roots going back to 1901, but staying competitive in today’s automotive industry requires more than history. It also means challenging long-standing norms without discarding the company’s strengths. To understand how a company like that evolves, we sat down with Brad Ring, President and CEO of Webasto Americas.
Brad Ring describes his leadership style as grounded in authenticity, humility, and care for people. At the core of his approach is a belief that when leaders genuinely care about people, people care about the work.
Brad shares how his leadership approach evolved, not from leadership training, but from watching the people around him. One of his earliest influences was Jim Hall, who showed him early on that real leadership starts with connection. It isn’t about hierarchy or image, it’s about showing up as a real person.
Webasto is proud of its German heritage, known for its engineering discipline, and carries a cultural weight that doesn’t shift easily. But Brad didn’t try to fight that.
He kept what worked: the care for people, the pride in product quality, and the strong family feel. Then, he started adding what was missing: a performance-driven mindset and a culture that encourages collaboration.
One of the most practical changes was in language. Words like “accountable” and “responsible” had become unclear. So Brad introduced “promise.” Promises, he says, create emotional accountability and human connection in a way that traditional “responsibility” never could.
Even during restructuring, Brad stays focused on values. Some decisions are hard, he says, but how you carry them out, humanely and with accountability, matters just as much as the decisions themselves. That’s what keeps the culture intact even during tough transitions.
Brad sees trust as the core of his leadership, both in business and personal relationships. It’s not just a value; it’s how things get done.
He believes trust is built through consistent, everyday actions. Once it’s there, it speeds up decisions, reduces wasted effort, and creates a safe space for risk and learning.
Outside the office, Brad’s passion for cycling and wake surfing offers a glimpse into how he finds balance. His morning routine might not follow what you think, but it works for him.
And that’s part of his larger point: leadership doesn’t come from mimicking others. It comes from knowing who you are and staying grounded, even when the world tells you to act otherwise.
Themes discussed in this episode:
- The challenge of transforming a 120-year-old automotive company for today’s market
- Why command-and-control leadership fails in modern manufacturing environments
- Building organizational trust to accelerate decision-making and performance
- Why legacy culture must evolve to stay competitive with fast-moving OEMs
- Advancing gender diversity and inclusion in automotive leadership roles
- The importance of creating a culture where mistakes lead to growth
- Why leadership works best when you're true to yourself
Featured guest: Brad Ring
What he does: Brad Ring is the President and CEO of Webasto Region Americas, overseeing operations across the United States and Mexico. He joined Webasto in May 2023, bringing over 30 years of global automotive experience.
Throughout his career, Ring has held leadership roles in the United Kingdom, Mexico, and China, with a strong track record in driving business growth, leading operational turnarounds, building high-performance teams, and strengthening customer relationships. Before joining Webasto, he served as President of Faurecia Clean Mobility North America, a division of Forvia.
Ring holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Kettering University and an MBA from the University of Toledo. He also serves on the MEMA Original Equipment Board of Directors and is a member of the Board of Trustees for the National MS Society.
On Leadership: “The way that leadership comes for me is to be myself, trying to be present, comfortable in my own skin, approaching people in an authentic way. For me, that manifests itself as someone who drives for results in a meaningful way, but in a balanced share. Caring about people and caring about their lives and how they interact. And I think sometimes this can be perceived as weak, to be caring, in some companies. So, I want to also enforce like there's no weakness. We still demand good results. We're still critical of our performance. We still have high standards. However, we do that and I do that, by also being, I would say, humble, by introducing a personal vulnerability.”
Mentioned in this episode:
Episode Highlights:
[02:39] Messy on Purpose: Brad redefines leadership at Webasto by tossing out control and embracing speed, candor, and the kind of vulnerability that actually drives results.
[05:01] Leadership Lessons from Others: Great mentors are rare, so Brad learned leadership the hard way by studying the bad ones, adopting the good, and choosing who not to become.
[05:55] Handshake That Stuck: A single gesture from a leader in Brad’s teens shaped his entire approach to connection, humility, and people-first leadership.
[10:49] Fixing the Foundation: Brad kept the heart of Webasto’s culture and bolted on what was missing: performance, collaboration, and deeper connection.
[12:53] The Power of Promise: When traditional terms like “accountable” lost their meaning, Brad introduced “promise” as a personal, emotional commitment that made people feel safe to own decisions, speak up, and step beyond silos.
[15:21] Betting Big, Shifting Fast: With bold bets across EV tech, Webasto now restructures to balance performance with its long-standing culture of care.
[18:51] Cut the Corporate Strings: With surprising regional freedom, Webasto empowers leaders to drive change while staying true to a people-first culture.
[20:23] Built on Trust: When Brad’s team was asked to commit to a budget no one thought was possible, he didn’t push harder; he built trust from the ground up. That shift turned skepticism into shared ownership.
[25:49] Chasing China Speed: To move at market speed, Brad pushes Webasto to ditch internal bottlenecks and match the urgency of Chinese OEMs by staying focused on the customer.
[28:00] The Personal Side: Brad gets personal as he shares his love for cycling, why his family owns 20 bikes, how he got into wake surfing at 50, and why his mornings start with emails and a basement workout.
[32:44] Finally, A VP: An audience member honors Brad for championing gender equity at Webasto, sparking a candid conversation about influence, leadership, and why excluding half the talent pool just doesn’t make sense.
[35:50] Culture Isn’t Wallpaper: Culture isn’t a slogan on a wall, it’s how people show up every day. Brad makes it clear: if leaders don’t embody the values they expect, the culture will drift into something no one wants.
[38:14] Mentorship in Motion: Brad Ring doesn’t wait for mentorship to happen — he creates it. From chatting with interns to encouraging young professionals to speak up, he believes real leadership starts with listening. His advice? Be brave, be respectful, and always show up as your full self.
[40:15] Stubborn No More: Brad reflects on the lesson he wishes he’d learned earlier: letting go of stubborn certainty and embracing different perspectives.
[42:27] Values in Real Life: Brad explains how company and personal values show up when it matters most. Trusting people’s intent, staying human in hard moments, and refusing to compromise his principles help him lead with integrity, even in the gray areas of business.
Top Quotes:
[07:47] Brad: “There’s so many people that have contributed to my success, to my career. And so many people that have been really great friends through this. I often talk about, what's important to me and especially a lot of young people like to get coaching and things like that. And I think your motivation is important to understand as a person. And it changes over time, right? When you come from humble beginnings and you don't have any money and you get your first job, you're motivated by money, 'cause you need to pay the bills. And later it evolves and it becomes more about the people. And today, for me, it's about the people, about developing others.”
[11:58] Brad: “There’s a real culture about... I think the word family's thrown around a lot in our business as a kind of tool for motivation. But at Webasto, the word family is real. There's a real desire for the business to be run like a family business. For there to be that connection. And there's this great pride in Webasto about the products and the technology and taking these fantastic cultural elements and not breaking them down and not putting them out the door. I called it all through this process, bolting on what was missing. And in the region Americas, what was missing was really a culture of driving for performance, a culture of working together and being a team and not being silos. A culture of really, I think, deeply caring about people more than a surface level. And bolting these two things together has been what's been the success factor.”
[27:08] Brad: “I think the legacy automakers plus companies like ours, we had become so comfortable in the market that the focus all became internal. And when the focus becomes internal that the Chinese that aren't worried about your internal stuff and they're focused on the market. By the way, I lived in China for a couple of years. So, I got to be there and see and live 'China speed' as they call it. Really, the magic is they're focused on the market, and they don't get in the way for making decisions. They have some political systems and so forth that also enable speed, I would say. For us, we have to focus on the market. We have to get rid of the internal debates and debacle around all of the decision-making, and just compete, right? And I guarantee, if we look at the market and we look at what the customer wants and we drive towards that goal and we put to bed the internal stuff that doesn't add value. That's how you get there.”
[35:07] Brad: “I really value diversity of thought and having different approaches. Homogeneous teams are easy. You can come to an answer and a conclusion really fast. But you don't really get the best answer, and you don't really get different thoughts, and different ways to think, and different ideas, and so forth. And 50% of the population, more or less, or 51. Someone probably has a statistic on male and female splits. For me, it's insane to exclude half of your population from who's going to add value in your company and in your life. So, I'll never do that. And if I end up in a company that wants me to only have men, I'll just leave.”
[42:54] Brad: “I don't have control over every decision, and I don't want control over every decision. I used "trust" earlier in the podcast, and trust is behind how I sleep at night, assuming that everyone is trying to do the right thing. And I think you have to start by believing that people are generally good, that people are generally interested in doing the right thing and interested in being successful. You have to live with this positive attitude, because if you're cynical and the other way around, I don't think you can ever do it.
Transcript
[Transcript]
Jan Griffiths: [:Stay true to yourself, be you and lead with gravitas, the hallmark of authentic leadership. Let's dive in.
episode is brought to you by [:Independence. It's not just how you think, but how you act.
deed. Webasto started life in:Brad Ring: Yeah, thank you so much for having me. Yeah, it's really an honor to be part of your podcast. I've been listening for a long time, and really respect the people you've had on your podcast. So, to be here myself, it's great, really. Thank you.
Jan Griffiths: And thank you. You were at my book launch for AutoCulture 2.0.
Brad Ring: Yes, I was. Yes. And I've read the book and it's great. It's really insightful.
Jan Griffiths: Thank you. Brad, my number one question every time, who are you as a leader?
hing the people in authentic [:And I think sometimes this can be perceived as weak, to be caring, in some companies. So, I want to also enforce like there's no weakness. We still demand good results. We're still critical of our performance. We still have high standards. However, we do that and I do that, by also being, I would say, humble, by introducing a personal vulnerability.
My team hears a lot from me that I'm human, that I also make mistakes, and I am transparent about that. I give space to people to express their views and what they want and what they think. But I don't weaken my views for that. I still also have strong opinions.
I would say, to be a little [:An organization, the size of Webasto Americas where we're 4,000 people. To imagine you can have real control over 4,000 people. It's a fallacy. And I get better results by letting it be messy, building the space for that, go fast. Speed is a big priority because when things are messy, you're gonna make mistakes, and you have to correct those quickly. But you also have to make decisions quickly and this works for me.
r experiment and for testing [:Jan Griffiths: Have you always been that way or is this a leadership style that's evolved over time?
Brad Ring: For sure, it's a leadership style that's evolved over time. I didn't really come in with a lot of coaching and guidance and mentors. My life didn't start that way, so I had to kind of develop that over time. I've always tried to value the people around me, let's say the good and the bad. And even, I've emphasized for myself and for my teams and now even teaching my children, that even when you have a bad leader, there's something to learn from that. There's something to learn not to do. There's also something in bad leaders aren't all bad. There's good and bad elements of all of us, and I'm sure I do some things that people should probably walk away from and do a little bit differently, just like these leaders. But take the moment to learn, right? And take the moment to make a choice about how to behave and how to act in certain situations based on what you see in front of you, especially early in your career.
I ask people this question, [:Brad Ring: Actually, there's one person that goes all the way back to the beginning of my career. His name is Jim Hall. He was the leader of the company when I started as a co-op. So, really straight out of high school.
He had attended the same university where both the Kettering or GMI at the time, alumni. And he made a particular point as a president to come down and shake my hand and introduce himself. And he was this presence, right? It's the only way I can really describe him. He was the type of person that when he shook your hand for the first time, you felt like you had a lifelong friend. And I can never replicate that. I don't have that. It's not in my personality. But it gave me this basis to think about how to interact with people and how to care about people.
ike one month ago. We stayed [:I just wanted to work on cars and this was my passion and he kind of brought that first image for me of what a leader should be in terms of interacting with people, in terms of like breaking hierarchy and just going to make a connection, and that was powerful for me. Still powerful. Up until this year, I've spent a couple times a year going to see him and talk to him and share. He's one. But I don't want to leave this question without really reflecting that there's so many.
Jan Griffiths: Yeah.
cially a lot of young people [:When you come from humble beginnings and you don't have any money and you get your first job, you're motivated by money, 'cause you need to pay the bills. And later it evolves and it becomes more about the people. And today, for me, it's about the people. About developing others. And I've had great people in my life and my career to help me do that.
One, Hadi Awada was on your podcast. He's a great guy. He was part of that. He's not the only one though. There's just so many.
Jan Griffiths: Yeah. I think that there's never one person that you can hold up and say, "This person embodies all the traits of leadership. This is the perfect example of leadership." There are people that we see along the way and we know how they make us feel.
Brad Ring: Exactly.
Jan Griffiths: And when you see that behavior, you go, huh, okay. I like that. I'm gonna start doing that. And then, your whole leadership style starts to evolve.
Brad Ring: Yeah. And I think you have to be careful not to try to exactly model someone.
Jan Griffiths: Yes.
Brad Ring: Right? [:Because
Jan Griffiths: you're not Jim.
Brad Ring: I'm not him. And one of the big life lessons was to really value being yourself and to recognize, okay, there's a few people around that aren't gonna like who you are, because that's human nature.
But if you try to be something other than yourself, you lose all possibility to be genuine, to be authentic, and you end up, I think, not happy. So I really have focused on that. We also had opportunity in our lives to live overseas a few times. This also puts you in an environment where you're tempted to try to be like those around you because you are really a minority in this new environment, in this new place. And I learned early through those stages that you really have to be yourself. Your strength is to be yourself.
So I always recommend to people take, like I said before, take the good and the bad, but don't change who you are. Build that into the model of what you're creating for yourself.
mold that I was expected to [:Brad Ring: Yeah. It's wild though. It's still so present. One of the hardest things with my team even now, and it's coming, I see it. But it's really getting the team to make decisions. Because it's so ingrained in our industry, I think, that the top makes the decisions and the bottom follows. But that's not what I want. It's not what works.
And getting people convinced that it's okay. But then, even once they're convinced that it's okay, it's a big change in how you think about your daily work. So, it's a journey, I would say, even after a couple of years at Webasto, we're still every day working on the journey.
ways thought of Webasto as a [:That's the culture. Whether it was right or wrong, I never worked here, so I couldn't tell you. But that's certainly the culture, and that is the culture that exists in a lot of German Tier One automotive companies. So, to break that, to keep what's good about it, because it's not all bad.
Brad Ring: Yeah.
Jan Griffiths: There's good parts about the DNA of this company. To keep the good parts, but yet transform the company for the future, that is an enormous challenge. How, Brad, have you been doing that?
Brad Ring: You hit it in what you just said. I think one of the keys was to celebrate what was great, right? And inside of Webasto, there's a great culture of caring about people. Really like competitive advantage level difference from other companies that I know.
re's a real culture about... [:And there's this great pride in Webasto about the products and the technology and taking these fantastic cultural elements and not breaking them down and not putting them out the door. I called it all through this process, bolting on what was missing. And in the region Americas, what was missing was really a culture of driving for performance, a culture of working together and being a team and not being silos. A culture of really, I think, deeply caring about people more than a surface level. And bolting these two things together has been what's been the success factor.
d it's easy to say, but it's [:Brad Ring: It's gonna sound crazy. Maybe you've never even heard it before, but we changed the language. So what had happened over time is the language inside the company came to mean things that weren't the intent. So words like accountable, words like responsible, these had morphed into words that meant, it's not me. Or there's no decision, who's going to take charge? And we had to introduce words like promise, where we make a promise to each other. And that promise is, it sounds basic, but it's, what's going to be done? And when is it gonna be done? And we introduced words like breakdown instead of, it's a [00:14:00] famous phrase called put the fish on the table. We don't use, put the fish on the table in the region anymore because nobody really understood what it meant. It was kind of euphemism. So now we have breakdowns because we live in a complicated world with complicated business. We can make promises. There's a good chance we might not be able to keep that promise for good reasons.
So now, we declare that as a breakdown and we work through that together. And changing the language completely changed this vulnerability that was associated with the old words that meant I was getting out of something or that I didn't want to take responsibility or so on.
se just forcing a promise is [:So, opening that door to say it's okay to push back and to say something not in line with the exact promise, this was what unlocked it.
Jan Griffiths: And promise is personal
Brad Ring: Promise is personal.
Jan Griffiths: It's much more personal
Brad Ring: And it's emotional.
Jan Griffiths: Yes. Yes. It goes right to the heart of commitment.
Brad Ring: It does.
Jan Griffiths: Yeah. I like that. Lots of changes, Brad, at Webasto. I see you got a new CEO in Germany this year, and a lot of buzz, believe it or not, because it's coming out in as a positive around restructuring. What's going on there?
Brad Ring: I mentioned before that, Webasto was quite proud of innovation and technology and growing as a family business. Webasto made some big bets. So there were big bets in battery business. Many people don't realize, they think of us as a roof company, but we have a big battery business. We were in the charging business. We vertically integrated into the glass business.
Webasto in the market. This [:I think this is also, as you said, I think it can be a positive because we're going to come out of this situation still with great people, still with great technology but now we're bolting on performance culture throughout the whole company. And this performance culture, I think combined with those other elements plus the genuine still caring for people, I think Webasto will come out of this and be really a great, amazing company that can go forward and do great things in this business.
. So I think this was also a [:Jan Griffiths: A German CEO that cares about people.
Brad Ring: Yes.
Jan Griffiths: Okay, maybe I shouldn't say that. Maybe it's my personal bias, but I've had a lot of experience working with Volkswagen as a customer. And again, very aggressive culture. But I did find one leader in Volkswagen who was truly an authentic leader. He just left the company actually, but he was a VP of Sales for the US. His name is Andrew Savvas. Great leader in VW.
So what I'm hearing you say is that a German-owned company is getting it. It's understanding the need for restructuring. And I agree with you, restructuring is not a bad thing. It's a milestone. It's almost like the company is saying, "Okay, hey, wait a minute. We know we gotta do something different. Let's put a line in the sand, boom, and let's do it."
Brad Ring: Yep.
Jan Griffiths: And there's a CEO in place that gets the need for performance, but also the culture piece of it. Did I get that right?
I think it's too generalized [:But I think there are some companies that need to adapt and move from command and control more into caring about people. And we're not unlocking the talent, we're not unlocking the desire of the people to perform and come to work every day and do the best that they can and bring the new ideas. And I think this style has to change.
Jan Griffiths: Yes.
about people from the family [:And so, there's a very strong message that the regions are responsible for the regions and the central team is not there to intervene. The central team is there to support, and of course, like normal, they ask for a lot of reports and they ask for a lot of understanding. But as long as you are delivering the results and performing and communicating transparently, there's a lot of autonomy to really run a region, my region, China, and so forth, the way that the regions sees fit. And this was a nice surprise for me coming in. And it was another reason we could unlock this big change.
Jan Griffiths: Yeah. That's great to hear because often you hear when a company, not just German, I won't pick on German companies, but companies that are headquartered in another country often the mothership has tentacles.
Brad Ring: I have other examples of that in my past, so I can relate.
strangle you, and you're not [:So it's great to hear that you have the autonomy to lead and run the region the way that you think fit, obviously, in line with what they want in Germany. But you have the autonomy to do that.
Brad Ring: Yeah. It's real and I appreciate that from the leadership.
Jan Griffiths: Yeah. That's great. Brad, you've looked at the 21 traits of Authentic Leadership. I know there's a lot in there, it's 21, and they're based on my experience and things that I've learned by interviewing people like yourself along the way. But if you were to pick two or three of those 21 traits that are the most meaningful to you, what would you pick and why?
are there. You have to have [:We have a great example in the turnaround of Webasto in the region. The example I'd like to use is really the first budget commitment that we had to make as a leadership team. And to give you some context, Webasto Region Americas wasn't very good at keeping promises around budgets and wasn't very good at being profitable. Even when we started a discussion about making that commitment or that promise to the budget of the first year. There was a prevailing thought that it was impossible. A prevailing thought that it had never happened before, so how were we gonna do it differently? And a prevailing thought that the challenge was far too big because it was a big challenge that we had.
is is where we really worked [:I find this in my personal life, as well. I rely on trust for my friendships, for my family relationships. And I think that this is the one for me that clearly resonates.
Jan Griffiths: This episode is sponsored by UHY. UHY, and the Center for Automotive Research are digging into how suppliers quote and win with OEMs. The results drop at CAR MBS, September the 15th through the 17th at Michigan Central. Stay tuned.
Trust is one of those words, you can't define it because it's a feeling.
Brad Ring: It is.
ey, in his work The Speed of [:When I first heard that, I rolled my eyes 'cause I didn't get it. It took me a minute to get it. But the more I think about it, yes, it is hard to draw a line between trust and the bottom line of the business directly. But it is there. If you don't have trust, if you don't trust your leaders and don't trust your people and you don't empower them, you are not gonna get the best out of this wonderful resource, people that we have. And people that really get trust, I think, understand that.
Brad Ring: Yeah. And it takes a balance though, right? So, trust has to be given, and trust has to be earned. And it happens every minute of every day. There's a moment where it can get stronger or weaker. And I think once you have the trust, you can't just stop. You have to keep building on that to make sure that you maintain it.
contribute to breaking down [:Jan Griffiths: Yes. And then you are not afraid to make a mistake when the trust is there.
Brad Ring: Yeah.
Jan Griffiths: So, if you do step out and you do something that's a little creative or a little innovative and you try something and you stumble, when there's trust and you feel safe, the leader picks you up, and says, "Okay, I know. Okay, so this didn't work, but that's all right. What did we learn from that? Let's go. Let's put the train back on the tracks and off we go again."
Brad Ring: That's right. I think approach is on a spectrum. And so, I always like to say, hey, at one end, if the building's on fire, I'm not getting a consensus that we should leave building.
Jan Griffiths: Exactly. Yeah.
me and there's less pressure [:And I think it's exceptionally difficult though as you go across the waters, I would say. Trust is also so interpersonal that when you're far away, it's why people also know that I like to be in the office, and this is why: this is because it's really hard to build trust when you're not looking someone in the eye like we're looking right now. And I think that element has to be maintained in order to be strong and be fast.
And I love what you said about taking risk and making mistakes. It's a virtuous circle. And if you have that trust and you can go fast and you can make a mistake, you can, by the way, correct that mistake faster. And then, it works really in a virtuous circle.
Jan Griffiths: Yes. You talk about going faster. Speed is the competitive advantage that we all need to have in this industry.
volatility is unbelievable. [:Jan Griffiths: Yes. We cannot operate in silos. We cannot have heavy bureaucracy. We know that the Chinese OEMs are eating our lunch in this industry. And okay, so we've got a tariff situation that's gonna buy us a little time, but really, we're outta time. So changing these legacy auto companies is more important now than ever before.
I won't even say the word change. I'll say transforming. Transforming them now is more important than ever. How do you feel about where you are at on that journey and this idea of speed? Because everybody has a different idea of what speed is.
Brad Ring: Yeah. Where we are on the journey is an interesting question. I think we had to focus first on getting the stabilization that comes with being profitable and being able to rely on the day-to-day. So, this was our first focus and we're there and we still have continuous improvement and so forth.
[:For us, we have to focus on the market. We have to get rid of the internal debates and debacle around all of the decision making, and just compete, right? And I guarantee, if we look at the market and we look at what the customer wants and we drive towards that goal and we put to bed the internal stuff that doesn't add value. That's how you get there.
riffiths: Yeah. That's true. [:Brad Ring: Sure.
Jan Griffiths: Let's see. What deeply personal question can we ask you? I'm not over the long hair thing yet, but...
Brad Ring: No.
Jan Griffiths: What do you do for fun, Brad Ring? What do you do when you're not focused on Webasto?
ike not the right moment. So [:Jan Griffiths: What the heck is wake surfing?
Brad Ring: Yeah. It's when they make boats for this and you put a bunch of water in the back of the boat. It's designed to do this, and it makes a giant wave, and then you get on a surfboard and you surf behind the boat. And so, I got introduced to this by a close friend and at 50 years old, decided to go ahead and give it a go. At risk of my own bodily harm. But it turns out that it's actually quite a lot of fun. And it's also very social, obviously. We do this together. The family's all doing it now. I spend my summers trying to spend time on a bike and be behind a boat when I can.
Jan Griffiths: That sounds great. Tell me about your routine. When you get up in the morning, people are often fascinated with CEO mindset and what are the first three things that you do in the morning when you get up? What? Tell me. And if you say check your email, I am gonna throttle you, so don't say that.
Brad Ring: I know, but, uh..
are not gonna say that. Come [:Brad Ring: Well, you also don't want me to lie, right? So..
Jan Griffiths: I don't want you to lie. Ugh. We're all about authentic leadership.
Brad Ring: You just put me into a spot. So..
Jan Griffiths: Just say what it is. I'm not gonna judge you.
Brad Ring: Yeah. I feel like I'm gonna be judged.
Jan Griffiths: No judgment. No judgment.
Brad Ring: So I do catch up on the emails and so forth.
Jan Griffiths: Right when you wake up though?
Brad Ring: Yeah. Right when I wake up. It's the first thing I do.
Jan Griffiths: Okay, no judgement.
Brad Ring: Yeah. It's the first thing I do. The second thing I do is usually exercise. So, most of my bicycling is done in the basement, on a trainer because of time constraints and things. So normally I'm doing 45 minutes or an hour on the bike. That's probably five days a week-ish that I'm doing this.
t do it before I know what's [:Jan Griffiths: That sounds like a good start of the day. And I said I'm not gonna judge you. I'm not gonna judge you. But I will tell you this, for many years I did the same thing when I was in supply chain purchasing in Tier One space. And I found that my brain wasn't ready to deal with the realities of automotive at 6:00 AM or whatever time it was. And I needed a little time to get in the right head space, because I found if it was something bad, you feel the need to react. I wasn't ready. There is no right or wrong to this. There is whatever works for you.
Brad Ring: For sure.
Jan Griffiths: Your routine works for you. That didn't work for me, to get into email right away. So I need a little time. I need a cup of coffee and then exercise and then I'm ready to take on the day.
Brad Ring: It's funny because it's actually sort of the opposite for me. I can't relax until I've caught up. I have to do that so that my mind can be put at ease for an hour.
Jan Griffiths: [:Brad Ring: It's similar but it's just a different approach.
Jan Griffiths: Different approach. But again, no judgment. I think the important thing is that as a leader, as a human, you have to know what works for you. Don't try to fit a mold.
Brad Ring: Yeah, that's great advice.
Jan Griffiths: Of what anybody else says you should do.
Brad Ring: It's great advice.
Jan Griffiths: We're fed so much information, Facebook, Instagram, all of this. LinkedIn. Take some ideas, try them out, whatever works for you, do it, and be authentic about it. Be comfortable in your own skin. That's what authentic leadership is.
Brad Ring: I couldn't have said it different to this audience by the way 'cause they all get emails at 5:30 in the morning, so...
Jan Griffiths: Yeah. I'm sure they love that. Sure they love that. Well, talking about the audience, shall we open this up for questions?
Brad Ring: Yeah, let's do it.
Jan Griffiths: Let's do it. Okay. So, studio audience, let's have our first question. Who's got the first question?
ocess, methods, and tools. I [:But I do wanna say, I've been with the company for 25 years. As a woman, I've been involved pretty regularly with the women's initiative over the years trying to promote us in the organization.
As you had mentioned, it has been a very male-dominated organization. And I believe that there was maybe one other time where we had a brief VP woman that was a contract worker but not really part of the organization. And so, Brad is really the first CEO who has come into the organization and really promoted women. We have our first VP woman that he mentioned, Kelli. And it's given us women a real sense of, "Okay, there's this glass ceiling that we can now break through, and we actually do have an opportunity for those who wanted to potentially become Vice President." So, I wanna thank him.
Brad Ring: Or [:Jan Griffiths: Yes. Yes.
Gretchen Komarzec: I think Brad will say, "Well, it just makes common sense." But no, it really has been a difficult road over the years. And then, to finally have that hope for certain women that yeah, this can happen so, thank you.
But I also wanna ask you, Brad, maybe in your career, did you realize that you could be that influential and be able to promote, maybe what wasn't necessarily the common strategy, in coming to make that change?
Brad Ring: I think, first of all, I've been blessed to have strong women in my life. My mother is amazing. My wife is super amazing. And I've had leaders before, women that were great, that I learned a lot from.
ve space and seeing a lot of [:I used the word messy before, and I really value diversity of thought and having different approaches. Homogeneous teams are easy. You can come to an answer and a conclusion really fast. But you don't really get the best answer, and you don't really get different thoughts, and different ways to think, and different ideas, and so forth.
And 50% of the population, more or less, or 51. Someone probably has a statistic on male and female splits. For me, it's insane to exclude half of your population from who's going to add value in your company and in your life. So I'll never do that. And if I end up in a company that wants me to only have men, I'll just leave.
I have choices in my life, too. I just won't work for that kind of organization 'cause it's just not right.
Jan Griffiths: Great. Thank you. Next question.
d to this in the discussion, [:Brad Ring: Thanks, Dexter. I actually believe that the leadership of the company helps set the tone and the culture. I believe that it's impossible to drive a culture through an organization that the leadership isn't behind and isn't supporting. So there's a key role in leadership.
But, so you know how I view culture, I think a lot of organizations view culture as a few statements that are on a plaque that goes up on a wall. And you point at that when you're not sure what to do, or you point at that when you're being cynical about something that happened.
come to work and be present [:And so, I hold my team accountable. I, myself, my team knows; they can tell me if I'm out of bounds, and I appreciate that. I want to know 'cause sometimes at the top it's quite lonely, right? Nobody bothers to even tell you when you're doing something dumb, right? So I like that. And I believe that interaction and that freedom to work together on culture that's what drives it.
So, I appreciate that I definitely have a place in that, and I have to say what I would like it to be, and I have to live that. By the way, if everyone else in this room and in the rest of the company doesn't work on that organism every single day. It's gonna change, and it's probably gonna change to something you don't like, because when you let something so complex and so emotional just evolve on its own, it devolves, it doesn't evolve. And so, it's daily work and we all have a responsibility to make that organism what we want it to be.
o be in an organization. And [:Brad Ring: It is.
Jan Griffiths: Good question. Thank you. Next question.
Brad Ring: She's a Kettering alum, by the way.
Jan Griffiths: Oh really?
Brad Ring: Yeah.
Danielle Didia: And ironically, I was gonna touch on that. You talked about how in your internship, you formed that connection and that mentorship with your CEO at the time. So, how do you foster that kind of teaching moment or mentorship within Webasto and twofold, what advice do you have for those early in their careers?
Brad Ring: My advice to leaders on this topic is just take a moment, right? Just go say hi and ask how it's going, and ask what those interns — usually, in our case. It was co-ops when I was doing it — but just ask them how their day is. Ask 'em how they like their work. Ask 'em what's good; ask 'em what's bad. Listen to what has to be said.
There's a great life lesson in having children, by the way. If you listen to your children, you learn a lot about yourself and you learn a lot about what's happening in the world.
people who are coming in. I [:For the younger people, I always give the advice to be brave, right? To be brave. Like, put it out there — what you think. I say this to everybody, by the way: be respectful, right? There's ways to present yourself and there's ways to say things. You can say really negative things in a respectful way, and it gets received in a particular way. But if you do it in a disrespectful way, you're gonna get a different reaction. So I always give advice not just to young people, 'cause all it's all of us that have to be reminded. Do it in a respectful way, but say what you think, right?
f things going on, and maybe [:Jan Griffiths: Next question.
Audience 4: It's gonna be a similar question, but going back to long hair, Brad — what is the lesson, in your time now, either in the industry or personally, that you can give yourself that you had to learn the hard way?
Brad Ring: Yeah. I wouldn't be so stubborn in the beginning. I was really driven about what was right and what was wrong — and really from my very narrow perspective, which I only discovered was narrow later in life. It's another advantage of leaving your home country, by the way. You get this great opportunity to look back on yourself and back on your culture from a totally different lens, with different voices saying, "Why are you guys like that?"
e US— we really have pride [:And this can drive you to not listen, right? To not catch other people's perspectives. To decide, in the first third of what someone's saying to you, that they're wrong. And I would give advice to myself to be less stubborn, to be more open, to be listening — to challenge like, who I am.
This was a breaking moment for me, I would say, in terms of my career and my ability to work with so many different kinds of people. I would've kept the hair longer too, 'cause, you know, I'm bald now. So it's like — thank God I had it long when I could.
when I was in the corporate [:Which is ridiculous. But that's the story that I told myself. So now I'm very proud of my dragon tattoo, thank you very much. So the message of that story is: get the long hair, get the dragon tattoo and go for it. That's what I heard.
Brad Ring: Yeah, that's the message.
Jan Griffiths: Alright, who's next?
Ana Favila: So, Ana Avila from the legal department — we sit right across each other, Brad, you know me well. So my question is: how do you make sure that those values — the company values and your own values — are reflected in any decision-making and in daily operations?
Jan Griffiths: Ooh, that's a good one.
over every decision. I used [:And I think you have to start by believing that people are generally good, that people are generally interested in doing the right thing and interested in being successful. You have to live with this positive attitude, because if you're cynical and the other way around, I don't think you can ever do it.
Then I try to hold at least myself and my team, and the decisions we do make, accountable to these things. And it's still hard. We're in a business right now where we're going through restructuring and we're having to reduce costs. Every day, we have to face super difficult decisions — and decisions that could be in contrast of the values and how you place them.
take that risk yourself too. [:And this is, I would say, the answer for the company values. Personal values, I don't have any problem. Personal value is not hard for me, because I know who I am, because I know what matters to me, and because I'm not gonna compromise that, even if it means I have to do something different or change my life somehow. Like values or values — and that's not hard for me.
And it was a decision to make it not hard for me. So I think people who struggle with their own personal values and their decision, take some time to work on that, because that's what helps you get through all the hard stuff, and it's what helps you enjoy the good stuff more. And so, if you struggle with that, take some time and work on it, because that's what makes life interesting for me.
n, a wonderful answer, and a [:Brad Ring: Yeah, thank you so much. It's really been my honor, my pleasure. It's exciting to be part of this great group of people that you've put together, so thank you.
s, the hallmark of authentic [:
