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:

• Hadi Awada's Journey to Transforming Workplace Culture
• 2025 CAR Management Briefing Seminars

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.