The Leadership Formula for TE Connectivity's E-Mobility Success with Qiong Sun

Jan 23, 2025

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In this episode of The Automotive Leaders Podcast, Jan Griffiths interviews Qiong Sun, Vice President and General Manager of TE Connectivity's Global Automotive E-Mobility business, to learn what it takes to lead a technology company during this transformative period in the automotive industry.

From the very start, you can see Qiong's passion for technology and leadership come through. She shares how her engineering background shaped her leadership style, which is rooted in problem-solving and optimization.

For Qiong, leadership isn't just about managing teams; it's about building a shared vision, aligning strategies, and inspiring people with purpose—a must for engaging today's workforce.

Qiong explores the wave of innovation reshaping the automotive industry—from electrification to AI—and the challenges that come with it. She explains that collaboration is the key to staying ahead, whether it’s partnering with tech companies, governments, or consumers to create smarter, faster solutions.

Qiong also talks about how the relationship between suppliers and OEMs is changing. They're no longer just filling orders; they're stepping up as innovation partners, helping OEMs navigate the complexities of new technologies. She shares how TE Connectivity is here to support both traditional and up-and-coming automakers by offering solutions that fit their specific needs.

Resilience has been a big part of Qiong's leadership journey. She recalls the early days of her career when she tested safety systems in harsh conditions and earned the trust of her team through perseverance.

Now, she fosters that same resilience in her team, building a culture where mistakes are seen as opportunities for growth and innovation thrives without fear of failure.

Her advice for leaders? "Believe in what you're doing." She encourages everyone to embrace collaboration and tap into the industry's strengths—its talent, resources, and expertise. Whether working with established automakers or new players, the key to progress is pushing each other and working together.

Themes discussed in this episode:

The rise of disruptive technologies like electrification, connectivity, and software-defined vehicles reshaping the auto industry
Why speed and agility are the key to staying competitive in the automotive industry
Why traditional automotive processes no longer work for today’s fast development cycles
How collaboration is the key to managing fast-changing requirements and shorter product cycles
The importance of building partnerships with non-traditional players, such as governments, tech companies, and infrastructure providers
The evolving role of suppliers as innovation partners driving transformation
How teamwork between legacy automakers and new players drives faster innovation and progress

Featured guest: Qiong Sun

What she does: Qiong Sun is the Vice President and General Manager of the Global Automotive E-Mobility Business at TE Connectivity, where she leads strategy, product management, technology development, and market delivery for high-voltage solutions in the electric vehicle market. With a passion for innovation, 30 years of experience in transportation, and a diverse industry consulting background, she drives the commercialization of cutting-edge technologies to advance vehicle electrification, energy storage, and active safety systems, making a significant impact on the industry.

On Leadership: “I always believe that you have to have a vision, you have to have a strategy that is clear to all the people working with you on your team, your customers, your suppliers. When you have a common goal, you can put the plan together. This is how you bring people along, especially with the nowadays generation, a newer generation. They do not just go to work for a job and get the pay. They also want to have a purpose. And this is the purpose that we need as a leader: bring everybody together.”

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Episode Highlights:

[02:24] From Engineer to Leader: Qiong talks about how her engineering background shapes her leadership, using clear strategies and shared purpose to bring teams together and inspire a generation that values more than just a paycheck.

[00:00] Breaking Free from Legacy: The auto industry is merging traditional methods with software-driven agility by embracing collaboration, modular design, and parallel development to tackle rapid innovation cycles and meet fast-changing market demands.

[00:00] From Order Takers to Innovation Partners: Shifting from simply following OEM directives to actively helping them scale and simplify new technologies, suppliers are redefining their role in driving the future of the automotive industry.

[23:12] Got to Have Resilience: Resilience has shaped Qiong’s career, from earning her team’s trust in harsh testing conditions to driving progress in the EV space, proving that persistence is key to overcoming challenges and achieving success.

[28:06] Mistakes, Mindsets, and the Infinite Game: Innovation thrives where mistakes are seen as stepping stones, and Qiong highlights the power of embracing an infinite mindset to build a culture that values growth, sustainability, and long-term success over short-term wins.

[34:30] Advice for Leaders: Facing industry disruption, Qiong encourages leaders to believe in their mission, embrace resilience, and work together—traditional automakers and new players alike—to unlock the full potential of US talent and resources.

Top Quotes:

[07:24] Qiong: “Whenever you have so many new things happening at the same time, it comes with a lot of challenges, as you mentioned. One of the challenges that I see is how to manage this transition of the megatrends and respond to these fast-shifting requirements while maintaining profitability and competitiveness. I believe that in order to achieve it, you have to collaborate with the other players in the ecosystem. Collaboration is really the key to win because the ecosystem is really expanding from government, utility companies, infrastructure providers, and to the tech industries for electrification.”

[13:55] Qiong: “We help both sides. We help the ones that are coming from outside the auto industry who can be fast, but a lot of times, they might not always make sure they test out the two, every scenario, the quality. So, we helped them bridge this gap. Same thing with the traditional OEM; we also helped them because we know how to make things faster, and all OEMs want to be successful. So, when they see their suppliers work with them and provide them solutions, provide them with anything that they might not have thought about, they love it. So, this is how we actually work with them, and we have been very successful in this area.”

[15:51] Qiong: “What we do is we work with all OEMs, collect all the market needs, and then think through how to simplify. In the end, it's not always more complex is better. That's my philosophy and just really finding those solutions and how those can apply to their specific application. And so, hopefully, by the time we develop those platform products and then when they take it, they only need to apply 20-30 percent of the effort to do that. That will help them gain scalability because they can share even with the other OEMs what the tooling, manufacturing, capital investment, and things like that.”

[23:53] Qiong: “I was very fortunate to find a job working at the forefront of several key active safety technologies that today we take for granted to get our family home safe, such as the anti-lock braking system, traction control, vehicle stability control. But the development of those technologies usually involves a lot of test trips all year round to some very severe winter environments around the world. As a woman engineer in the entire department, I probably could have made a lot of excuses and avoided some of those trips, but I didn't. Because I went on every one of those trips, I not only learned but also worked on this system so that I can really actually be an expert on them. But more importantly, you know, through this, I earned the respect and trust of my team.”

[29:51] Qiong: “If you think about whether it's about our business or our life, it is really an infinite game. There is really no winner or loser, and there is only what's ahead and what's behind. Especially in business, when we have leaders embracing the infinite mindset, we are more likely to build a strong, innovative, and inspiring organizational culture, as you said, the culture of innovation. And this is the same for life; all of us come and go; our lives are finite, but really life is infinite. We are just finite players in this infinite game of life. So, I really think about that a lot of those apply to me for business very much. And I don't think about it as a win or lose in my business. I think about it is how I perpetuate it, the business, how do I actually make sure this business always keeps going.”