I had an insightful and inspiring conversation last week with Bipin Jayaraj, VP and CIO at Rogers Corporation, a specialty engineered materials company headquartered in Chandler, Arizona.
Bipin also serves as a Board Member of Make-A-Wish® Arizona and he is a top pick for the 2023 Global Leadership Institute Mid-Cap CIO of the Year Award. I asked Bipin how he helps Rogers Corp. stay on the cutting edge in a rapidly evolving technology space.
“In the past five years, our biggest growth has been offering and manufacturing in the EV space — electric vehicles and hybrid electric vehicles,” Bipin explains. “What excites me is the innovation that comes with the products that we make. Quality is what sets us apart and enables us to do the right thing for our customers. At the end of the day, it’s about understanding what your customers really need and providing them with the highest quality.”
I also asked Bipin about his personal approach to leadership. “My leadership style is very collaborative. I start off with relationship building — meeting various operational leaders, visiting the manufacturing sites and trying to get the business language right,” he says. “As an IT leader, you are ‘selling’ your vision to the board, to your peers and to your team. Being a good leader requires a multi-directional effort internally.”
I admire the clarity with which Bipin perceives the role of the 21st century technology executive. In a modern enterprise, leaders must also be great storytellers who are capable of explaining and “selling” their vision across multiple tiers of the organization,
Our conversation naturally touched on cybersecurity, and I asked Bipin what keeps hm up at night. “What keeps me up at night nowadays is a random Android TV connected in some place — not the core applications. What keeps me up at night are connections that you don’t monitor on a regular basis — let’s say, you’ve connected your one of your monitors or TVs to an IP address that might pick up signals and so on. We work closely with our operational leaders to make sure that data isn’t sent out without us knowing it.”
In closing, Bipin made sure to emphasize the team effort required for superlative execution on a consistent basis in a highly competitive market. “You know, there’s a big army behind me and they’re actually doing all the work and making it look easy. I never forget that.”
I’m delighted that Bipin found time to share his valuable insight and experience with the HMG Strategy Professional Network. Here at HMG Strategy, we’re already preparing for a great new year and we eagerly look forward to another 12 months of incredible summits, conferences and executive-level meetings. We have a tremendous schedule in place and we urge you to visit the HMG Strategy website to learn more. Our next event is the 2023 Silicon Valley Global Innovation Summit on Feb. 28, 2023. Register today for this unique and exciting high-value executive summit focused on resilient leadership and driving fearless reinvention to deliver a secure digital strategy in a connected global marketplace.
At HMG Strategy, we strive to produce the world’s best summits and conferences, custom designed and developed for accelerating your career ascent. I urge you to check out our amazing schedule of high-powered summits and see for yourself how the strength and power of our world-class community can help you and your team.
If you are a senior-level executive, please also consider joining our Global CIO & CISO Executive Leadership Alliance (CELA). I genuinely enjoy our CELA sessions and I am certain that you will find them extremely valuable. They inspire us and really bring out some of our best ideas. Because the participants are all senior leaders and executives, there’s a true sense of comradeship and collaboration. And frankly, CELA is also a great opportunity for building your professional brand.
