Inside the Breakup of an American Industrial Giant

Vimal Kapur (0:00)

Founder led companies, most of them are in tech sector.

Founder drive the products. They became founder because they were passionate about something and they created a great set of product. They do not generally delegate product development even after 20, 30, 40 years of success. Being with the customer co-creation process, more and more bias is going towards that. More and more you're behaving like a founder led company. And we like our leadership team to spend more like one fifth of their time to think through innovation, customers and new products. It's the only way for us to grow our business.

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson (0:32)

Today on The CEO Signal, we're talking to Vimal Kapur, Chairman and CEO of Honeywell Technologies.

Penny Pritzker (0:38)

Honeywell Technologies is the automation company created from the breakup of the old Honeywell conglomerate.

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson (0:45)

That old Honeywell was one of America's greatest industrial conglomerates, spanning aerospace, advanced materials, and industrial automation.

Penny Pritzker (0:53)

Kapur has spent nearly four decades at Honeywell, rising from an entry-level engineer in India to the top job.

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson (1:02)

And over the past three years, he's broken the company into three separate businesses, Solstice Advanced Materials, Honeywell Aerospace, and Honeywell Technologies.

Penny Pritzker (1:11)

Honeywell Technologies is the part Kapur chose to lead. It's focused on automation, helping run complex places like factories, hospitals, airports, and data centers.

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson (1:24)

The restructuring is largely done. From Semafor, this is the CEO Signal.

Penny Pritzker (1:40)

Hello, Edge.

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson (1:41)

Hi, Penny. Good to see you.

Penny Pritzker (1:42)

Good to see you. Today, we're going to talk about Honeywell, which is one of those companies that most people don't think about, because their technology is both everywhere, but we really don't see it. It's behind the scenes in airports, in refineries, in factories, and in office buildings.

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson (2:02)

Yeah, these are critical applications, aren't they?

And Vimal Kapur has known this business for almost four decades. He's seen it from pretty much every angle. And in 2023, he became the CEO who decided that Honeywell had become too complex.

Penny Pritzker (2:19)

Exactly. He broke apart a 140-year-old conglomerate, one that he grew up in, and he chose to lead the automation business.

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson (2:28)

Yeah. And what I want to understand is what that focus changes in terms of the opportunities for the company, the trajectory of its growth, and how he personally defines his role and the task ahead.

Penny Pritzker (2:43)

I'm interested in somebody who's got such deep technical background and such deep operating experience. How does he approach the opportunity of AI and autonomy in the world of automation?

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson (2:58)

Let's bring them in and find out.

SPEAKER_4 (3:03)

The CEO Signal is presented by PwC.

Penny Pritzker (3:12)

We help cut through the AI noise with AI solutions from PwC, so you can solve the business problems that matter most.

So, Vimal, welcome. We're really thrilled to have you here.

Vimal Kapur (3:29)

Thanks for hosting me. It's a pleasure. I look forward to the conversation.

Penny Pritzker (3:32)

Well, let's start a little bit with your background. You were born in India. You spent 20 years with Honeywell in India. Then you moved, I think, to the UK for about four years. And then you were in the United States for the past 12 years.

Yes, exactly. So where do you think is home?

Vimal Kapur (3:50)

That's actually a fun place to start. But people ask me, what's your home and where are you going to move next? I frankly don't know. It's just we moved so many locations. Even in India also, we lived in four cities.

I studied somewhere else. My parents lived somewhere else and I worked in two locations. Then we moved to UK and US. We lived in Houston, Atlanta and now in Charlotte.

I think the positive side is that every location, you learn a lot about experiences and you make good friends and you move on. And what I've learned is life is all about experiences and you should cherish them. At the same time, I also learned don't plan five years. There's no, in today's world, there's no five years. You live the moment. You should be thoughtful. It's not that you're living 24 hours a day, but long-term planning is hard to do for someone like me who has a very dynamic role.

Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson (4:47)

From the data I've seen, it's becoming increasingly rare for CEOs of S&P 500 companies to have that international experience. You're in a minority. What do you think that experience of having worked in India, in the UK, and so many different places in the US gives you in terms of an advantage over perhaps CEOs who spent their lives in head office?