Leadership in Manufacturing

Edward Smith, CEO of the Electronics Representatives Association (ERA), joins Sannah Vinding to discuss how AI, market cycles, and changing customer expectations are reshaping the electronics industry and the manufacturers’ representative model. Edward explains why rep firms are consolidating, how succession planning and scale affect the market, and how ERA is using AI and data to evaluate rep-fir...

Your company can have the right product for a customer's application and still be overlooked if the customer cannot find the information they need. In this solo episode of Leadership in Manufacturing, Sannah Vinding shares why she wrote Visible or Invisible: How Industrial B2B Companies Win Buyers When AI Builds the Shortlist. She looks at how customers move between AI tools, websites, technical d...

Brooks Mattice, Vice President of Sales and Partner at MFC Group, joins Sannah Vinding to discuss how leaders prepare sales teams for growth through structured training, practical onboarding, feedback, and AI-supported tools. Brooks shares how MFC Group created a common sales training process as the company expanded across 20 states. The program combines skills training, process training, homework...

Colin Strother, Executive Vice President at Rochester Electronics , joins Sannah Vinding to discuss how trust, authenticity, and customer commitment shape leadership across a global electronics business. Colin shares how Rochester supports customers across the semiconductor ecosystem and why customer experience cannot depend on one channel. Some customers want to meet face to face. Others want to...

Riad Nizam, President of Master Electronics, joins Sannah Vinding on the Leadership in Manufacturing Podcast to discuss how distribution leaders build trust as AI speeds up work across the electronics industry. Riad shares how Master Electronics builds a relationship-first culture through communication, decision-making, feedback, mindset, and customer and supplier trust. He also talks about how AI...

Nate Witsaman, Manager of New Market Development at DigiKey, joins Sannah Vinding on the Leadership in Manufacturing Podcast to discuss curiosity, communication, feedback, remote leadership, and developing people in technical teams. Good managers do not wait until something goes wrong to build trust with their people. Nate shares how he thinks about the shift from managing tasks to developing peop...

Technical sales still runs on credibility. AI can help teams move faster, but speed does not replace substance, follow-through, or customer trust. In this episode of the Leadership in Manufacturing Podcast, Sannah Vinding talks with Michael "Mic" Cardone, President at ENOVA USA. Mic leads the company's U.S. growth in professional audio cables and connectors for musicians, studios, live-sound teams...

How should manufacturers use AI better without turning it into another tool that adds more noise? In this short follow-up conversation, Andy Coyle , Senior Director of Sales at ebm-papst Inc. , talks about using AI for research, CRM updates, follow-up, documentation, quoting, and sales support. Sannah connects that back to the real leadership point: AI can speed up repetitive work, but people stil...

Strong leaders do not have every answer. They know how to make decisions, support their teams, and create enough trust that people can say what they need. In this episode of the Leadership in Manufacturing Podcast, Sannah Vinding continues her conversation with Andy Coyle , Senior Director of Sales at ebm-papst Inc . This is part two of the conversation. Part one focused on sales training, AI as a...

Sales teams have more tools than ever. Product training has expanded. CRM training has expanded. AI training is next. But the basics of selling still matter when a buyer pushes back, a customer relationship gets tense, or a major opportunity needs trust before it can move forward. In this episode of the Leadership in Manufacturing Podcast, Sannah Vinding talks with Andy Coyle, Senior Director of S...

Automation can improve distribution operations, but only when leaders understand the work, the team, and the flexibility the business still needs. In this episode of the Leadership in Manufacturing Podcast, Sannah Vinding talks with Aaron Hein , Senior Director of Distribution Operations at Sager Electronics , about leading operational change, building a new distribution operation, and choosing fl...

The manufacturers rep role is changing. Territory coverage and relationships still matter, but manufacturers now expect stronger opportunity visibility, better data, more technical confidence, and a clearer reason to keep investing in the rep relationship. In this episode of the Leadership in Manufacturing Podcast, Sannah Vinding continues her conversation with Walter Tobin , former CEO of the Ele...

Customers are harder to reach. Inboxes are full, LinkedIn pitches arrive too fast, and more outreach is not solving the problem. In this episode of the Leadership in Manufacturing Podcast, Sannah Vinding sits down with Walter Tobin , former CEO of the Electronics Representatives Association , to talk about why sales training matters in the electronics channel. Walter brings decades of experience a...

Jeff Newell is the President of Mouser Electronics , a global distributor with more than 4,000 employees, 1,200 manufacturer partners, and customers in 223 countries and territories. In this episode, Jeff sits down with Sannah Vinding to talk about what leadership actually looks like at the top of a multi-billion dollar global business. Jeff is direct, practical, and refuses to put himself on a pe...

What does the field sales rep actually deliver in a market where buyers research with AI before they engage? Lonnie Power , Customer Business Manager at Heilind Electronics , joins S annah Vinding to talk about how the role has shifted from information delivery to translation, bridging, and problem solving. Lonnie has spent close to three decades inside the electronics industry, working both the s...

AI can pull the datasheet, cross-reference the part, and draft the follow-up in minutes. What it cannot do is understand where a customer's roadmap is heading two years out, or know which application risk will surface before it shows up in testing. The rep who sees around corners is still the one who wins the business. The question is how you build that edge when the tools keep changing. In this b...

What makes technical training actually work? Not the slides, not the credentials of the trainer, and not the size of the room. According to Don Gillis , HVACR Technical Trainer at HARDI, it comes down to tone, trust, and whether the person delivering the material has genuinely thought about what the audience needs to retain. Don has spent more than three decades in the HVACR industry, starting in...

AI is making reps faster. But faster is not the same as better. The rep who brings value still wins. The question is how you build that value when the tools are changing. In the Leadership in Manufacturing Podcast, host Sannah Vinding speaks with Hunter Starr , CPMR, President at Performance Technical Sales, to explore how the manufacturers rep role is evolving as AI reshapes research, outreach, a...

The autonomy of a startup feels freeing, until the guardrails disappear and every mistake is amplified. The structure of a large enterprise feels slow, until you realize some of those constraints exist for a reason. Most leaders do not get to stay in one type of organization their whole career. The question is whether you adapt or just repeat what worked last time. In the Leadership in Manufacturi...

The tools are changing. But leadership is what determines whether they create impact. In Part 2 of this conversation on the Leadership in Manufacturing Podcast , host Sannah Vinding continues the discussion with Tom Walker , Co-Founder and Vice President of S pectron Components , shifting the focus from tactics to leadership. In Part 1, Tom shared how AI-powered workflows are helping modern manufa...

The role of the manufacturer’s rep has changed. Access is more limited. Expectations are higher. And the old playbook no longer works the way it used to. In Part 1 of this two-part episode of the Leadership in Manufacturing Podcast , host Sannah Vinding is joined by Tom Walker , Co-Founder and Vice President of Spectron Components , to break down how the modern manufacturer’s rep role is evolving...

How should leaders start using AI without overwhelming teams or chasing tools that never deliver real value? In this bonus episode of the Leadership in Manufacturing Podcast , host Sannah Vinding is joined again by Ellen Albright , Marketing and Communications Director at E-T-A Engineering Technology , for a focused conversation on starting AI adoption the right way. This short episode centers on...

How can leaders use AI to deliver faster technical answers without overwhelming teams or losing trust? In this episode of the Leadership in Manufacturing Podcast, host Sannah Vinding speaks with Ellen Albright , Marketing and Communications Director at E-T-A Engineering Technology , about building a practical AI agent to support sales and engineering teams. This conversation explores how leaders c...

In this short bonus episode of the Leadership in Manufacturing Podcast , host Sannah Vinding speaks with Bruce Kellar , Senior Vice President of Sales at Sager Electronics , about leading through disruption with clarity, composure, and confidence. This focused conversation explores why overreacting creates risk, how leaders can educate themselves before acting, and why communicating both decisions...

How should leaders use AI without losing trust, judgment, and human connection? In this short bonus episode of the Leadership in Manufacturing Podcast, host Sannah Vinding speaks with Kaitlyn Tredaway , COO at CalcuQuote , about where artificial intelligence truly adds value and where human leadership must remain in charge. This focused conversation explores why AI is best used for efficiency, sca...