Episode Transcript
[00:00:09] Speaker A: Welcome to the Clear Impact podcast brought to you by PGTI University. Thanks for joining us today. My name is Sherri Connor, and I am your host.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: Well, good morning. We are here on the Clear Impact podcast, and we are introducing some of the Mitre executive team. And with me in studio today, I'm so excited to meet this man, Vinod Nair, who is from Harrisburg.
[00:00:41] Speaker C: No, I'm based out of Tacoma, Washington.
[00:00:43] Speaker B: Ah, okay. So you flew a long way yesterday, I assume.
[00:00:46] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Last night.
[00:00:48] Speaker B: Yeah. And were you hung up in all of that mess?
[00:00:50] Speaker C: No, my flight was on time, so it actually worked out fine.
[00:00:54] Speaker B: Nice. Good. Well, I know lots of others were not as fortunate. So glad that wasn't your fate. So, Vinod, tell us a little bit about you. Like, your history with Mitre, maybe your career path, your education.
I don't know, your family. Like, whatever you want to share.
[00:01:11] Speaker C: All right, well, thank you for having me. Excited to be part of this podcast. So I have an undergraduate degree in civil engineering. Then I followed that up with a MBA and a master of science in information management from as. So that's my educational background. I started my career in a bank and then switched to information technology, and then, you know, worked in different it leadership roles, mostly in the building products manufacturing industry. And then we moved around quite a bit. My wife and I always loved northwest, so when the CIO job opened up in Midgard, we thought that was a great way of coming back to the northwest region. And we have lived there since 2015, and we live in Gig harbor, which is a small peninsula off of Tacoma, and we love it there. Then mi bought Milgard. I became the CIO for Myra brands. This was 2019 2020. So that's when I took this current role and really excited to be part of this awesome company. My wife Reena, she's a supply chain professional, mostly does independent consulting. We have a daughter. Her name is Meenakshi. She's in Philadelphia. She's an undergraduate junior year in University of Pennsylvania. So that's kind of my education background and how I ended up where I am.
[00:02:35] Speaker B: And so basically, your responsibilities doubled this season, right in the end of March, when the acquisition was made official between Mitre brands and PGT innovations. And so you're responsible for the entire space, scope of it. And is. Are they all the same?
[00:02:55] Speaker C: Yep. It's all the same. I would say that my fun doubled, not my work.
It's really fun to work with the team, you know, great to know all the cool things that the two teams are working on and how we could bring it all together. So excited about that.
[00:03:11] Speaker B: That's a huge amount of responsibility.
[00:03:13] Speaker C: Yeah. When I look at what I'm responsible for today, really four different streams of work. One is what I would call traditional it, which includes all the applications, or what I would call software, like the ERP business intelligence. All of that. Or the hardware, which is all the devices, the laptops, the phones, the servers, all of that. That's what I would call traditional it. Then there is the second piece, which is cybersecurity, you know, has been in the news for all the wrong reasons.
[00:03:46] Speaker B: Right.
[00:03:46] Speaker C: Nevertheless, a very critical function. So that's the second piece of it. The third responsibility I have is called product configuration. So we are a make to order business. We don't make anything and keep it in the shelf. Everything is made to order. So a critical piece of that is being able to create a coding platform for our dealers, but also setting up all the information that goes with that, which is, what are the configurations, which we can make? What are the associated certifications? What does the pricing look like for different configurations? What is the bill of material? Meaning, like, what do we need to make those configurations? What are the manufacturing rules? All of that. That's all maintained by that product configuration team. And then the fourth is something new that we started maybe a year back. It's called digital transformation. This is really cool because it's really being able to work very closely with the business and then leveraging technology and then thinking about how can we use the technology to drive better experience, whether it's for our customers, for our suppliers, or for our team members. So it's comprehensive and it's really leveraging technology where we can use the technology to differentiate ourselves in the market, where it's about maybe getting more customers, or doing more business with our customers, or making it easier for our suppliers to do business with us, or whether it's about, you know, creating a work environment where it's easier to, like, hire team members, where team members are excited about coming and working here. So that digital transformation is new, but it's also very exciting. So those are the four different streams of work that roll under the CIO office. The cool part is it's pretty much everything that the business wants to do. They need a one or more of these teams to help. So we get to work very closely with the business and be really part of that growth and that exciting journey.
[00:05:48] Speaker B: Wow. So is AI part of that digital transformation?
[00:05:52] Speaker C: Yeah. Interesting. You brought it up. We just started the AI council. We have started working with the business enlisted some team members who would work with us and start that AI journey. In fact, we are launching an internal mitrebrands AI tool where you could ask questions and it would gather all the information from all our websites and all the different data sources, and it was really pretty cool to see it start working. The team turned it around pretty quickly, so we have a first draft that the team now starts working with and we can build on it. So exciting.
[00:06:27] Speaker B: That is exciting.
[00:06:28] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:06:30] Speaker A: We are sharing our expertise around all topics relating to the window indoor industry. Whether you are a customer selling our products or a homeowner doing research, the Clear Impact podcast provides helpful content that makes an impact. Subscribe today wherever you listen to podcasts.
[00:06:48] Speaker B: We were at a learning and development professionals conference earlier this summer with our team, and also Shawn was able to join us there. And there was a lot of buzz on professional learning and development around AI. And not to be afraid of it and to figure out how to leverage it, but understanding that it's gonna take you 70%, it's not gonna take you 100%, like, you still have to have human interaction, you still have to verify everything. But learned a lot about that and how different companies are using AI to leverage learning and development, especially real time learning, which is how adults learn. Right.
Don't make me watch a class and then three days later put it into practice, like, I wanna be able to learn it as I'm doing it, because then it's going to stick and it's just a more efficient way for people to learn. So that's exciting.
[00:07:43] Speaker C: Yep, definitely a lot of great applications. The ones that I looked at were pretty simple, but still exciting. Like, you could be a new salesperson and you could ask, hey, compare v 400 with something else. Right. It could be a competitor's product too, and create a sales pitch for me.
So it would actually quickly create, it would go through the two websites, gather all the information, and then create a sales pitch. And then you could say, make it shorter or you could improve on it.
[00:08:14] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:08:14] Speaker C: Pretty exciting.
[00:08:15] Speaker B: That's amazing.
[00:08:16] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:08:17] Speaker B: We'll have to throw the podcast in there. I've got some content you might be able to leverage. Yeah, maybe.
[00:08:21] Speaker C: Yeah, that'd be awesome.
[00:08:23] Speaker B: We're always trying to make it helpful. And so, other than what we've already talked about, what is the most exciting thing about working with the PGTI brands? Other than a trip to South Florida in July when it's miserable and hot and disgusting?
[00:08:37] Speaker C: I definitely love coming to Florida. The food is great, the weather is awesome. So so far, liking it. Well, PGTI has some really great products and brands which are so well known in the industry. So I'm very excited that PGTI is now part of the Mira family. I'm originally from the Milgard side of the business, so I remember Milgard used to sell a lot of western window products. We were partners with them, and then PGTI bought Western and our customers loved that product. But then when PGT, I bought Western, we stopped working with Western. But now Western is part of the family again and we can take it back to our customers as a mitre product. So that's awesome. So beyond those type of opportunities, it feels like now we are truly national like in terms of our presence and the customer base that we can cover. So that's exciting. And then last but not the least, it's the talented team that we talked about earlier. The more and more I interact with the PGT team members, it's just I'm very impressed with what they're bringing to the table and what we can do together, what we can accomplish together as a combined team. So definitely excited about it.
[00:09:51] Speaker B: Yeah, it is exciting. And I think, like, we've always been on the other side of the acquisition, where we get to call the shots and we get to decide how it's going to go and we get to decide, you know, all these different things and what we're keeping and what we're maybe not keeping. And so it was a little different being on the other side of an acquisition. First time I've ever experienced that. And it was a little nerve wracking, to be honest. Like, what's going to happen and who's in charge? And it's been lovely having the opportunity to interview some of the Mitre executives and just having a sense of peace around. Okay, who are the leaders now?
Like, what are they like? Cause you don't really know. Like, our previous executive teams were pretty visible, and they were here a lot, and they were very approachable, and they'd been here for a long time, so you got to know them a little bit over the years. And so it was a little like, okay, wait, who's doing what now? So it's been really nice. I had the opportunity to record with Matt, Joe Brock, Mike Olin, and now you, and I'm hoping for some others. I've got to figure out who's available to come in, but it's been very assuring to have faces and names and, like, all right, who's doing what, you know, not that we're going to call you and go, hey, this isn't working. But it's just nice to know. It's just a little feeling of assurance there.
[00:11:14] Speaker C: Yeah, we went through a similar process, so I can relate to that when Mi bought Milgard in 2019. So I can totally understand the change it takes some time to getting used to, but I feel like we are so much better off being part of a company that's focused in windows and doors. So I think combined, we're going to do a lot of great things.
[00:11:35] Speaker B: And the culture seemed to align a lot, too, in terms of caring about community and developing those really solid relationships and taking good care of team members. And that's the bottom line. Like, everybody wants to feel like they're working for a company that cares about people, that cares about the environment, that cares about doing excellent work, and that everybody has a future. And so I get the sense that mitre is not going to be different in that regard. So I'm excited.
[00:12:01] Speaker C: Yeah, I feel it. Like, in a lot of companies, we see this mission and vision statements which are on the walls, but then do we truly practice that? You know, maybe not. But the guiding principles document and the quality pillars that Mitre has. I feel like we use it all the time. There's not just a poster, but it is something that we use every day. And I've used it so many times as I sit down with my team, we run into situations and it's like, oh, let's go back and look at the guiding principles. That's the direction we go. So it's almost like a compass for us.
[00:12:37] Speaker B: Right? Well, that's the idea. That's how it's supposed.
[00:12:39] Speaker C: It's supposed to work, but you don't see it in a lot of companies. And I think Mira brands, we truly use it as a compass.
[00:12:46] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I believe that I've seen that. And so just one last question. I know you have a full day ahead of you, and I'm so thankful that you were willing and able to come in this morning. What is a favorite piece of advice that you've received over the years?
[00:13:00] Speaker C: So it's really like two pieces of advice which actually works together. One of my early mentors talked to me about how change needs to be institutionalized. So you could be driving a lot of change in an organization as a leader or as a team member. And there is a lot of time and money put into driving a change, whether it's a new system or a new process or a new policy, whatever we are putting in place. But if that all falls apart when that leader moves on or when we start moving into new things, then we really have not done a good job. So how do we build change which stays in place and endures even while all the other things around the business changes? So that was one piece. The other piece was really building a lot of buy in. When it comes to these new systems and processes, it can never be top down. It has to be driven by the team, owned by the team. So working with the team to come up with solutions that would be sustainable. So that's where it ties back to the original piece of how do we institutionalize it. So that's what the IT team's focus has been. Work very closely with the business. You can't have solutions that you're just imposing on the business. It has to be working closely with the business, figuring out a solution together, and those kind of solutions become sustainable. They get institutionalized. So that's what our focus has been, and that's one of my favorite pieces of advice to my team, and also something that we focus on, that anything that we put in place is institutionalized and stays for a long time.
[00:14:43] Speaker B: That's great, because most people are afraid of change. And it's so funny. I'm having dinner tonight with my friend who's 104, and when she was about to turn 100, she and I had a conversation about why she's not afraid of email or Alexa or audiobooks or all these things. Like, she's very tech savvy for someone her age, which is just remarkable. And I asked her, like, where does that influence come from? Like, where in your journey did that come? Most people don't even make it to her age, but also, most people in her age group don't play with cell phones and don't play with the Internet and don't mess with audiobooks. Like, there's some complexity to that. Right? And she said, I learned a long time ago not to be afraid of new things.
And I was like, oh, my gosh. Thank you, Vera. You know, that was an amazing nugget from her. So that's solid.
[00:15:37] Speaker C: Yeah. I think if you create a forum, like I said before, like, we have a lot of talented team members, so if you can create a forum where we could all come in and share and solve problems together, I think a lot of that resistance to change goes away, because now it's our solution, not someone else's solution that's imposed on us. So I think as leadership, we all have that responsibility to kind of build that platform, that forum where all our team members can come together and solve.
[00:16:07] Speaker B: Problems, make things better.
[00:16:09] Speaker C: Yeah. Yep.
[00:16:10] Speaker B: Absolutely.
This has been a wonderful conversation. Vinod, thank you so much for your time today, and I'm sure we'll talk soon.
[00:16:17] Speaker C: Yep. Thank you for having me.
[00:16:18] Speaker A: All right, take care.
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