PERSONAL BIO

Phil Kienle was born on December 14, 1962, in Columbus, Ohio (USA). He began his GM career as an associate manufacturing engineer in 1986. Kienle rose quickly through the manufacturing organization ranks and completed assignments at various GM facilities in the United States right up to the position of plant manager at the Lansing Grand River Assembly Plant.

Recently, Kienle was GM International (GMI) and GM China Manufacturing Vice President. His GMI assignments, which started in 2007, have included manufacturing operations in South Korea, Australia, Asia, Africa, Uzbekistan and China.

Opel Post: Mr. Kienle, you have 30 years of experience at GM. In your opinion, how has the company changed?
Phil Kienle: We have become much better in sharing best practices. With Jim DeLuca heading Global Manufacturing we are leveraging the global Manufacturing function across regions. I see a much better collaboration for the overall enterprise.

Do you have an example for us?
Overall the processes we put in place in terms of safety are much better than they were in the past – despite the recent fatality we had here in Rüsselsheim. This tragic event confirms the job isn’t done yet. But we are moving in the right direction and I am confident that we will stay on that course and see significant improvement. Moreover, at this point there is a huge focus on productivity. Europe in particular has historically done extremely well. But still all the plants can improve in productivity. The minute you say we are the best we can be is when you lose.

You have been here for a few weeks now, how do you like living and working in Germany?
I have come directly from Singapore. There every day is a sunny day. Not so much here, right? But spring here is actually gorgeous. People are very friendly in Germany and I am surprised how many of them speak English. And I didn’t expect so much diversity here. It is just a very open and inviting culture. I have had nothing but positive experiences so far.

Do you speak any German yet?
No, but I will try to learn. I was able to learn survival Korean and survival Chinese. It was enough to get a Chinese driver’s license so I am hoping I can get some elementary German. But I have to admit that I am not a language guy. It’s not easy for me. I wish I had that capability. But certainly it shows a lot of respect to the employees and to the country to at least make an effort to learn as much as you can.

What motivated you to become an engineer?
My undergraduate degree is environmental engineering. I had a passion for environmental issues. That took me down the engineering path. Right out of college my first job at GM was as environmental engineer. GM has done a huge amount of things to reduce its footprint on the environment.

You will lead our model offensive on the production side: Is there anything you feel is missing in the Opel/Vauxhall portfolio?
Like the rest of GM we are a bit lean in the SUV range. And when I look at the portfolio coming I see that gap being filled relatively quickly. No doubt we would all like to have some more SUV entries now at this point.

What does your dream car look like?
I like sports vehicles and the GT Concept is actually my favorite. I produced Corvettes for six years and I think that was one of my best jobs. It’ll be great if we had a business case to build the GT Concept, but it will be up to others to make that decision.

How does your family like living in Germany?
They are not here yet so we are looking forward to find out. My 19-year-old daughter is at University in the United States. My wife and my younger daughter are still in Singapore and they will stay there until school starts in fall.

 As one can imagine you travel a lot due to your job. Do you like travelling the world in your holidays as well or do you prefer staying in the region?
There are many nice places to see in Europe so if we do travelling, we stay in the region. I am looking forward to this because in my former job travelling was very significant. I spent three weeks of a month travelling and it was common to take 15 hours one-way to get to the destination. So we spent entire weeks on the road between plants and operations.

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“I like sports vehicles and the GT Concept is actually my favorite.”

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“I have been to Eisenach, Kaiserslautern and Ellesmere Port. We have a schedule to see all the plants by mid-May.”

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Have you seen any of the European plants yet?
Yes, I have been to Eisenach, Kaiserslautern and Ellesmere Port. We have a schedule to see all the plants by mid-May. My first priority is to understand the operations and their challenges. I look for pros and cons of each operation, for opportunities, for strengths that we can use elsewhere.

Dr. Karl-Thomas Neumann is known for his social media affinity and activity. What do you think about social media and how do you use them?
I applaud KT for his effort in Social Media. Compared to him I am a layman in this issue. The furthest I’ve gotten is to create a LinkedIn profile for business properties.

Looking at your CV there is a quite large gap. 13 years after achieving the bachelor’s degree you finished your master studies at the age of 36. How did that come?
Oh, was it that long? (laughs) I think for me personally it was the perfect way. I worked all the way through college and I was lucky enough to get an internship with GM in my last summer at the university. And after that, I’d had enough of school. I was very excited to finish my college education and not pursuing an advance study at that time. But as you get into the work environment a little bit longer, you have to be competitive with other candidates for future opportunities. The advanced degree was pretty much the price of entry to be able to do that.

Opel also employs many students these days. Can you recommend having a break between the bachelor’s and the master’s degree?
Yes, definitely. I don’t know if I would recommend waiting as long as I did. But certainly, I learned a lot of things in my master studies and generally I guess you’re never too old to go back to school.

The last question of our interview series is traditionally about the first car…
The first car I purchased was a Pontiac Grand Am. It was black. At the time I thought it had really aggressive styling. It was a fun two-door car to drive around but (looking at a picture on his computer) it looked better at the time.