EMS@C-LEVEL
As Forbes, Entrepreneur, Fast Company and SCOOP writer, Philip Stoten, continues to talk to EMS (Electronic Manufacturing Services) executives he learns more about their individual and collective experiences and their expectations for their own businesses and for the entire electronic manufacturing industry.
EMS@C-LEVEL
Global Collaboration, Local Impact with Sanjay Huprikar, Chief Global Officer at Global Electronics Association
A bustling Global Electronics Association booth at Productronica sets the stage for a candid conversation with Chief Global Officer Sanjay Huprikar about what real global collaboration looks like when it’s working. We trace a clear arc: India’s surge through training and engagement, China’s evolution from certification powerhouse to standards initiator, and Europe’s EMS leaders discovering that a neutral room can turn competitors into co-problem-solvers. The throughline is practical and powerful—let standards start where they must, invite the world to shape them, and keep the craft alive through hands-on training that elevates the entire workforce.
We unpack how “think global, act local” moves from slogan to system. A standard might begin in China on rail, draw in Europe’s deep expertise, and then expand through India and North America as shared challenges surface. In Paris, that same spirit created a safe space where CEOs left posturing at the door and focused on the 80 percent of challenges that every EMS provider faces—talent pipelines, digital maturity, supply risk, and operational resilience—while keeping the secret sauce out of the conversation. The result is faster learning, better standards, and teams who can actually apply them.
Beyond the boardroom, we celebrate the human side of excellence. Training programs, hand soldering and wire harnessing competitions, and ongoing education translate standards into muscle memory. Advocacy and industry insight add lift, connecting policy signals to factory floors. The rebrand to Global Electronics Association formalizes a decade of practice: each region can lead, and everyone contributes to a stronger, shared framework. If you care about workforce development, open collaboration, and standards that reflect real work, you’ll find a playbook here worth adopting.
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EMS@C-Level is hosted by global inspection leaders Koh Young (https://www.kohyoung.com) and Global Electronics Association (https://www.electronics.org)
You can see video versions of all of the EMS@C-Level pods on our YouTube playlist.
Hello, I'm Philip Stought. I am here on the Global Electronics Association booth at Productronica 2025, and I'm delighted to be speaking to Chief Global Officer Sanjay Huprikar. Sanjay, always a pleasure to chat, always really interested in the way the global aspect of um of the association just continues to push forward and continues to be more and more important. We were just talking earlier before we came on camera about Eric's um Eric Miskel's little tour around India and the help he got from from your team in the different regions, I think was fantastic. So just give me a bit of an overview of where where things are pushing forward internationally at the moment.
SPEAKER_01:Sure, sure. Um the good well, thanks, thanks for having me again uh during the interview here. Um we're we're expanding in all regions, as we've talked about six months ago. Uh India continues to be the big growth vehicle for us right now. They've uh tripled in just under two years. In terms of membership, in terms of number of certifications, yeah, um footprint in terms of membership. We haven't tripled membership, but but we've engaged close to a thousand companies now in India, you know. And we don't we don't suspect that all 1,000 are going to become members, but the fact that there's active dialogues or some dialogues with a thousand companies, I mean, we were at a hundred companies 10 years ago, so that's that's remarkable. Uh training is still kind of the main vehicle in India. Training is the main vehicle in China right now as well. Uh, but what we're seeing coming out of China is a very strong presence now in wanting to participate in the creation of global standards, yeah. Um which uh which some organ other organizations don't understand how we're able to get China, India, North America, and Europe at the same table. Yeah, but we've but that's part of our DNA and we've we manage that right. India is just beginning to get into now standards development. And when I say these countries are getting into standards development, we are still a global standards organization, but we have decided that it's okay to start, it doesn't matter where you start the standard. Okay, if China wants to start a standard on rail standards, they start. And then the Europeans who are also very knowledgeable about rail standards are like, oh, that they're doing something interesting there. We gotta engage with that, right? We'll get engaged so just through normal organic osmosis, yeah, these things end up being global. Yeah, so it doesn't matter where it starts, it ends up being global, and it it really fits our think global, act local model.
SPEAKER_00:I think I I mean I feel that's where it's most exciting, and what what really excites me about that is that you do have that local representation, so you're thinking about the local issues, you're using that to fire off different initiatives that do become local issues, yeah, but you're also creating a fierce collaboration between between countries that you know maybe aren't used to playing nice together. And the fact that they do because they're all part of the same association, and then and that you can show them a common objective that has common commonality in terms of value delivered as well to everybody's members. I think I think that's that's super interesting. One of the things that we've been talking about all week with respect to technology is this connectivity and getting data out of silos, but also getting people out of silos, getting people working together. Exactly. And I just think that's something that fits into the DNA of the association in Crown.
SPEAKER_01:It does. And if you just I mean, just if you just look around our booth right now, we have our we have our lead from Mexico sitting, having a meeting with our lead in Europe. Yeah, you mentioned India before, one of the three individuals who was working uh with Eric Miscell earlier in the year, he's here. Yeah, our we have a team from China that's focused here on hand sonoring today, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_01:And so we we talk about global, we live it. Yeah, you know, and it doesn't matter where the event is, we're gonna you're gonna see that kind of participation out of the Global Electronics Association. All of our regions are gonna be at most of these significant events because we're a collaborative organization.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, we're in Europe, so let's zoom in a little bit on what's been going on in Europe. Yeah, I really enjoyed the summit that that Philippe pulled off in Paris. I was super impressed because Paris was having a bit of a bit of a bumpy time. Yes. Um, you had a fabulous audience. The audience for those events has just grown and grown and grown. Absolutely. Not just grown in terms of the numbers, but in their stature. You don't miss many people of the key leadership from the big EMS companies.
SPEAKER_01:No, thank you for saying so. It's it's it's been five years in the making. Um, we focused the Paris event that you're referring to in September focused on EMS. Yeah. And we have worked very hard, and Dr. Device has been a big piece of that of getting the top 25, 30 EMS companies to really engage. And what's remarkable to me, having done this now for so long, is there's always this inhibition of, well, can I sit in the same room as my competitor, right? But when you have a neutral third-party nonprofit like us saying, look, we're not here about secret sauce. We fundamentally believe that 80% of the challenges you have are generic universal problems that you all are facing. Yeah, let's talk about that. The 20%, you guys can talk about behind closed doors. We don't need that competitivity, yes. And yeah, when you say that, all of a sudden the tension just comes down, the walls come down. Yeah, they start conversing, and and it's just been it's been magical. And you and you be having moderated that for us, you were in the thick of that. Yeah, you know. I remember vividly your panel where you had three or four CEOs from three or four different countries. Ten years ago, I'm not sure they would have been on that panel with you.
SPEAKER_00:No, they would have struggled to they would have struggled to agree to that, and they wouldn't have felt as comfortable and relaxed as they do in the US. Exactly. I think that's what you created with that event. You've you've created that safe space, that very comfortable environment. Exactly. You know, it reflects what you're doing elsewhere. I I don't know whether you're starting to do that in India or whether you're starting to do that in regions like Mexico, but I see that as hugely valuable. I what I and I've mentioned this before probably several times. I love the way the organization is able to interact with the different stratas in the in the in the members' organization. So you're dealing with the C-suite and you're really giving them something that adds value. Absolutely. But you're dealing with the guys that are taking part in the hand soldering competition. Absolutely. And now the wire harnessing competition, which I think is a super cool addition.
SPEAKER_01:I mean, I think it's a I think uh as part of the renewal process of shifting our brand from IPC to Global Electronics Association, one of the key features of that is to your point, it's important when you're delivering value to your industry. You have to deliver value at all levels. You need to deliver something to the C-suite, as you pointed out. And I think those engagement meetings and networking meetings, Paris being a good example of that. I think that's something we've delivered very uniquely that maybe other organizations have not been able to do. But we can't run too far from our legacy, and that is standards development and education. Yeah, and day-to-day hand soldering, and you see here we have a wire harness demo here as well this week. Um, that's important because we still have to maintain that level of uh delivery in terms of workforce development, and that's a key covenant of ours, is we're here for workforce development. Yeah, standards are one thing, but we have to develop tools and deliver tools on workforce.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. And I think talent is a big part of the challenge facing the industry, and the fact that that is one of the key touch points is hugely valuable. But I think those multiple touch points is where you're able to really add value, where people are getting involved in standards, where people are getting involved in the leadership stuff, where people are getting involved in advocacy, where people are leaning on youth or industry insight, the work that Sean DeBravac does, the work that Chris Mitchell's team does. Absolutely. The work that you're doing in bringing together D device's work with other other resources to deliver insight that is absolute, absolutely unique in the industry.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think it's important that people realize that you have to collaborate, you know. And and I think if you look at our activities globally the last five years, we've really stepped up our game in collaboration. We do it in China, we do it in Taiwan, we do it in India. Um, you're very familiar with the work Lorena's been doing in Mexico. There's a lot of collaboratives. Absolutely. So that's been, I think for us, the exciting piece is bringing those people together. And why are we doing it at the end of the day? We're trying to solve problems, we're trying to help the industry solve its problems.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Last comment Global Electronics Association feels like it's always been that already. So great job with the rebrand. Congratulations to whoever took care of that. And the URL electronics doll. Where did you have that one hiding?
SPEAKER_01:We've we've I could I can let the cat out of the bag now. We we uh actually uh purchased that, I want to say eight years ago. Wow. Uh seven or eight years ago. Yeah, and we knew that at some point in our evolution that would come in handy for us. And and when we made the decision to and and I want to make sure that the audience understands that the decision has been in the makings for a while. We didn't just June 23rd is when we announced it. We didn't suddenly become the Global Electronics Association on June 23rd. We've been doing this for 10 years, right? And it just felt like the timing was right, yeah, you know, and then we had the URL as you pointed out. It seemed like just a match made in heaven to get that URL to match with our new name. And it's exciting times. Yeah, yeah. And everyone loves the purple.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, they do. Everyone loves the branding, and I think it's great. Sanjay, thanks so much for your time. Always a pleasure. Always a pleasure. Thank you so much for being here.