Sonita Lontoh (Global Marketing Head at HP, Board Member at Sunrun) returns to share her leadership principles in light of the state of the industry.
Danny:
- Well hello and thank you for joining me today on the IndustrialSage Executive Series. I am joined by Sonita Lontoh, who is the Global Marketing Head at HP and a board member at Sunrun. Sonita, thank you so much for joining me today on the Executive Series on IndustrialSage which, this is I believe your second time here on IndustrialSage.
Sonita:
- Yeah, and thank you so much for having me, Danny. It's so good to be able to share some perspective today.
Danny:
- Well I'm excited to jump into today's conversation a little bit more. I think the last time when you came on we were talking a little bit more about marketing and some other things. Now under the Executive Series, kind of excited to jump into a little bit more about you and learning a little bit more about some of your insights, what you're seeing in the industry, and some different trends. Before we really jump into it, for those who are not familiar with who you are and what your role is and what you're doing at HP, if you could share that, that would be fantastic.
Sonita:
- Yeah, great. And again, thank you for having me today. So yeah, just a little bit about myself, looking back at my career, about 25 years I've had the privilege to lead and advise at the intersection of innovation, digital transformation, and disruptive technologies. I've done that, Danny, both with new businesses within large Fortune 100 companies such as HP today and prior to that, also with Siemens with their new digital business but also with smaller, more entrepreneurial, Silicon Valley venture-backed technology companies. So pretty diverse, have seen the gamut, but the connecting thread is always new business. Usually there's a disruptive technology involved, and then usually the disruptive technology is enabling some kind of digital transformation. So started that by focusing more on industrial IoT which, at the end of the day, as some of your viewers probably know, is about data and connectivity. And doing that prior to HP, focusing on energy and infrastructure.

And then I was at Siemens about three years ago that I got a call from HP, and to be honest with you, I never thought of HP as a place to go. Not because it's not a great company; it is a great company, but it's an area that's slightly different than where I was focusing. But then HP said, hey, we are starting this new business. It's going to disrupt manufacturing. And as I listened more to them, basically it's this new 3D printing and digital manufacturing business, and it's enabling digital transformation but for the manufacturing industry. I viewed the opportunity as attractive because even though at the time I was focusing on infrastructure and energy, but I saw this as an opportunity to enable digital transformation in another sector. Plus the opportunity to start a new growth business for HP, which is the birthplace of Silicon Valley, and as the company is trying to evolve for the next phase of growth, I thought that was a great opportunity. And so here I am. I've been here for about three years now, and so far the journey has been pretty fascinating.
Danny:
- That sounds super exciting. Well congratulations. It is interesting how you said that, when you were coming from Siemens going over to HP,