A Final Farewell

Over the last few months, I have taken the time to reminisce on more than a decades-worth of memories, lessons, and milestones. Today, on my last official day at HARMAN, I wanted to reflect and express my gratitude to all of you – my peers, colleagues, and friends.

Today marks my last day within the HARMAN family. Over the last many months, the world has changed dramatically, and I have had the opportunity to reflect on work, family, communities, and the world around us. As I officially move beyond HARMAN to my next phase, I couldn’t help but look back on the last 13 years that have been incredibly enriching to me while also shaping and transforming HARMAN to the global tech powerhouse that it has become. I wanted to share some of my thoughts with you that have guided me throughout my life and career, and I hope they will encourage and inspire you as well.

I’m incredibly proud of what we accomplished. Revenues grew by 300%; we brought HARMAN to Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC countries) where we had no presence before. We built the best – and most profitable – consumer audio business in the world, grew our automotive order backlog tenfold to $29 billion while our BRIC revenues grew by 2000%. We demonstrated resilience and self-confidence to persevere from a $9 stock price at the beginning of our journey to 2016 when Samsung agreed to pay $112 per share to acquire this great company.

We built a company culture with high integrity, transparency, and empowerment at all levels. This culture was fertile ground for nurturing talent, and our success was evident as four HARMAN leaders succeeded to become public company CEOs. And long before it was trendy, we established the right environmental, social, and governance policies to foster mutual respect, a mindset of giving back to the societies we serve, and gender, racial, and geographic diversity at the Board and management levels.

It's been said that we don't truly understand the value of a moment until it becomes a memory. I learned how true that statement was over the last several months. In emails, posts, texts, event chats, and numerous meetings, many HARMAN colleagues and customers have given me the most wonderful farewell gift imaginable: memories of our time together.

Those memories have been built from experiences all around the world. You’ve reminded me of the grand moments on the world stage, like when HARMAN returned to the Fortune 500 list, or when I stepped up to the stage to lift Grammy awards for AKG in 2010 and Lexicon in 2014, or finalizing our $8.8 billion transaction with Samsung. And, of course, in between there were thousands of personal touch points – and many of you have reached out to share your thoughts and appreciation. Each time, it brought me back to that precise moment in time as if I were experiencing it all over again.

During my tenure as CEO, I didn’t always fully appreciate the significance of these moments. Many times we are focused on the problems or on the things left undone. Other times, we feel like we’re just doing our job. However, reliving those memories again through the perspective of the people who created them with me, and hearing how meaningful those interactions were to them, I have realized that these countless moments are indeed what makes up the rich tapestry of our lives. And I cherish the memories we created together.

Over these many years, I also hope I have instilled in each of you the values that have blessed me in this life and rewarded me with this extraordinary sense of accomplishment. 

More than ever, our world needs leadership. But just like the moments I spoke about, leadership is not always a grand gesture. Change comes from the many small actions we all take every day. I have long believed that we should all have the confidence to challenge ourselves and those around us when the time is right so that we make things work for the better.

With that in mind, I want to share with you a few of my own personal tenets and philosophies that have served as personal mantras to me. I hope you take inspiration and guidance from them as I do, not only professionally, but equally in your personal lives.

• Be the best of your authentic self. Strive to be the best you can be but without sacrificing your true authentic self. Learn from everyone but remain true to your core and to live truly with high standards. Always aim higher and higher and that’s where you will go.
• Be resilient. Your life and career will have peaks and valleys so while it is important to celebrate life’s victories, it is equally important to have resilience if you suffer a setback either in personal or professional life. I love this quote: “the moon taught me it is ok to go through phases and the sun taught me no matter how many times you go down, keep rising.”
• Lead, don’t follow. Of course, follow instructions and follow advice, and be collaborative. But also strive to make a difference. Celebrate individuality and diversity. Opportunity finds you when you go looking for it.
• Exceed expectations. At the very least, do what you say you’ll do and are expected to do. But no one remembers those things. Add flourish, a thoughtful touch, something unexpected like calling a factory supervisor or an engineer to ask how their day is going! It can be the tiniest of gestures or details. You will be amazed how far the little extra bit gets you – no matter how massive an undertaking you might have delivered.

Finally, as the American poet Maya Angelou famously said: "People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." I hope that along this journey we have had together, I have made you feel something, and that it was the spark to propel you ahead, inspire you to more, encourage you further. 

I look back with so much pride on what we accomplished over the last 13 years. You are in excellent hands under the leadership of my friend Michael Mauser, and will continue to move to new and exciting new heights. 

I hope you create many more memories that you will ultimately look back on as proudly and fondly as I have during my time at HARMAN.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you all.